The Jungle Room with What So Not (DJ Chris Emerson)

Markus Hamence is in The Jungle Room with What So Not (DJ Chris Emerson)

This December, two prominent electronic acts will collide, with Australian DJ and producer What So Not and visionary Dutch artist Buunshin primed to release a brand new collaborative EP The Quiet That Hurts on Friday 5 December. Previously releasing their single Threads last month, this week the pair also have released a luminous new single Dancing In The Leaves featuring Lucy Lucy.

Percolating with driving beats alongside airy soundscapes and the gossamer vocals of Lucy Lucy, Dancing In The Leaves showcases the strengths of both What So Not and Buunshin’s artistry, serving both as a vulnerable exploration into the soul as well as a whimsical immersion into a momentary ethereal universe.

Opening with Threads featuring renowned American singer-songwriter and composer Maiah Manser, The Quiet That Hurts EP is undeniably a short yet sharply sweet full-bodied journey in avant-garde sounds and blissful delivery, with the EP growing from its opening track into quiet rumination and lush, ambient urgency via Tragic, featuring Ukrainian singer vocalist Alina Pash, pulsing with emotion alongside a high-octane foundation. From here, the EP dives into a hypnotic yet propulsive flow state (Dancing In The Leaves feat. Lucy Lucy), before oozing into bewitching melodics balanced between moments of instrumental sparsity and animated drum and bass (The One feat. Aiko), and, ultimately, closing out with sprawling soundscapes fused with narcotic beats and unbridled serenity juxtaposed against emphatic and raw lyricism delivered by Mara Necia.

A deeply vulnerable and sonically dazzling collection of songs, The Quiet That Hurts effortlessly wields wizardry with wisdom; a fact that also lends itself to What So Not’s own personal experiences during the making of the EP, as he explains, “Partway through the creative process, I flew to China and stayed in a temple with Shaolin Monks, training Kung Fu. It was an intense physical & mental experience & upon my return to regular life, I found myself asking “Where do ‘ideas’ come from? How do you create something that has never been done before? What is the source of all creation?”
“I came up with this concept of the ‘Void’,” What So Not continues, “the negative space you must enter to draw down ideas from the universe in their purist form. A type of meditation or ‘flow state’, absent of the noise of the world. ‘Threads’ quite literally become the theme of this concept. The mania of our internal dialog, holding us back from manifesting our greatest dreams and ideas. The tempo rising arpeggiation, a pressure point of energy as we attempt to break though the ego barrier & the magnificent payoff on the other side.