Music by Kishore Minifie Ryan. Words taken from interviews with Yun Ju Chou, Samaan Fieck, Elisha Hsu, Jimmy Lin, Tilly-Juls Ross-Theodore, Kris Shih and Cleo Weng. Vocals, harmonium and drums performed by Kishore Minifie Ryan. Cello performed by Anna Orzech. Mixed and mastered by Nick Huggins.

These songs are the soundtrack to two short documentary films: 'I Haven't Died Before' and 'Children'. Both films were shot in 2014 during three months Kishore spent at Treasure Hill Artist Village in Taipei, Taiwan where he was an artist in residence as part of the group Murmuration.

‘I Haven’t Died Before’ is a short documentary shot on a smartphone. A foreigner’s look at Taipei and its residents, the film includes conversations about death, dream and pets. It incorporates three short songs, also recorded on a phone, which were composed by converting portions of the dialogue from the interviews into melodies. The selections of dialogue, in addition to providing the lyric material, correspond directly with the pitch material. The melodies were written by taking the 26 letters of the alphabet and dividing them into seven groups of three or four letters. Each group of letters was assigned to one note in a seven note-scale. Using this process, the selected dialogue was transformed, letter by letter, into melodic phrases. The dialogue was sourced from interviews with three residents of Taipei, Kris Shih, Cleo Weng and Jimmy Lin.

The second film ‘Children’ was made using a similar process to ‘I Haven’t Died Before’ but it was filmed on a digital camera instead of a smartphone and focuses more specifically on the subject of children. The footage was shot during a road trip around Taiwan and the film includes interviews with two residents of Taipei, Elisha Hsu and Yun Ju Chou as well as two of Kishore’s friends from Australia, Samaan Fieck and Tilly-Juls Ross-Theodore.

Special thanks to Peter Emptage and Nick Huggins for their persistent and enthusiastic encouragement.A warm thank you to Anna Orzech, Samaan Fieck, Travis Hung, Yun Ju Chou, Elisha Hsu, Kris Shih, Cleo Weng, Jimmy Lin, Tilly-Juls Ross-Theodore, Pooja Gupta, Haydn Green, Errol Green, Ben TD, Christopher Bolton, Treasure Hill Artist Village, Little Lake Records and Obei Gong for the kindness and help and Vy Tran, Max Ryan, Janet Gardener, Carolyn Minifie, Bill Tys, Cecelia Ryan, Jim Minifie, Andrew Dredge, Jenny Pham, Jim McLeod, R-Coo Tran, Liam Neam, Cordell Ryan and the rest of Kishore’s family and friends for their love and support.

This is a Little Lake Records / Obei Gong release.