Cheng Daoyuan - Arrow from Morrow(OST) jewel case CD / digital download / obi / 8-pages insert / limited edition of 120

1. 迴 Reformed (to last) 3:20
2. 揚突 Dendrite Calls 13:39
3. 複刺 Stimulus Circle 5:40
4. 迫想 rTMS 5:46
5. 遺盡 Debris of Here 11:10
6. 間落 In Blur 4:48
7. 除我 Or else, besides 4:52
8. 受 Received (at first) 4:44
9. Crevice and Unfolded 8:39

Music composed and produced by Cheng Daoyuan
Conception by Wu Wenyi and Cheng Daoyuan

‘Romance Sonámbulo (Federico García Lorca)’ recitation in tracks 1, 5, 7, and 8, by Gala Maria
Field recording materials by Wu Wenyi
Mixed by Cheng Daoyuan
Mastered by Thomas Stadnicki

Cover photography by Wu Wenyi
Insert photography by Jungle Chiang and Wu Kaichieh
Artwork, design, and layout by Cheng Daoyuan

Taiwanese sound artist Cheng Daoyuan has been actively expanding his sonic aesthetics into diverse fields in recent years. In 2023, he collaborated with choreographer Wu Wenyi as the sound producer and co-creator of the structural design for the dance theater production “Crevice, Unfolded, Arrow from Morrow”. The work explores with self-awareness, the cycles of repetition and stripping between the self and the external world.

In the soundtrack album “Arrow from Morrow”, Cheng Daoyuan crafts a tense and suspended atmosphere through fragmented textures and sequential patterns, transforming twitching, blurry imagery into his signature sound aesthetics. The connection between the theater space and performers’ physical sensations forms a vital thread in his sonic development. Distorted timbres oscillate between contrasts of fullness and emptiness, balancing spatial dynamics while transcending corporeality, and engaging in a dialectical confrontation with the self. For this project, Cheng further experiments with intricate, diverse compositional structures and styles, marking a significant breakthrough in his creative journey.

This hour-long soundtrack incorporates elements of industrial, noise, electronic, musique concrète, and drone. As the opening track, “Reformed (to last)” serves as entrance music, with its layered repetitions and warped vocal elements metaphorically representing the axis of self-confrontation. “Dendrite Calls”, the second track, serves as a scattered starting point, weaving fragmented sounds into a dreamlike, extended narrative, building tension through the deconstruction of field recordings. Tracks “Stimulus Circle” and “rTMS” represent the core of violence, transitioning from industrial beats to chaotic noise waves, embodying the peak of confrontation and the focal point of pressure.

“Debris of Here”, the fifth track, introduces a poetry recital to reveal the text that underpins the entire work, accompanied by descending piano keys that evoke a melancholic atmosphere. Tracks six through eight form a cohesive chapter, where emotions follow the changes in timbre and rhythmic patterns—rising, plunging, reverberating, and gradually expanding. Poetic texts and reconstructed elements of field recordings echo and refocus on the core theme of the work. The exit music, “Crevice and Unfolded”, gathers the remaining emotions into solemn, extended phrases. Subtle disturbances linger within the sustained soundscape as granular, threadlike, and fragmented sonic layers ripple and spread in endless cycles. In the end, only the creases of the self remain.

The boundaries between sections blur, as ambiguity becomes the key to delving inward. This work seeks to create an axis that drifts yet converges, weaving consciousness and emotion through the reconstruction and projection of text and bodily language, hidden within the far side of sound. Over this hour, time is stripped of meaning by the facets of emotion, as the frequencies draw forth marrow-like intensity—magnifying to the edges, and returning to the dawn.