What So Not went to some intense creative places while shaping the five tracks that make up his latest EP The Quiet That Hurts, a collaborative work with Dutch artist Buunshin.
Describing it as “a three year journey of friendship and sonic exploration,” What So Not took the time to give Rolling Stone AU/NZ an exclusive, track-by-track breakdown.
After finding the root of the work, with ideas and demos sorted, What So Not, real name Christopher Emerson, hit a wall — but had a radical idea to break it. “I went to China to stay in a temple with Shaolin monks and practise Kung Fu and Chinese medicine. It was brutal — [I was ] beat up every day, with sticks, by my peers, by myself and my shifu… a strict and stark contrast to western society and certainly the usual life as a musician,” he said.
That radical shift in perspective was just what he needed to fill the gaps in the album, pushing him to zero in on creation as a concept, going as far as to have theological conversations with jailbroken AI chatbots and meditating on creation.
He went so deep that he’s found the meaning of life itself. “Seemingly, the ‘meaning of life’ is to download ideas from the universe & bring them into this reality!” Emerson said, adding, “Take it for what you will, I think that’s a great way to think about life, so I’m rolling with it.”
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And so we come to the core idea of The Quiet That Hurts. It’s the quiet void we fear to face when we get rid of modern distractions, the source of all ideas — but terrifying as it may be, Emerson believes it’s where the answers lie.
Read the musician’s track-by-track breakdown of The Quiet That Hurts below.
“Threads”
Beginning with a manic twilight mind, circling thoughts & delusion, “Threads” is the process of entering ‘The Void’ — a separation of self from the concerns of your reality, accessing the vacant birthplace of all creation and downloading it back to Earth in a story of sound. A high pitch ring results from the explosion, the arpeggiation stabilises and we head towards our first release with the harmonic bassline & drums. “Say that I’m fine, loosen the threads of my mind,” a mantra repeated by Maiah as her awareness settles into this otherworldly experience.”
“Dancing in the Leaves”
With “Threads” behind us, everything else becomes more ‘fun’. Our process is understood and Buunshin and I find ourselves effortlessly locking into our flow state and symbiotic execution of the other records. There is no better example to this than ‘Dancing in the Leaves’. A joyous, easy listening jam about the love given to you by your childhood pet. Horribly jet lagged on a cloudy Netherlands morning, wandering past a pond, I was suddenly swarmed by a flock of chirping ducks.
Smiling uncontrollably, it instantly turned my whole mood around, reminding me of the unconditional love animals bring. Returning to the house, I dragged the video of these ducks into Ableton and started trying to score that feeling… lo-fi loops, manic guitar riffs and Animal Crossing-type synths, it all came full circle sharing this story to my childhood neighbour ‘Lucy Lucy’ as we wrote the topline to ‘Dancing in the Leaves’ — an effortless little jam about some ducks.
“Tragic”
Debatably my favourite song of the EP? The idea begins as a monotonal Buunshin demo with a single note vocal stab and rumble bass. Quite an unassuming demo to be drawn to, Buunshin laughed when I exclaimed “Ooo! I have so many melodic ideas for this!” (With his whole intention for it to be a dark powerful DnB warehouse tune that plays one note the entire time.) But after some friendly debate, we flip the cold monotonal ‘god rumble’ into a euphoric, hyperpop, TRAAAAGIC anthem.
“The One”
The song that almost never happened! One Berlin night, I bumped into Skrillex and Boysnoise and we end up at Tresor til about 8am. I hear proper hard techno for the first time (kinda blows my mind), but here lays the problem — I forgot I have a session this same day! Generally quite sober, I wake up all kinds of ways about 2pm, with missed calls from publishers and this lovely artist I was yet to meet (Aiko!).
I grab my laptop, sprint to the other side of the city, grab an espresso and jump in the studio. Nowhere near coherent, we somehow manage to pull off a pretty inspiring chord progression & Aiko delivers a beautiful soaring topline & siren vocal. Yet to even meet Buunshin, I know this is going to end up great DnB record & when we link later that trip he feels the same.
“Falling in”
An exercise in restraint and evolution, this song is almost an ode to the collective sonic ventures of mine & Buunshin’s projects over the years. M83, Jai Paul and others came to mind as we fleshed out the production. Hours spent recording & resampling piano variations & understated synthesis. We all wrote the song in the room together, Mara and I discussed the idea of a relationship shifting like a change in seasons.
From such gentle beginnings, ending this record (and the whole EP) in a cinematic ‘breakcore’ moment feels so fitting. A beautiful adventure with my friend Buunshin and my amazing vocalist collaborators Maiah Manser, Alina Pash, Aiko & Mara Necia.
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