Undergrowth by Thallum

*Undergrowth* isn't just an album we recorded; it’s a living document from the depths of the Rhizoverse. We spent a long time down there, really feeling the quiet dread as the root network beneath the Canopy Array started to falter, its signals weakening, fading into silence. This record, it’s a journey through that space, a way of reckoning with what remains when everything you knew starts to crumble. Each track feels like a chapter in that struggle for renewal, pulling you into the core of Thallum’s world, where every beat and melody asks: what survives of collective memory and hope when the connections are severed?

Musically, we tried to capture that exact feeling. You’ll hear the lush electronics, moss-soft and intricate, braiding in real-time plant bio-sonification – those raw, unpredictable pulses from the electrodes. Then there’s the organic percussion, born from found objects and our own custom instruments. The dulcimer and acoustic guitar carry this melancholic ache, echoes of the fading botanical guilds, before the sound spirals into something more resilient. We shaped those synthscapes, often hook-laden, with live biofeedback from our home-grown crops, letting the plants themselves guide the dream of a green resurgence.

There were moments, especially with the Nodalists and Veinwrights, where the grief felt immense. But channeling that into a nearly anthemic interplay of melody and sampled root pulses, it became this raw, breathtaking thing. It’s both a mourning and a reckless belief in renewal, all at once. We used everything we had: the Saprophone, its pitches tuned by the moisture we coaxed from it; the Verdant Relay, sequencing patterns directly from root growth; and the Spore Deck, those dried mushroom caps becoming tactile triggers for chaotic, beautiful rhythms. You can feel the soil-smeared hands in every note, the rootlets still clinging.

This wasn’t just about making music; it was about living it, recording live in our greenhouses, out in polyculture fields, letting the natural reverberation and the stutter of irrigation bursts become part of the soundscape. We were trying to capture that patient, tenacious, fiercely interconnected spirit that defines Thallum. It’s a deep dive, sure, into bioelectric cues and the memory stored in mycelial networks, but it’s also just us, trying to find meaning when everything’s quiet. We poured every bit of ourselves into this – the science, the data, a whole lot of wild improvisation – all to see if old flora could really become new sound. Ultimately, *Undergrowth* is a testament to the quiet spirituality within all living systems, framing our own search for meaning through the undying tenacity of roots that just refuse to die in silence. It’s an offering of cautious hope, a meditation on loss, and a firm belief that new life always waits beneath the most exhausted soil.

Soil-powered circuits meet ancient vibrations as we translate forest whispers into sound. Our instruments grow, not built – harvested from living labs where moss meets motherboard. Breathe in the rhizomatic rhythms.