Wil Bolton Q&A Part Two - Process and Track Breakdown

Thanks to the commenters and last day of half-price too x

Jan 17, 2025

Hi friends - hope all good :)

Thanks again for the support for South of the Lake, really pleased to see it so well received - endlessly grateful to you all that buy music, ours or anyone’s, it’s by far the best way to support artists x

Last day of half-price digital and CDs with bespoke six-panel matte digipack, glass-mastered CD with exclusive long-form version and separate print of the artwork.

Big thanks to the kind people that have left a message on the qd28 Bandcamp page, really love to see these!

This time thanks to Josh Solar, orlandolovekill, Tango Mango, Past Inside the Present, and AndyMio.

Now the second part of our chat with Wil, thanks to him!

Please can you give us an overview of your studio and favourite instruments?

My studio is currently a work in progress as we relocated from London to Manchester this summer and I’m yet to complete setting it up as I’d like! I use a MacBook running Logic Pro and a UAD Apollo Twin audio interface for recording and mixing. For modular I have a eurorack system, a Buchla Easel Command and a Ciat-Lonbarde Cocoquantus. I have a few analogue and digital synths and keyboards, current favourites being my Mellotron Micro and Moog Grandmother. My guitar collection includes a Fender Bass VI and Squier Jazzmaster and a couple of acoustics, but my favourite right now is an orange stain Gretsch electromatic hollow body, which my partner generously gifted me for a recent big birthday. I’ve wanted one forever but have not actually recorded with it yet and am enjoying just playing it for a change! I also have a bunch of effects pedals, though I try to focus on around eight at a time, using a fresh selection of them on my pedalboard for each new project. Acoustic instruments include toy glockenspiels, chime bars and small bells that I have picked up over the years from around the world.

Please can you give a quick breakdown of how you made each track?

I created all the album tracks with similar instruments and techniques. They each began with field recordings from our South Korean road trip.

My approach in the studio began with close-miking the bells and singing bowl that I’d brought back from Korea, along with some other Korean bells, tingsha and wind chimes that I’ve collected on previous trips there and a small glockenspiel and a set of chime bars, often playing them by scraping and striking them gently with the stones, pine cones and rosaries that I had also brought home from Korea. This enabled me to bring together the elements of the places that inspired the album and to focus on the sounds of the surfaces and textures of these objects, amplifying their own quiet details.

I also processed many of these sounds through my Cocoquantus, a lo-fi wooden modular delay and looping instrument that produces a lovely grain and sparkling, glitchy details.

Bass was provided by my trusty Fender Bass VI six string bass guitar and Buchla Easel Command modular synth, the Bass VI sometimes played laying flat with a violin bow or by dropping objects onto its strings. Additional electronic tones came from Arturia Microfreak and Teenage Engineering OP-1 synths and my Mellotron Micro keyboard provided the strings, woodwind, celeste and vibraphone sounds.

Effects pedals on this album are Chase Bliss Thermae, Mood and Generation Loss 2, Montreal Assembly Count to 5, Stymon El Capistan, EHX Cathedral and 22500, TC Electronic Ditto and Flashback and Eventide H9.

And finally, here’s a quick run down of the field recording locations for each track: Azalea - the courtyard of Mugaksa Temple in Gwangju.

The Owl and the Woodblock - the grounds of Naesosa Temple at night, with a buddhist monk playing the woodblock in the temple and an owl calling in the forest outside.

Sun Tree Trail - Daehan tea garden.
In the Hills Above the Bay - Suncheon Bay Nature Reserve.
Early Morning Rain - rainfall in the forest outside Naesosa Temple

The Forest Awakens - Naesosa Temple again, this time very early morning, including the distant sounds of a monk chanting and various forest creatures calling out from the dark. The howls of foxes are buried in the mix, but were actually quite terrifying when we first heard them bursting out from the pitch black!

Fir - a final recording from Naesosa Temple grounds, capturing the dawn chorus.

Shout-outs now:

Great edition as usual from Neil at Moonbuilding!

Thanks to him for including qd28 Wil Bolton and mentioning the upcoming fields we found out next Wednesday, so looking forward to sharing it with everyone.

Neil’s one of the best around so please go and subscribe, brilliant regular music news.