#27 Deeper Into Outer Space | KiF Productions | 'Still Out'
KiF Productions' Will Cookson and Tom Haverly share the story of friendship and love for the KLF behind ambient record, ‘Still Out’.
“Our record is about stepping away from our mobiles and tech devices,” says Will Cookson, one half of the duo behind new KiF Productions album, ‘Still Out’.
“Going on a roadtrip or being in places where you’ve got no access to these things, it reminds you of those times when you were younger. There’s a certain release and freedom that comes with it.”
Will and friend Tom Haverley have known each other for most of their lives, with music and a love for the great outdoors the glue between them. This is what they’ve poured into ‘Still Out’ alongside sounds of our natural landscape amid hundreds of samples, all pinned to memories and favourite locations. Inspired by the KLF’s ambient classic ‘Chill Out’, Will and Tom’s record features a similar 14 section structure with each element based on a specific place featured in an accompanying film created with filmmaker Rufus Exton.
The super-limited vinyl release has already become a cult classic, with the first pressing selling out and a second pressing also now gone. Not bad for a pair of music lovers with ‘Still Out’ their first dalliance into recording and production.
“It’s massively exceeded expectations in terms of how it’s been received,” says Will.
“Copies are travelling around the world, people are connecting with it. We’ve both in our own ways pottered around in music, I’ve been DJing consistently for 30 years but in terms of production, this was an experiment which has turned out really well.”
Chill out
The genesis of the album can be traced back to when Tom and Will first met and bonded over a love of music as teenagers.
“I remember drinking too much cider, which I didn’t normally drink, and feeling rough the next day, which I didn’t usually do,” laughs Will. “I was invited to a gathering for Tom's birthday, we had this chat about music and one of us mentioned Hendrix - from then on, we were very much connected.”
‘Chill Out’ came into their lives as a record embezzled from a house party. They made a copy of the LP to tape, it went through their friendship group and became an important album for them and their mates.
“It was the record you’d listen to at the end of a night,” says Will. “We did go to raves and parties but most of our adventures were getting in a car, driving to a remote location, climbing up a huge hill, and watching dawn come. It was about burning off youthful energy, that’s also key to what this is all about.”
If you put these strands together - a love of ambient sounds, dub, reggae and soundtracks, the KLF, being outside, and hanging out with each other - then these are ‘Still Out’’s core ingredients.
“I got a driving licence so we could go further afield,” says Tom of their journeys. “Will was the map reader, in charge of the stereo and has a great memory for music. He knew where we had been to and what had we listened to there - this informed a lot of the thinking behind the music, what we were listening to in certain places.”
Making the album
‘Chill Out’ came back into their lives as adults when Tom found it in his late dad’s record collection. Discovering it rekindled their interest in the samples, the creative process behind it and, while they had not released anything before, Will had learned how to use editing open source software through DJing and broadcasting. It was in lockdown where an online presentation to entertain each other also focused some of their ambitions.
“We did these presentations on Zoom to entertain each other and mine was on samples,” says Will. “I’ve always been obsessed with finding records that feature them. I did a deep internet dive and came up with a Powerpoint on all the sound effect samples on ‘Chill Out’.”
Alongside a mix Will had made for Tom when he was in hospital and a collaborative playlist (listen above), the final pillar in the foundations of what would become ‘Still Out’ was the trip. ‘Chill Out’ is based around them imagining this journey around the USA’s Southern states and Will and Tom decided to do something similar but with places they had visited or were familiar with. Swaledale in Yorkshire where their friend Billy grew up was the starting point with the final destination Welcombe on the Devon coast, somewhere Will has been visiting for years.
“We had places where we went for adventures like the Malvern hills,” says Tom. “So staying up late and watching sunrises there, the Malverns are also home to the notorious free party at Castlemorton so we wanted to acknowledge the ghosts of the rave in that section.”
“Each place became a section in the journey with an accompanying soundtrack too,” continues Will. “So we’re in the Yorkshire Dales - what bird noises do you hear there? What would it feel like? What time of day is it? We developed it from this with certain sections more focused than others.”
The initial recording process took place in a cabin in Welcombe, the end point of their road trip without any electricity, Wi-Fi or 3G. It meant that Will and Tom travelled with a fully-loaded laptop full of potential source material.
“We were in the cabin from Friday night until Sunday, early afternoon,” says Tom. “It was non-stop from the point when we first got there, to the point where your head was a fried and we needed to get some fresh air.”
The recording session proved to the duo that they had something - then the next challenge was getting the audio levels of the samples aligned, which involved spending time at Get It Together Studios in Stroud.
“We spent an inordinate amount of time just getting the mix right,” says Will.
“We said at the time that we don’t want to be able to see the sellotape. If you think of it as a collage, then you don’t want to be able to see where one bit overlaps with another, you want it to feel like one coherent piece of sound.”
The software PaulXStretch features extensively and is aimed at users taking 30 second samples, then stretching for however long is necessary. Aside from the limitless opportunities it offers, it also injects their record with some serious low bass resonance.
“When we had the film screening at Stone Club at The Social in London, the sound engineer there was militant about how we were going to have it turned up loud,” laughs Will. “When you watch the film, there’s a section in Wistman’s Wood in Dartmoor where it suddenly goes dark - and the tone moves from ethereal to sinister.”
“It’s like any road trip - it’s not always mellow or pastoral,” he continues. “Chances are you could be exposed to the elements as things don’t always go according to plan. It’s a bit like spending three days at a festival, there’s a point where it all gets a bit emotional, then you come out the other side of it.”
Sound | landscape
The journey propels the narrative of the whole recorded piece and the film and album working in tandem together. One section is based in Laugharne in South Wales, a spot where Dylan Thomas spent a lot of time writing which the duo were keen to include. They did so by utilising spoken word elements from actor Richard Burton reading ‘Under Milkwood’ and elements from British jazz album by Stan Tracey, ‘Jazz Suite Inspired by Dylan Thomas' 'Under Milk Wood’.
“When Rufus filmed it, he captured a heron and the beautiful landscape at dawn - that’s below Dylan Thomas’ writing shed,” says Will. “We were there very early and it was a very long day as we made our way to the end destination, but that section made the film work as the weather really came through for us.”
Other sections include subtle nods to Hendrix and other favourite tracks from records and albums they have loved for a long time. Ultimately, ‘Still Out’ is a celebration of many things - the UK’s countryside, their love for ambient music and of course real life- connections and friendship. Tom says:
“Ambient music is like that, we went to see Laraji recently and it was a relatively good spread of ages but quite a lot of young people younger than us, there wasn’t much filming going on, it felt like a conscious collective decision to be in the moment.”
“The constant barrage of information we receive has impacted all of us, both emotionally and mentally and finding a way to step away from that and going somewhere remote, doing something spontaneous and adventurous is ultimately more rewarding,” says Will.
“We’re not preaching, people know this stuff - I think we’ll look back on it, the way the forties and fifties was with smoking - you’ve got all the information in the world in your pocket - and you’re looking at it all the time - maybe that’s not great for you when there’s a wider world to discover.”
Visit KiF Productions’ Bandcamp for more information.
Watch the trailer and learn more about the project.
For more on club and rave culture, you can order a copy of my book, ‘Out of Space: How UK Cities Shaped Rave Culture’ via the Velocity Press website now.