Latvian avant-pop producer Waterflower has released their latest mushroom music video Mycelium (Step by Step).
Inspired by Peter Wohlleben’s concept of the ‘woodside web’ - that mycelium is like an internet network connecting trees in the forest - the song suggests that we can find a sense of worldwide online community, just like trees and mushrooms in a forest.
The eco-futuristic music video’s style is influenced by 90s Latvian cartoons (like Fantadroms), TV programmes, and the pop/dance music of that era - the aesthetic culture that Waterflower personally experienced whilst living in Latvia and Great Britain. It was filmed, animated, and produced by the artist, who even installed a green screen at home to create several segments.
In Mycelium (Step by Step) they used bio-data, obtained from chanterelle mushrooms found in the forests of Latvia. The funghi acted as both a keyboard for synthesizers and a MIDI-generator - transforming the funghi’s bio-data into music. This gives the mushrooms a voice, as it’s recently been theorised that mushrooms have a language. Waterflower uses these mushroom-sample extraction methods as part of their music composition process, and for “playing on mushrooms and plants” during live shows.
Waterflower is the alter-ego of artistic polymath Sabine Moore. They challenge normality and explore the act of presenting femininity with their self-produced avant-pop that could equally be exhibited in an art gallery or discovered at an underground club.
