Track By Track: REES – Music For Stalagmites

We invited him to talk us through the record and help bring to life some of the stories and influences behind the sounds.

Dubmite

This track sets the tone perfectly for the album, and was really the only place to start. The album is heavily inspired by the chill-out rooms and ambient dub trance sound that was so prominent in the 90s. Iconic works such as Colourform by Higher Intelligence Agency, Lifeforms by FSOL, Sea Biscuit by Spacetime Continuum and Leftism by Leftfield played huge inspiration behind this opener. From floating beginnings, Dubmite evolves building energy and psychedelic tension, with some field recordings along the way including the sounds of Belgian frogs recorded in a park post-Horst Festival 2024.

Spelaion

Spelaion takes things a bit further underground, adding sleaze and mystique with it. The word comes from Greek meaning ‘Cave’ often used in archaeological and mythological contexts, two subjects that deeply fascinate me, while also being the root term for speleology, the scientific study of caves. More 90s influences shine through here from years of trip-hop and downtempo listening. Because of this, the track carries over nicely from Dubmite to elevate the sound towards where the album is heading.

Ascend

Perhaps my favourite track on the album. Harsh industrial textures, harrowing stereo mayhem, acid and broken drum workouts. Ascend encompasses many of the different sounds that have influenced me as an artist throughout the years, roots of EBM and new beat, acid house, dub, industrial and electro to name a few. Tying back in with the concept of the album, the title is in reference to their ascent from the cave floor, placing an overpowering lifelike presence into them. Writing this conceptual album was a very visual thing for me. For Ascend, in my minds eye I see a towering group of Stalagmites swaying to the beat of the drum forming a ceremonial circle.

Subterranean

Subterranean is all about ambience and nature. The opening percussion was written visualising the scurrying movement of a millipede, with other natural and animalistic sounds filtering throughout the track. Dreamy pads and eerie textures float around a bubbling acid line, to build it’s atmosphere, the sound of a utopia under the earth. Musically, it’s influenced from Underground Resistance and ambient techno of the 90s.

Column Science

This track is about water, specifically the dripping of water and it’s crucial part in Stalagmite formation. For those who aren’t aware, Stalagmites are a type of rock formation that form on cave floors from mineral-rich water droplets with their ceiling counterpart, Stalactites, forming above. Eventually, sometimes over millennia, these formations meet each other and fuse creating a column, column science if you will. Sonically this track represents that science. Starting out with water droplet field recordings, these are then layered and processed to evolve into water percussion, forming the beat and foundation for the whole track. This hydrating texture really is the focal point behind everything, with an accompanying sleazy bass and trippy soundscapes to fix it’s place within the album.

Calcium Cult

We now push further down it’s the concept of the album, animism of stalagmites, placing sentience into the rock formations. Lying at 90bpm, the thinking Calcium Cult was something slow-form, hypnotic and psychedelic to accompany the B side. Similar to Ascend, this track brings visualisations of an underground cult, sinister textures and ritualistic drums help paint that picture for me. More hints of those influential 90s albums playing a role.

Cave Dweller

Cave Dweller is a nod to one of my all time favourites, Drexciya. The whole world building concept behind his artistry I find incredible and is a huge reason behind me building a concept to write an album towards. The story and the otherworldly music attached to his Deep Sea Dweller series make them some of my favourite albums. As you can already tell, the title pays homage to that while keeping in tie with its idea. The bass stutters with random generation, as does each of the different elements, all slightly off-kilter but coming together to form a rhythm of their own. Being inspired by Drexciya, it felt right to lean further into the water connection I mentioned earlier, I wrote this track to the mental image of an ancient underwater cave being explored by divers with torches, discovering soaring stalagmites in pitch black waters. I could put these ideas into sound through synthesis and effects processing, creating delays floating away like bubbles, drums and white noise reminiscent of breathing oxygen tanks, and further samples.

Mineral

Finally we have the closing track, Mineral. For this I wanted something beautiful and a return to a similar place where the album starts. Familiar origins, evolving and growing through textures, moods and emotions until it’s ethereal end, cyclical like nature. One quality I love when listening to music is contrast of harsh and euphoric sounds, balancing grit with tranquility. These themes play throughout the album but most prominently here in Mineral, notes of saturation stain the edges of the heart-warming pads before disappearing temporarily to give the 808 the floor, then emerging back all together to delicately bring the album to its close.

Buy the release HERE.