Throughout S. Salter’s album 'Juun', each track transports you to a different location. Song by song, a journey is formed.
‘A Walk With… S. Salter’ is a visual performance, and now a series of concerts that connects you to this journey.
By immersing the audience in film recordings of the landscapes that inspired the soundscapes of ‘Juun’, you are transported through the same nostalgia and longing, the same thoughts and emotions that inspired S. Salter while writing the album Juun.
Over forty five minutes, the audience is taken on a journey through important locations to S. Salter, and the album Juun. Throughout the pandemic, the time when the album was written, Samuel Ruddick of S.Salter took walks through his neighbourhood of the Jordaan. During these walks, which were the only escape from the confines of the lockdown era, Samuel would write and rewrite different elements of the album.
“I wanted to create a feeling of nostalgia within the album, which I tried to capture using certain sounds (including field recordings), chord progressions (the song ‘Swim’ I originally wrote around 10 years ago, so, even if only for myself, that was nostalgic), and images”
The artwork of the album, Juun, a photograph by collaborator Kerry Williams, evokes this nostalgic, emotive and sometimes sombre tonality of the album.
“The album is heavily influenced by the South West of the UK where I’m from, Cornwall and Dorset. The coastlines, seas, and forests from these areas are by far the biggest influences for this project”
Throughout the journey, the visuals take S. Salter, and with them the audience, from Samuel’s apartment, out onto his regular pandemic walk, before transitioning to these aforementioned locations – a mixture of coastlines and forest walks.
For the live experience, a walk was paired with each act of the show, narratively fading between the streets of Amsterdam, where longing memories of these locations inspired the music, and the locations themselves, creating a dreamlike, ephemeral journey.
At one point walking at dusk in Amsterdam, then dawn in the New Forest.
By immersing the audience in large scale projection across both the rear wall and the floor of the venue, the medium of film transcends its surface and becomes environmental, literally taking the audience on a walk..
Having performed in Nxt Museum and Khroma, this is now on display at Khroma New Media Art Centre as an installation piece until the 10th of August.
Khroma New Media Art Centre: https://khroma.berlin/s-salter/
Nxt Museum Performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8rWcHzI15M&t=904s
Press Release: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VwWE1ahqHXut9N_du9n1J3-BMVJ5a8XqBp6Ytckw6Ow
