Scottish artists Hanna Tuulikki and Tommy Perman are turning bat calls into club tracks in their new album, Echo in the Dark.Ad 0:00 Click for sound 0:00 / 0:00 Set for release in late August, the album transforms the ultrasonic echolocation of UK bat species into electronic productions.
Every beat and melody on the record is built from bat recordings made audible with heterodyne bat detectors, then layered with Tuulikki’s vocals, with no synthesizers involved.The project began in 2022, when Arbroath arts venue Hospitalfield commissioned Tuulikki to create work inspired by bats following community bat walks held during the pandemic lockdowns.
She invited producer Perman to collaborate, and together the pair built a library of recordings gathered from public submissions and Tayside Bat Group.The material premiered at “silent bat raves,” with attendees dancing with headphones as live bat detector feeds mixed into the DJ set outdoors at dusk.
That effort eventually grew into a full 11-track album with each track centering on a single species.Perman told Positive News the variation between them surprised him, singling out the lesser horseshoe bat’s “beautiful rippling calls” while comparing the Daubenton’s bat’s clicks to a jazz drummer’s syncopation.
Referred to by its creators as “a love letter to club culture,” the album promotes ecological listening as an unlikely but genuine source material for dance music, arguing the frequencies already exist in nature.Echo in the Dark is available for pre-order now on Bandcamp, including a vinyl edition of the record.
Listen to a preview below....