Electrical Minzu 35, by vegetable.machine.animal [vma] : a site-specific recording project, undertaken during October/November 2025, while on residence in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan.

Between the laneways off Minzu, Xinyi, Jinhua, and Chenggong Road is Ting Shuo Hear Say, a space that has sound at the centre of its purpose. For two months vma and DSLB called this residency home and a base for musical exploration, connection, and touring.

In these narrow thoroughfares that weave between the main roads, green-space is rare. Yet people install potted greenery to soften the concrete and marble, and wild-seeded plant-life thrives in the gaps and cracks. At these potted assemblies, and in close proximity to wheels of scooters and feet, vma would connect the leaves of Eternity Plants, ferns, and other flora to the modular synth via sensors. These sensors detect invisible voltage, bio-signals, inside the plants, signals that flow into the circuitry of the synth, converting the imperceptible electrical fluctuations into sound.

The environmental sounds audible to human perception are also, simultaneously, recorded. Conversations, dogs, vehicles, silence, jet fighters, and echo. The sonic interpretation of the internal world of plants, and the sound world of these laneways are then bound together, capturing moments of multiple lives lived in real time, seemingly seperate yet intimately connected.

This project takes place in public spaces: a cafe frontage, outside a Community University Project, in the carpark of Ting Shuo, and at the entrance to a local electrical repair shop. People were curious, asking questions, and were interested to listen to and interact with the process during the recording sessions. These electronic sounds, interpretations of the invisible aliveness of plants, offered an unexpected shift in perspective. Via the ears, this small part of the world just got a little bigger.

Only one recording contains overdubs. Early on in the process additional percussion was added, and then mostly removed as it added very little. There are also pre-recorded sounds stored in a sampler on the synth that were gathered during the residency; the strings of a Guzheng, the percussive sounds of tables and water containers, the plasma arc of Hsinchu artist Kai-Yu Lin’s Somatic Plasma Resonator – these sounds are all triggered by plant voltage.

Electrical Minzu 35 is released on digital, and physical [CD], format. It is available for purchase via Bandcamp and Subvert, and at shows.

Thanks: Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, Nigel Brown, and Esme, at Ting Shuo Hear Say. Te Kōkī/ New Zealand School of Music for use of studio. Creative NZ for funding. Kai-Yu Lin for the sounds from the Somatic Plasma Resonator. William at Cafe Bar, Fangi Yi Liu, Chen En He, OOOnie, and Cia Himiân Lí in Tainan. Also: Lars of Colour Domes, Immanuel Dannenbring, DJ Rex Chen & Buddha Tiger Dog, Reuben Zahl, Chang Deng-Yao. Made Mantle Hood at the TNNUA, Tainan National University of the Arts. The local 7/11, and thanks always to Chrissie xxx!