Desert Turtle is an album created by Mitsu Salmon and Kikù Hibino around ideas of shelter, landscapes, and migration. The songs blend ambiance, electronic beats, and emotive vocals to create a soundscape that draws from family history, voice, and geology.
Mitsu’s mother arrived from the wet and dense city of Fukuoka, Japan, to the vast and dry Mojave desert. She related to the turtle she found in the landscape, hiding in their shells and traveling with their home on their back. In Japan, a turtle was a symbol of longevity, and in the expanse of the Mojave desert, she felt a sense of infiniteness. However, across the mountains, there was the testing of the atomic bomb. As if such a thing still needed testing, she thought.
Desert Turtle is an album connected to these histories, places, and the current moment. To create the album, Mitsu spent time in the Mojave desert recording and writing.
Side A is a collaboration with sound artist and electronic musician Kikù Hibino. Voices in the Dunes takes from Mitsu’s field recording, and her mother’s voice overlaps with Mitsu’s singing. Subterranean explores heavy bass and lyrics related to underground testing. Side B uses Mitsu’s vocal looping and simple synths melodies and rhythms such as in the track Animism, which looks at the metaphor of the turtle and Bones about traveling with one’s ancestors.
Mixed and mastered by Ralph Loza through the Experimental Sound Studio. This album was made possible through a residency and support of Rogers Art Loft and Rogers Foundation.
