It began in Highbury & Islington with a coffee between two artists orbiting similar creative spheres. Audio-visual artist Raimund Wong and experimental composer Suren Seneviratne (aka My Panda Shall Fly) discovered a shared fascination with sound – the collisions between free improvisation, Fourth World and the chaos of noise. Their first sketches emerged as conversations in motion, an instinctive recognition that their obsessions were worth pursuing together.
London, with its fractured and ever-renewing diasporic topographies, quickly became their playground. A Soho Radio residency provided the foundations: a platform for live acts and spontaneous group improvisation. From this grew ‘A Record of Living Beings‘ – an album where traditional instrumentation (khene, shakuhachi, taishogoto, cello) confronts the magnetic hiss of tape processing and the dusty futurism of ’90s music software. Released on Kit Records, the project expanded with contributions from Yoshino Shigihara, Maxwell Hallett (The Comet Is Coming), Clive Bell (Jah Wobble), Dominic Kennedy and Francesca Ter-Berg.
By the first demo the music carried the density of a settled cosmopolis: improvised structures rubbing against prepared cassette loops, wind instruments, fretless bass and droning cellos swimming in grainy dub manipulations. The result is equal parts folk-horror and dream sequence, drawing on the electronic whimsy of Yellow Magic Orchestra and the vast choral-gamelan textures of Geinoh Yamashirogumi’s Akira score.
Like the radio show it grew from, A Record of Living Beings feels like a blanket of real and imagined memories, converging within a parallel universe. It challenges the listener to accept coexistence without hierarchy, where software sits alongside centuries-old traditions. In Wong and Seneviratne’s world, soundscapes are constantly made and remade by those willing to step into the room together.
Interview by Mathias Chaboteaux
"The methodology of making tape loops via sound-on-sound, then mixing them as a main performance tool, as well as using feedback to treat live instruments, all points to a cyclical outlook in life/creation/rest/death, an ouroboros of self-renewing repetition that creates a fertile and evolving environment, upon which an infinitely variable humanity can thrive and create."
Let’s go back to the beginnings of the project, where/when did you meet?
Raimund: I originally met Suren through the band Flamingods years ago and consequently we’ve bonded over a shared interest in Fourth World music and free improvisation. In 2020 I started a show on Soho Radio and Suren was one the first people to come on to improvise with me. It was very natural and I felt there must be a project in this.
In early 2022 a friend booked me to open for his band, so I invited Japanese artist Yoshino to join us for a jam. I’ve seen her band Yama Warashi a couple of times, and was really interested in how some songs felt like they were written around percussion parts, which kind of reminds me of the great Yasuaki Shimizu production on the final Mariah album. After initial explorations and a small handful of gigs, it was becoming an informal group consisting of guests I’ve previously had on the radio show.
A few days before supporting Tengger at Cafe OTO, I arranged for us to do a recording session that doubled as a rehearsal. Three tracks on the album are more or less as we performed as improvisations on the day. On the second session later that year, the rhythm section was finally complete with Dom joining on bass, and on fretless no less to complete the 80s experimental/Fourth World feel that Suren and I have been looking for.
Suren: I knew Raimund for his design work for many music labels and outlets. We quickly bonded over our love for Fourth World music over a coffee in Highbury & Islington some years back. When Raimund invited me onto his Soho Radio show, I was fascinated with his concept of mixing rare lesser-heard music with live studio improvisations.
Raimund, your visual language has threaded its way into the undercurrents of London’s experimental scene with collaborations with International Anthem, Church of Sound and Total Refreshment Centre. How have these spaces shaped your way of listening and producing?
A sensibility of music being made and experienced as a shared, social activity – in a way this has been more informed by following Sly & The Family Drone, getting to know drummer Charles Hayward and his decades-long sonic activism, and more generally going to DIY/noise gigs and putting together events. An affiliation with the Chicago/LA label also provided more exposure to and immersion into improvised music, prompting further wanderings into the avant-garde.
Suren, after two decades of sound exploration in Deptford spanning film scores, theater music and releases under the alias My Panda Shall Fly, you’ve recently relocated to Kent. How has this move influenced your creative approach?
S: I’ve been lucky to experience periods of quiet and fewer distractions in Kent, so I would like to think this has resulted in more creative output. The fact is I’m still in London many times a week, I clearly can’t stay away! I’ve also been building my loft studio space in all my spare time which is exciting for me after not having a dedicated space for a few years now.
