Seeds Mix #12: KiF Production’s Dawn to Dusk Mixtape

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Music

Written by Tia & Wil

“Plants don’t suddenly transform from one state to another; growth is gradual, and a lot of it happens unseen.”

Having spent an album taking the passion flower through birth, bloom, and death, KiF Productions turns a plant’s year into a single day. The Seeds Mix is two hours made for doing nothing in particular – garden, common land, park bench, wherever there’s room to potter, stare, and let time pass without checking it. No lifecycle to hang it on this time, just a day. Dawn eases into focus for the first hour, dusk pulls everything inward and quiet for the second.

Sound-wise, it’s the same juxtaposition that ran through Passiflora – birdsong, wind, bells and found nature sitting right up against synthetic tone, warmer where it can be. KiF have form for throwing in fake, synthesised birdsong purely to mess with the spotters, so don’t take anything chirping out of the speakers entirely at face value. As the mix moves from day to night, the sound follows: brighter and busier in the early stretch, sliding towards darker, slower and more dreamlike as the light drops, the shift gradual rather than a hard cut.

It’s not made in a vacuum either. Simon Armstrong from Errant slipped them a couple of tracks that ended up soundtracking dusk. Rob at Be With handed over a Hatchback cut before it even hit his own label. Gardens In The Sky drifted in via a mix from our very own Tia Cousins for Test Pressing. It is less a finished object, more the latest exchange in an ongoing conversation between friends who keep sending each other music.

Our old friend Keith McIvor haunts this one too, gently. His lockdown-era Tranquillity Mixes are where KiF first heard Inoyama Land, who show up in the dawn section, and a Saturday morning set at Watching Trees’ Bush of Ghosts this year fed straight into the whole thing taking shape.
Asked what plant they’d be, Will and Tom eventually landed on a coppiced hazel in a holloway – practical, long-lived, on good terms with humans, and sat under centuries of falling leaves (“plenty of samples,” as they point out) – two hours of KiF thinking like that particular tree.
Sit down, shut up, watch the light move.

Ransom Note · Seeds Mix #12: KiF Production’s Dawn / Dusk Mixtape

Who are you?

KiF Productions is the creative partnership of Will Cookson and Tom Haverly. Since being teenagers we’ve enjoyed creating all sorts of stuff together such as cartoons, collages, characters, slang and so on but in 2023 we started making sample-based music and sound collages together. Our first release was Still Out, a homage to the KLF’s Chill Out. We’re both Gloucestershire-based and have an ongoing obsession with creating sounds that explore journeys, nature and memory.

Why are you here?

The idea of making something that could accompany moments of quiet and observation really appealed to us, especially coming straight off working on Passiflora. So much of what we do is inspired by nature, landscape and the feeling of being present in a particular place at a particular time of the day, that the idea of making something to accompany those moments felt very natural to us.

We imagined it as something you might listen to while taking time to ‘be’ in a garden, on common land or in a park — a companion to pottering, sitting, looking and simply being there. We approached the mix as another kind of journey: immersive and slow-moving, giving the music space to breathe, gradually unfolding and building as it goes.

Passiflora followed the passionflower through its entire lifecycle, seed to fruit and back again. Did you find yourself thinking in a similar arc for this mix – a beginning, middle and end to the day – or did dawn-to-dusk pull you toward something looser?

There was definitely a sense of an arc, but we didn’t want to make it too literal. With Passiflora, the lifecycle gave us a natural structure to work within, whereas with the Seeds Mix we were more interested in the feeling of a day unfolding.

The first hour was made very much with dawn in mind — that feeling of the world slowly waking up, the light changing and everything gradually coming into focus. The second hour moves towards dusk, becoming more reflective and inward as the light fades and the day begins to settle.

So there is a clear beginning and end, but we wanted the journey between the two to remain loose and organic. More like spending a whole day outside and noticing how the atmosphere, light and energy around you slowly change, rather than following a conventional narrative. The mix is really intended to accompany that process rather than dictate it.

