This is a song called Rained Down — a bass-driven track, originally written on guitar and Fender Rhodes, where complex-yet-subtle layers of textural sounds ebb and flow to create a distorted, other-worldly and dreamlike environment for a voice that speaks about reaching through uncertainty to catch your dreams.
From the second verse “ Ghost-like face uncertainty, one moment you’re trapped the next you’re free, a sea of dreams the people need, and the last thing you can’t see yourself.”
Shot on 35mm film, Mark Howden’s Sun is Through draws inspiration from the remoteness and grandeur of the New Zealand landscape and from the allure of aerial photography.
In 2001 while strapped to the door of a little Cessna photographing the landscape, the first impression I had was that I was seeing familiar things from a new perspective. Roads I had driven on, beaches visited or camped, sometimes an intimate knowledge of certain areas, houses or buildings. I was seeing it apart from what I knew.
I had this constant awareness too that the subject I was involved with would change, because I could see some of this process at work from the plane. Working with this footage now evokes this concept —now though with the perspective or what has changed.
The landscapes are from another reality, the project is now a dream.
Turns and Returns was released last week, completing four-sixths of the Dreams EP 2025. Thanks Frequency State and (the now defunct) Jahrund for including it in their playlists!
Frequency State: Slow Motion System: Downtempo and Trip-Hop
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The true beauty of something lies not in its bold pronouncements, but in its hidden nuances. In the almost-there, the nearly-not, the subtle friction that creates something entirely new.
Turns and Returns finds inspiration in exploring the exquisite, often overlooked drama unfolding in the fractional spaces. Here, the familiar is reimagined in the creative process of finding inspiration in unexpected visual and auditory landscapes where familiar daily sounds are woven into an unforeseen experience.
“Turns and Returns” is the forth track from Mark Howden’s Dreams EP, a 2025 release characterised by a dreamy, otherworldly aesthetic. The track is a collaboration between Howden, a music producer, and the digital artist known as Gaming.
Mark Howden 