The album feels like a spectral map of a metropolis that doesn’t exist. Ultra-wired electronics blend into Far Eastern wind instruments, while dusty cello passages drift over tape-delayed aesthetics. How would you describe the emotional landscape of this record?
Optimism and hope in the face of uncertainty and the unknown. Sound as a tool to harness the power of real or fabricated memories. Dialogues around the idea of ‘the other’ and the fracturing of cultural & personal identity. Collage/sampling as a unifying medium that allows sounds and voices from disparate space and time to work together in harmony – a faith in our ability to co-exist, an expression of borderless universality.
There’s a cinematic quality embodied within this album. If this album were to score a film, what would that story look like?
We would be fascinated to hear which movies you would match the sound to. For me there are equal parts of folk horror, with sequences of ritual/celebrations and moments of suspense and release, and travelogue involving road-tripping and quiet reflections.
Raimund, I remember your radio show in 2020 on Soho Radio called ‘A Record of Living Beings’, a tribute to Akira Kurosawa’s movie. What is it about Kurosawa’s visions that resonates so strongly? And how did those dream-infused memories inspire the project?
A Record of Living Beings ran from 2020 – 2025, in some way has transitioned into this group with the same collaborative approach. The small adaptation of that title became a more universal name that can point to various forms of expressions from deeply personal music to field recordings and live improvisations.
So it doesn’t necessarily have a strong connection to ‘I Live In Fear’, the more widely known title for ‘Record Of A Living Being’, a film about a man’s crippling fear of a nuclear disaster. One of my earliest movie memories is in fact from his 1990 anthology film Dreams and that would have the most direct impact on this as well as my work in general.
Yuki-Onna is directly about one segment of the film named ‘The Blizzard‘. More info here. It is somehow akin to an album as it’s made of 8 short stories based on his real dreams, and this impressionistic approach where strong emotions and distinctly different environments appear then disappear is of particular note.
Some of the shorts have a very considered and quietly dramatic pace, some are impenetrable and nightmarish and deathly, and some hopeful in the face of tragedy, all feel relevant to the pieces on the album.
"Taking inspiration from Yellow Magic Orchestra's cross-cultural subversions, I wanted to explore the dichotomy between traditional and experimental, and do it with the voices of the experienced and aurally adventurous."
There is also a reference about transmigration throughout the album. Could you tell us more about your philosophy of life and what kind of association do you establish between the concepts of death and sleep?
R: Again this relates to Kurosawa’s movie Dreams (1990) – almost all the stories deal with impending death or a sense of responsibility towards the survival of others. Another reference is the prevalence of the theme of death in traditional ballads and broadsides, as well as dust bowl era country music – all of which with their observational storytelling and dramatic sensibilities informs the title and intention of the album.
The methodology of making tape loops via sound-on-sound, then mixing them as a main performance tool, as well as using feedback to treat live instruments, all points to a cyclical outlook in life/creation/rest/death, an ouroboros of self-renewing repetition that creates a fertile and evolving environment, upon which an infinitely variable humanity can thrive and create.
The album feels like a tribute to human diversity. How do you both feel about the shifting soul of London? And why was it important to give space to those diasporic voices in this project?
S: I’ve often felt that this record is very much a by-product of London and its incredibly rich diversity of talent. Despite the economic difficulties of living in London, those who are still here persevering by any means are the ones passionate and crazy enough to want to be here and that is worth acknowledging. As the city and its artist inhabitants shift over time, this album marks a special moment in time for us to remember those who contributed to it.
R: Taking inspiration from Yellow Magic Orchestra’s cross-cultural subversions, I wanted to explore the dichotomy between traditional and experimental, and do it with the voices of the experienced and aurally adventurous, so that we were best positioned to have these simultaneous dialogues about self and others, culturally and personally, through improvising in a group all together.
From 90s Macintosh software via a 4-track tape player to traditional instruments, your arsenal of sonic gear is quite unique. Could you tell us more about your process of recording?
S: I was keen to incorporate my Missing Music project into a more traditional band setup – though what we do with AROLB is far from traditional! My contribution during jams and improvisations have so far been self-contained, meaning I haven’t incorporated any sampling of other musicians; however it’s something I’m keen to do in the near future.
