Japan field notes II + new album 🌸

Early May, arriving at Studio Kura in Itoshima, I had a day of feeling slightly overwhelmed (thinking - is my residency project too small? All the other artists seem so prepared?). This feeling quickly washed away, and I felt the urge to explore the immediate/walkable areas of nature and spirituality around the studio.

I remember walking up the Matsusue shrine [松末権九郎稲荷神社]. The one just a little outside the neighbourhood. There was no one, it was just a little forest path starting under a slightly derelict tori gate. Only this little path going up and the ferns, the moss, the small and big trees.

It’s the first walk where I started making friends with my tiny digital camera (for those who know a little about my practice, I use analogue cameras most of the time). I felt playful and started using the flash in the daylight, introducing movement, engaging with a different perception of reality. There was a little speckled butterfly, maybe the soul of a sweet old obaasan, playing with the lens of my small sony camera.

And so I started collecting material for my music & photography project ‘please consider the moss’. I wanted to spend time in areas of nature/spirituality and try to really notice details around me, and invite the audience to do the same in their spare time.

I sat down in the middle of the path and tried to notice the little insects crawling, the really small plants, things we’d usually trample on. Channelling Robin Wall Kimmerer and her love for mosses, those ‘miniature forests’. I felt so much joy in my heart during my mini adventures, foraging for images and sounds. There was no stress, no client deadlines or project feedback, just me and the nature around.

I’m releasing a new album of synth/ambient music on the 19th of September.
It’s a collection of tracks recorded at This Museum is not Obsolete in Ramsgate. Kent (UK). The very generous Look Mum No Computer invited me for a two day fiddling-with-knobs mini residency. During that time I experimented, mainly with a vintage modular synth you could build from a magazine subscription, the Digisound 80. I also fell in love with the microcosm granular delay and how unpredictable it can be. I like instruments to be a little like living creatures sometimes, not always sounding the same from one day to another.

You can have a little preview of the album in this video ‘The Digisound 80 With Clementine Blue’ ~

The album is called “Night Blossoms” and will come with an art booklet of analogue night photography. All photos were taken around my home in France during the cherry/plum blossom season.

I was at home in France a lot last year, as one of my parents was really ill. Things are better now thankfully. At the time I was feeling very confused and sad, but during the month of March, with the winter finally coming to an end, I was looking at all the plum, apple and pear blossoms in the garden, like a sign that everything was going to be okay. I decided to spend some time at dusk and night trying to capture these flowers in the dark, like a glimpse of hope. I knew things were going to be okay.

Somehow the mood of the photos connected with the music I was working on, a little hazy, a little raw and a little playful.

Stay tuned and take care 🌸🌸🌸

Clémentine