Braille Face Returns To The Trees
In search of nature's microscopic textures
Appearances can be deceiving, but if you met Jordan White, known to his devoted fans across the world as Braille Face, on the street you wouldn’t immediately take him as an outdoorsman. Renowned for his incredibly evocative blend of alternative electronica, White typically dresses in black and strikes you as someone that probably only ever leaves a capital city to tour another.
“I actually went to highschool out in country Victoria,” White says down the line from his home studio, which he’s recently modified to keep his new puppy from chewing through all his gear. “I had a lot of friends out in the King Lake area and a bunch of different national parks out here. So I'm very used to going out camping and you know spending a couple of days out in the wild.”
I think there's a lot of things that we've lost in the daily grind that can only be found by sitting still for a bit.
Jordan recently returned from his first Field Recordings residency at Micah, one of our hideouts a few hours outside of Melbourne. Despite his solid experience in going off-grid, he seems pretty stoked about it. “I think [getting back into nature] is one of those things that the more you do it as well, the more you crave getting back out there,” he says. “Because the cabin is so remote, and it's so open to the outlook with these beautiful large windows, you just felt really in it.”
After a rigorous few years of touring and writing, culminating in his excellent Original Cast Recording LP, released last September, Jordan is a keen advocate of creative time spent doing nothing.
“I think there's a lot of things that we've lost in the daily grind that can only be found by sitting still for a bit. You know, on a log, for four hours,” he laughs. “When there's not very much stimulus, you really find an opportunity to look inwards.”
Jordan arrived at Micah armed with a video camera and his own field recorder, so safe to say this isn’t his first rodeo when it comes to plucking sounds from the world around him. “My experience has been in a really foreign environment. You know, everything sounds crazy and amazing because it’s Japan or something. But out here there’s a kind of subtlety you have to try and pick up on.”
Sounds you can expect to hear woven into Jordan’s track are what he calls ‘microscopic’; the texture of legs walking through long grass, or water hitting the rocks by the river. He’s always keen to find new inspiration points when composing a piece of music. “It's literally just going out there, hitting record and being surprised.”
“I could just go to the sample library of well recorded 70s drum kits and produce the same thing all the time. But when I'm inside a hollow tree, and I'm hitting the inside to get the reverb from inside that tree, well, that's an entirely different experience.”
More opportunities like these are perfect. They remove all the systems that we’re used to running on and get back to a primal sense of yourself and what’s around you.
Jordan’s work deals closely with mental health, particularly for those in creative industries who have had one of the toughest years in recent memory. If he had it his way, every musician he knows would have their own cabin getaway on the regular. “More opportunities like these are perfect. They remove all the systems that we’re used to running on and get back to a primal sense of yourself and what’s around you.”
We couldn’t agree more. Thanks for doing nothing with us for a few days, Jordan.
---
From river-inspired funk to cicada-drive electronica, there's more musical goodness where that came from. Check out everything Field Recordings here.
Looking for your own dose of creative inspiration? Find cabin availability near your city.