Passiflora leaned on collaborators — Piers Partridge, Fidel Cutstro, and others named as inspirations track by track. Is this mix a solo KiF piece, or does it carry any of that same collaborative spirit?

Although the Seeds Mix is a KiF mix, it definitely carries that same collaborative spirit. Community and sharing music are a big part of what we’re about, and there’s always a feed of people, mixes and conversations leading into what we’re making.

Simon Armstrong from Errant shared some tracks with us, a couple of which ended up in the dusk section of the mix. Rob from Be With Records also shared the Hatchback track, which he’s releasing on his label soon. And we discovered Gardens In The Sky, which ended up on the dawn side, through a mix Tia did for Test Pressing.

So although we’re putting the mix together, it’s definitely not created in isolation. It feels more like part of an ongoing exchange of music, ideas and recommendations between friends and people whose work we really like.

You’ve spoken about wanting sounds to “evolve like a seed underground, forming in darkness before emerging into light.” Does that same principle guide this mix?

Yes, definitely. That idea of slow, almost imperceptible change was very much in our minds when putting the mix together. Plants don’t suddenly transform from one state to another; growth is gradual, and a lot of it happens unseen. We wanted the music to behave in a similar way, with things emerging slowly, overlapping and evolving rather than arriving fully formed.

There’s a sense of moving from darkness into light, but also of allowing things to take their time. Small textures and details appear, develop and recede, sometimes almost without you noticing. We’re interested in that kind of subtle movement — music that rewards staying with it rather than constantly demanding your attention.

That felt particularly appropriate for the Seeds Mix. It’s designed as something to settle into, where the changes are gradual and the overall shape only really reveals itself as you move through it.

What role does silence or pauses play in evoking the growth process in your music?

If we’re being honest, we often struggle to incorporate silence. We’re naturally drawn to collage and to filling the space with sounds, textures and little details. But the time of day was very much in our minds when making the mix, and that gave the music a sense of space without us having to deliberately leave big gaps of silence.

You can hear that in the way the mix gradually builds. It begins with more sparse, minimal pieces, reflecting that stillness and openness of dawn, before slowly introducing more layers, movement and eventually fuller-blown songs. As it moves towards dusk, things begin to open up again and become more spacious and reflective.

So perhaps we found our own way of thinking about silence — not necessarily as the absence of sound, but as the space between things and the amount of room we allow the music to breathe.

We know we’re probably getting into cliché territory here, but it really is a journey… man.

How do you feel when you see the first sprouts emerge when planting a seed? Does that feeling of “First Movement” and “Seeking Light” translate to how you open a mix?

I’m going to defer to Tom on this one, as his fingers are definitely the greenest. He says, “it feels good — like a little success. It’s not always easy to get seeds going from scratch, so there’s a challenge to it, but when that first movement appears, it also feels like the beginning of a responsibility, in a good way”. That feeling translates into opening a mix too: that first movement is the moment you know something’s starting, and then it’s about nurturing it, giving it space to grow and seeking out the light as it builds.

Passiflora was dedicated to Keith McIvor, whose Tranquility Mixes were a stated influence. Was he on your mind while putting this one together too?

Keith has played a big part in how we came to release music as KiF Productions. He was really encouraging of Still Out, which meant a lot to us as we have huge respect for him and Optimo. His invitation to play at Watching Trees in 2025 also set us on the road to collaborating with Wil & Tia and Music to Watch Seeds Grow By.

The Tranquility Mixes are beautiful and were particularly timely for us, as Keith was sharing four hour-long mixes of calming music during lockdown in 2020. There’s also a direct link between those mixes and our Seeds Mix, as Keith’s Tranquility Mixes introduced us to the Japanese environmental ambient music duo Inoyama Land, who feature in the Dawn section. In terms of Passiflora, Sleepwalk: A Selection by Optimo (Espacio) from ’08 was another influence.

