Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.
Every Monday, there will be a fresh ‘New Music Monday’ article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!
For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at CFUV 101.9 FM, UVic’s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.
This week, faun.a is the New Music Monday highlight!
faun.a is the solo project of Alyse Johnston, a nomadic multi-instrumentalist who has found themselves in the Greater Victoria region for the past few years.
Here, they have found inspiration in the land and the sea, which is what prompted their latest recordings on the newly released EP, salish coast.
Before salish coast, Johnston says she played in a handful of bands out in Ontario in 2017, but wanted to have a project where they were in complete control over the sound and writing—and so faun.a was born.
“I loved playing in bands, but there was really a push for me, wanting to write all my own music and try doing something on my own,” faun.a told Victoria Buzz.
“I started out looping and I still loop a lot—I would call myself a looping musician—just making super simplistic music and beats that layer overtop of each other and experimenting with the instruments I have.”
For faun.a, Johnston uses not only a beat pad and synth, but also plays violin, saxophone, bass clarinet, guitar and they also sing.
Using these skills, they say their sound has slowly progressed into what she recorded for salish coast—using natural sounds, along with musicianship to create lo-fi, ambient soundscapes.
“I think with salish coast, I am having more intention behind [my music],” said faun.a.
“I have more of an intention of creating sounds that are connected to our landscape and the natural world.”
They had dabbled before with making field recordings, but wanted to improve upon this and be able to use the sounds they collected to create new, complementary sounds.
With this goal in mind, faun.a says they wanted to help people tune out all the noise that surrounds us, highlighting the quieter, more natural sounds that often get drowned out.
“I just felt like, for me, living here, I wanted to understand the land I’m on,” faun.a explained.
“So I decided to try to collaborate more, listen to it a bit more I guess.”
On the track “tidal pool,” faun.a went to Dallas Beach, where they climbed over rocks and found a little “cup” of water that was fed by the sea, but remained its own entity, which inspired them to capture the soundscape surrounding this tidal pool.
To complement what she captured, faun.a rented a bass clarinet, which prior to this, they hadn’t played in around 15 years.
“When I recorded the field recording, I was like, ‘what instrument feels like I’m in a tidal pool,’ and then I envisioned the bass clarinet—it’s very long and at the end it’s got this bell and just kind of holds the sound in the bottom of it,” faun.a said.
“That’s what I envisioned, like a shallow cavernous cup, where the water can just sit there, but is still affected by the tide.”
faun.a says they hope when people listen to this, they feel more present in where they are and that they can feel some reprieve from the endless noise of everyday life.
“Noticing the leaves blowing in the wind, the bug flying from one flower to the next, just things like that,” they explained.
Listen to “tidal pool” and the rest of salish coast below:
To listen to more from faun.a, check out their Bandcamp, Spotify or Apple Music pages.
faun.a told Victoria Buzz that they have a couple shows coming up that are pretty exciting, in which they will be looping and playing some of salish coast live.
They will be playing one of this year’s free Eventide shows in Centennial Square on July 16th.
Additionally, they will be playing as a part of Victoria’s Wonderment festival on August 3rd at the Cameron Bandshell in Beacon Hill Park.
To stay up-to-date and in-the-loop, follow faun.a on Insatgram.
Related:
- New Music Monday: Pony Gold releases first single off forthcoming debut album
- New Music Monday: Earth Freaks try to ‘capture a feeling’ on sophomore album
- New Music Monday: Elbow Kiss revitalizes the harp in new single and music video
CFUV is a non-profit campus and community radio station that plays a ton of local music of all kinds across Vancouver Island. If you like to support local music they are an amazing resource with a plethora of new local tunes in their arsenal.
“It’s like I don’t listen to music, I only listen to CFUV because there’s so many unique shows and opportunities to discover new music,” said faun.a.
“I love what they do and appreciate them.”
Tune into CFUV 101.9 FM on air or online!
Let us know what you think of faun.a in the comments below!
