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Watch ‘Gardyn’ On YouTube

Gardyn is a gift to my mother, a track made of sounds that I recorded around her garden. The track also features harmonic syllables of her voice. I shot the video myself over a number of days after a refreshing trip to New York. Gardyn marks the first time I’ve ever mixed the real world, and I hope it won’t be the last.

The word ‘Gardyn’ is middle English. I wanted to name the track something real, but at the same time, I wanted it to be easy to find. Other names I considered were ‘Bluomo’ which is Latin for blossom, and simply ‘The Garden’ which I felt was terribly lazy and unappealing.

I pulled my mother outside one afternoon to interview her. I didn’t explain what it was for, but I’ve always been a very experimental chap, so this was nothing too out of the ordinary. For 10 minutes, I got her to tell me about her passion for gardening and her relationship with God.

With the vocal samples I needed, I ran around her property filming sights and sounds that I would later splice together with her voice to make music.  I wanted to capture the textures and materials. I’ve been a chronic rhythm tapper for as long as I can remember – always dropping beats on anything that sounds good. Doing this throughout the video made a lot of sense.

I spent a good three weeks painting with these sounds before I could call this creation a solid track. I was nervous about releasing it – I didn’t want people to think I was moving away from films. ‘Gardyn’ was the first real-world Pogo mix I released, and I had no idea how everyone would react.

Mother’s Day finally arrived, and ‘Gardyn’ gained a startling 100,000 views on YouTube in its first week.

I was in bed one night when this idea first struck me. I suddenly saw myself sitting with red Indian tribes, African tribes, visiting Shaolin monk monestries, traipsing through Egyptian markets – all the way making Pogo mixes out of my experiences. What better way for me to see the world? I could find no flaw with this idea other than the fact I’d have to seek funding that doesn’t entail deadlines and the advertising of some product or service. That would be the biggest challenge. It’s like everyone always says, start small and climb the ladder.

Filming and mixing my mother’s garden was a great experience. Mixing films will always be a passion of mine, but it’s certainly exciting to imagine running around the world with a camera, microphone and laptop. Now whenever I hear sounds and voices around me, my brain starts ticking!