Ease in to the weekend with this funky and enjoyable video premiere from Walktell called “Digging,” which is off his upcoming LP, Far In. “Digging” brings us a bevy of sounds and instruments that are reflected in Jake Wachtel’s travels, which are far and wide. In fact, this song was written in Ethiopia (you know, the birthplace of civilization) and the video was shot in Thailand, so we can almost smell the jungle and an ancient forest while our heads bob up and down to the infectious beat and incredible lyrics. We think this is a very special piece of psych-pop amongst the heaps of submissions we get, so enjoy this tune and be prepared for a beast of a full-length album soon.
“I wrote Digging one afternoon in the ruins of King Fasiladis’ Bath in Gondar, northern Ethiopia. This 5 centuries old architectural marvel (and surrounding forest) was completely deserted. It had been expertly excavated and preserved, and as I descended into the bowels of the ritual baths, my brain started populating the space with imagined scenes and people from a distant era that I had never really envisioned before. I started wondering why does unknowable history fascinate us so much? I felt really small and insignificant in time in a way that felt really beautiful sitting there alone in those baths, considering the vast majesty of the Solomonic empire which had all but disappeared except for these last vestiges of old structures. I think the song started pouring out of me as a way to consecrate the moment as it was happening. It was really written as a journal entry sort of song.
So I wrote the song originally on the ukulele but when I got back to my studio in California I knew that I wanted to flesh it out with a bit of funk. I just like the idea of a funk song built on ukulele, accordion and panpipes ( and bass of course). For melodic lines and other ornamentation drew on dilruba (India), toy piano, sueng (Thailand), baglamas (Greece), trumpet.
I shot the music video shot with some friends in the rice paddies Pai, Thailand, where I was living on and off in a Buddhist forest monastery. Pai was set up in the 1970s by Thai hippies who were trying to escape “the man” in Bangkok, and some of them never left. Really good vibes there; it feels like you are standing at a crossroads of eons past, the 70s, and the present day, like you’re a little bit loosed in time. Perfect fit thematically for this song.” – Jake Wachtel
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