R: How compositions were made on a technical level – most of the time I brought in physical tapes that I made on the cassette 4-track, which serves as either a melodic or textural basis for group improvisations. With Dom joining at the second session a wider rhythmic palette was possible and new pieces came out of the new bass/drums interplay. The loops are made from a combination of these sources.
A direct cut from a commercial pre-recorded tape, like an audiobook or album. Sound/music parts are recorded using the 4 channels of the recorder from records or from micro-cassette dictaphones, field recordings or played in live instruments, via a sound-on-sound process and trial & error to create chance-driven variations of the original source material stems from the 1st recording session were re-sampled as tape loops for the second session.
The cover art evokes a universe somewhere between a dusky mirage and a moon-shaped pilgrimage through ancestral memory. What were you reaching for in the design? Are there symbols hidden in there we might miss?
The album artwork is about the feeling of being overwhelmed by your environment and the weight of history, finding a path towards discovery through the fracturing of personal and cultural identity.
The theme of ‘otherness’ is explored through the use of fragments of architectural ruins, arranged in a stately manner that points to east asian calligraphy but otherwise only has an imagined meaning. The front cover is also a nod to the aesthetics of Geinoh Yamashirogumi covers, whereas a connection to 70s folk is made with a text-heavy back cover reminiscent of the ones from Transatlantic.
There’s an interesting roster of contributing artists, from Yoshino Shigihara on vocals, Taishogoto and percussion, Jah Wobble’s affiliate Clive Bell on wind instruments, Dominic Kennedy on fretless electric bass, Francesca Ter Berg on cello and The Comet Is Coming’s drummer Maxwell Hallett. How did you go about choosing the guest musicians?
R: Most of the guest artists are long time friends – so it’s a mixture of familial gathering and taking advantage of each individual’s speciality to propel the overall potency of the music. Also as the record is linked to the radio show and all have been guests on the show.
Clive is Max’s dad and a veteran of London’s avant-garde/improvised music world. Together with Yoshino they create an earthly folk-adjacent antidote to our obscure and processed environment.
Dom is a surprise mutual friend and also integral to my London musical beginnings. He plays the fretless and fits right into the sound of 80s experimental and the era of early digital music technology that we love. Old friend Francesca is a fantastic string player in the klezmer tradition and beyond – got her in to provide some lushness.
How did it feel stepping out of the studio and into a live space?
The music has been in the most part made from group improvisation, so the live environment is the most natural space for it to exist. We miss having Yoshino’s voice and energy and her unique percussion skills, but have adapted some of her parts in ways that can either be performed with more precision, or as ways to have further dialogue with antiquated technologies, in order to create a sonic space that exists on multiple levels.
S: Live performance has always been at the core of this project, it’s how we developed this music from the very beginning. We don’t “write” music in a traditional sense. Knowing that Yoshino wasn’t able to join us for our album launch, Rai and I spent many weeks reorganising the live set in order to incorporate her with the help of my Roland SP404 sampler. It was quite cool to resample our own material and repurpose it which gave the music a new character different to that which is heard on the LP.
Kit Records has become a torchbearer for the leftfield frequencies in London. How did your connection with Richard Greenan begin and what made Kit the right home for this record?
S: We both knew Richard through mutual friends and after initial conversations, it turned out that circle was smaller than we realised. We were fans of Kit’s approach and Richard loved the album demos, so we knew he would treat the release with the care and attention we wanted.
Last but not least. What can we expect next after this release ?
We’re working on a few exciting collaborations which we hope will surface toward the end of this year. Catch us perform at EKKO Festival in Bergen, Norway.
‘A Record of Living Beings’ is out now via Kit Records. Buy a vinyl copy from Inverted Audio Record Store and digital from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Shells ft. Yoshino Shigihara
2. Farewell (Jen)
3. Power and Sleep
4. Of Living
5. Swan Song (PSS)
6. After Lunch Khæn ft. Dominic Kennedy
7. Yuki-Onna ft. Clive Bell
8. Eternal Undulation ft. Betamax
9. Present (Jen) ft. Francesca Ter-Berg
10. Farewell (Jen) [Radio Edit / Bonus Track]
11. Depth of Field ft. Seaming To [Bonus Track]