Keith was definitely on our minds while putting this mix together too. DJing a long Saturday morning into the afternoon at Bush of Ghosts at Watching Trees this year was another Keith-related factor — it was a magical moment in a beautiful setting, with an engaged audience, and it definitely became part of the inspiration for the Seeds Mix.

Do you use any specific frequencies or tonalities that resonate with the natural world or plant life?

Frequencies and tone played a very important role in Passiflora, and getting some of that feeling into the mix was important to us. Maybe not specific frequencies as such, but warmer tones certainly felt very apt. The mix contains found sounds from nature alongside more synthetic electronic frequencies, which is a juxtaposition we really dig.

What instruments or sounds do you use to evoke the feeling of nature and growth most effectively?

Wind instruments, drones, bells, environmental sounds, birdsong and insects always help evoke that feeling for us. We’ve also found ourselves drawn to tracks that have a natural swell or ebb to them, almost like slow breathing — something that gradually expands and contracts. There’s something about that quality that feels very connected to nature and growth. It’s an avenue that we’ll be continuing to explore as our obsession continues…

How does your music composition change for day versus night phases in a plant’s life cycle? — This feels directly relevant to a dawn-into-dusk mix — how does the sound itself shift as the light changes?

We’re drawn to the way sound changes with the light, so the day-to-night transition feels very natural to us. During the day there’s more movement, brightness and detail — things feel a little more open. As the light fades, we tend to gravitate towards darker, slower and more dreamlike sounds, with more room for things to breathe. There’s a gradual shift rather than a hard change, almost like the music selected is following the natural rhythm of the day.

How do environmental sounds like water, wind, or birdsong influence your compositions?

It’s often one of the first things we look for when we’re building a track. Environmental sounds in particular can become a foundation for a piece. Birdsong can become a melodic element or even a riff, and we’ll often use birdsong that’s specific to the location we have in mind.

On a recent visit to Cornwall, we hooked up with our Verdant / Brewing Folk / Stone Club crew, who took us out to Zennor to see the megalithic stones. That trip informed a remix we’re doing for Matthew Shaw from Stone Club, where we used Choughs and Short-eared Owls, both native to Cornwall. Tom has a good knowledge of birds and we both have long-standing connections with Slimbridge WWT, so birdsong has become a bit of an obsession for us.

We also like throwing in fake, synth(etic) bird sounds from time to time, just to keep things interesting and mess with the spotters.

Do you consider the emotional connection humans have with nature when creating music? —

Absolutely. Everything we’ve made so far has been about the idea of ‘creating spaces’ that allow anyone listening to step back from our tech-heavy, information-overloaded, fast-paced world, slow down and be in the moment. That’s something we’re continually trying to respond to through what we create, and it felt particularly relevant to this mix. If the music can provide a little space to breathe, switch off and simply be for a while, then that’s a really important part of what we’re trying to do.

If you were a plant what would you be and why?

This took a while for us to agree on, but Tom’s initial suggestion of a coppiced hazel tree in a Holloway won out. It symbolises longevity and practicality, and has a good symbiotic relationship with humans. And residing in a Holloway, just think of all those leaves dropping over the centuries — plenty of samples!

We’ve got a bit of a thing for ancient woodland, so it felt like a pretty good fit for us.

Got any growing tips? — for parks, common land and forests specifically, rather than a garden.

Think in three dimensions, and think long term — beyond one or two generations. Planting shouldn’t just be about what looks good now, but about creating a holistic ecosystem with biodiversity at the fore. Different heights, layers and species can create habitats for all sorts of life, and the best planting should be allowed to evolve over time.

Will’s Uncle Marko used to plant weed on common land around the outside perimeter of Toronto Airport, which certainly gets you thinking about the possibilities of guerrilla gardening and what we consider to be ‘public’ space!