Delve into Braille Face's debut album Kōya with insights on its creation from the man himself

The Melbourne-based beat-maker takes us through four of his favourite cuts from the album and leaves us to bask in the rest.

Tweet
Copy Link

Since teasing us with the fragile, Bonobo-flavoured single Glow and its charming, piano-laden follow-up Because, Melbourne producer and songwriter Braille Face has been someone we've had on our radar all year, and for a good reason too. His productions ooze with a haunting, yet warm presence that envelops you from any of his track's opening bars, picking at your emotional vulnerabilities in an attempt to make you actually feel things, something that has been missing from commercial radio for a while now (with notable exceptions). This week saw the arrival of the emerging producer's debut album Kōya, released through the recently-relaunched alternative label Spirit Level, founded by Double J's Tim Shiel and Gotye. Across its extensive 12 tracks, Braille Face's debut puts the art back into album-making, crafting a release that flows and joins together like a puzzle yet at the same time, varies with tone and sub-genres so everything doesn't just blend into one.

To celebrate the album's release, Braille Face himself took us through the hidden meanings and creation of some of his favourite tracks from the album, including the experimental, percussion-soaked Tear and the more retro-leaning, electronic track Bristlecone Pine.

To Where We Sink

This song is about two people simultaneously falling in love in order to avoid themselves. Replacing all the parts of themselves with those of the other person, but years later finding all those parts staring at them from across the bed.

Tear

This song came together at the eleventh hour, in the spirit of the process that I’ve been on over the last year, this song was written and made the day before the album deadline. It ties together a lot of the themes on the record and for me holds a unique energy and tension that is only captured by not having enough time to “finish” it.

Bristlecone Pine

I wrote this song on a walk during the middle of the night, the rare hours of near silence always seem to sprout feelings of a post-apocalyptic world; where all that’s left are traffic lights and other inanimate objects pointlessly talking to each other. I really like the idea that these mechanisms and machines will outlast us all and become like trees, giving sustenance to strange future species.

Bad Metaphors

This is the very first recording I made for the project, I sang it straight into my old laptop’s microphone. For some unexpected reason it works within the palette of the record and I think it’s a nice idea to have the ending also be a beginning.

Follow Braille Face: FACEBOOK / TWITTER / SOUNDCLOUD