JUNO Award nominated artist, and the recent recipient of the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Excellence in Music and Art, Ruby Singh is announcing his upcoming double album; one a hip-hop collaboration entitled kraKIN, the other, Polyphonic Garden Suite II, explores the pulses and soundscapes of life. Both albums were created incorporating ‘bionsonification’, raising songs from indigenous flora and fungi, transforming bioelectricity into midi data to inform pitch and rhythm.

In physical form, these 2 albums will incarnate as a 100% post consumer fibre book collaged with lyrics, poetry and artwork by Sab Maynert, the Flavourcel Collective and Singh himself. Set for release in November, the book will be accompanied by a seed bomb bookmark with QR codes for the albums. 30% of the profits will be donated to the incredible work of Raven Trust, who support the inherent and constitutionally-protected rights of Indigenous Peoples as a powerful pathway towards reconciliation and environmental justice.

kraKIN is a more-than-human hip-hop collaboration bringing together the sonic stylings of Singh, the amphibious intellect of Dr. Michael Datura (aka professah exile), and a boom-bap menagerie of West Coast plants, amphibians, and mushrooms. In an age of ecological crisis, this multi-species assemblage aims to decompose human dominion and reintegrate our minds with the resonant ecology of a living world. kraKIN creates their unique place based sound by cutting and crossfading samples of field recordings of biomes throughout western canada and incorporating “biosonification”—a technology that translates the bioelectric signature of flora, fauna and fungi into musical information.

Singh named his latest project, kraKIN, based on the birth of the project in the Octopus Islands, the habitat of the giant pacific red octopus, in Desolation Sound. The tracks include everything from cedar tree basslines, wolf-howl and orca song synths, fungi-triggered 808s, to woodpecker hi-hats —resulting in an ecological portrait aiming to shapeshift perceptions and help us stay awake to the ways of the world.

“EchoLocate”, the first single from kraKIN, is inspired by the Southern Resident Orca community off the west coast of so-called ‘canada’. In 2018 Tahlequah, the matriarch orca of the Jpod, carried her stillborn calf 1600 kilometers over 17 days, as a gesture of mourning and a clear cross-species communication to us humans. Fast forward to now, when orcas are carrying out coordinated attacks in different seas around the globe against human intrusions into their homes. This song was created to challenge and question the colonial and capitalist powers that carry on ignoring the devastation in their wake. You will hear orca song, exhalations and echolocation mixed and chopped for melodic and rhythmic purposes; as well as field recordings of waves, the crunch of dried crab shells, and bull kelp biosonified basslines taken from Desolation Sound.

Singh and Datura's rapid lyrics cut deep into historic hard truths and stretch to the stars with sci-fi surrealism. Singh created the accompanying video to mirror the lyrics with a digital collage of underwater worlds, taking us to futures where whales have mastered interstellar communication and can travel to multidimensional distant worlds.

Singh’s ambient offering, Polyphonic Garden Suite II, intimately explores our relationship with this living, breathing and animate world. He created the album over the course of two years of travels to six biomes throughout so-called ‘british columbia’. The emerging melodies are then mixed with field recordings and unique instrumentation (tambura, mohan veena and fujara). Singh tempers keyboards with the songs of coastal wolves, orca, and birds (western screech owl, thrush, robin, song sparrow). To further deepen these sonic landscapes, the midi data of plants and fungi trigger the songs of their animal cohabitants: a Cottonwood tree triggers the call of the Song Sparrow that lives within its branches; bull kelp triggers the song of orcas. What emerges are complexly layered sonic ecologies of connection and wonder for the natural world, where Singh imagines how we might move towards right relations with these generous lands, waters and skies.

“Shorelines”, the first single from Polyphonic Garden Suite II, takes us to the far edges of the West Coast—the lands of the Tla-O-Qui-Aht peoples. Singh invites us into the embrace of this place through binaural recordings of rolling waves, the biosonification of spruce pushing synth pads, and bull kelp bioelectricity playing keyboards filled with the song of Orca and strings. Singh’s buoyant and spacious composition is in no rush, summoning us to relax into a lush soundscape and remember the generosity of our gorgeous and interdependent world. May these shores continue to nurture life for generations to come.

During this age of climate crisis, Singh continues to examine his role as an artist. This double release, kraKIN and Polyphonic Garden Suite II, ask us to question our relationship with this living planet and all the creatures and kin we share it with. In these twinned projects, Singh creates sonic ecologies, shining light towards our interdependence within every ecosystem. Polyphonic Garden opens a fragrant ambient invitation to explore this relationship, while kraKIN serves as an urgent warning of the crisis we face through a pointed critique of capitalism, colonialism and the terrible choices we have made and continue to make. At the time of writing, canada is experiencing the worst forest fires in recorded history. Singh believes that art has a crucial role in reimagining futures and repurposing aesthetic freedoms toward civil and environmental justice.