Sunda Arc are brothers Nick Smart and Jordan Smart, best known as two-thirds of jazz-influenced
minimalists Mammal Hands, and on the 18thNovember, they are set to release their sophomore album 'Night
Lands' via Gondwana Records, home to such artists as GoGo Penguin, Portico Quartet, Hania Rani and
Forgiveness.
Releasing their debut EP 'Flicker' in 2018, Sunda Arc have performed live at AB Brussels, Blue Dot Festival,
The Roundhouse, Jazz Café, Reworks Festival, the Royal Albert Hall and Albert Hall, Manchester with GoGo
Penguin. Their debut album 'Tides', released in 2020, received high praise from numerous tastemaker media
including DJ magazine who described their music as "sounding like John Hopkins' long-lost sibling".
Sunda Arc channels Nick and Jordan's love of electronic and dance music, without losing any of their deep
musicality. Drawing on techno, electronica, neo-classical and post-rock influences, Sunda Arc compose and
perform using both electronic and acoustic instruments, including analogue synthesisers, home-made
software patches, piano, saxophones and bass clarinet – all finessed and channelled through their own
unique creative strategies. Integrating electronic elements and experimentation with the expressiveness and
energy of acoustic instruments and live performance, Sunda Arc's music is expansive and compelling. "We
wanted 'Night Lands' to be an exciting listen, deliberately keeping some elements under control and having
other elements of the tracks feeling like they were on the edge of tipping over into being pretty chaotic. There
was also the idea of generally keeping the drums and bass pretty heavy sounding when they kick in, imaging
how they would sound over a big system and then holding back and focusing on melody and texture when
they weren't needed."
From the warm, melodic textures of 'Distant Siren' and 'Beacons' to the ethereal rumblings of 'Endless Fields'
and 'Night Lands', Sunda Arc immerse and engulf the listener, expanding simple melodies into bold rhythmic
patterns, allowing the acoustic sounds to submerge with the electronic for maximum emotional and dramatic
effect. A common theme for 'Night Lands', the duo's enthusiasm to incorporate digital and analogue sounds
seamlessly and blur the line between the two, results in a sound world that has both the warmth of analogue
sounds and the cold, crispness of digital. "We wanted to manipulate acoustic instruments to make them
sound more like samples or older recordings at points, like with the Turkish Ney flute on 'Neon Forest' that we
pitch shifted and saturated to sound more like we'd sampled an old 70s recording."
Elsewhere, 'Static Waves' and 'Forgotten Dream' use familiar and foreign sounds with an emphasis on tone
and atmosphere to create a soundscape that feels like home and alien at the same time. ""We were trying to
make sure the ambient moments felt really alive on this record, like a living, breathing sound world, trying to
avoid things sounding too placid. We wanted them to feel just as engaging as the tracks with heavy beats so
were always looking at ways to inject as much life and character into them as we could, often recording
things to tape and using real tape delays to add a bit of character and fuzzy warmth to things and combining
that with more cold, clinical elements."
At times, Sunda Arc create a harsh, brutal world allowing the sound to manipulate the listener's emotional
response to each track. "We were talking about dystopian themes a fair bit when we were writing the tunes
and I think being in London during the lockdown definitely had an impact on our mindset at the time. The two
radio samples on 'Neon Forest' and 'Static Waves' are both just random stations we found on fm radio and
recorded some short sections but I both were talking about Covid related stuff. We definitely didn't feel like
making a celebratory or joyful record at that point, it was much more of an introspective and moody set of
tracks we were focusing on and I guess the feeling of missing being able to go out or see friends and family
played a part in this."
TRACKLIST:
01: Distant Siren
02: Phantom's Gift
03: Beacons
04: Endless Fields
05: Night Lands
06: Static Waves
07: Neon Forest
08: Forgotten Dream
09: Mirai
10: Ritual
11: Endless Skies
