Kane Ikin (b.1982) is an Australian musician based in Melbourne. With his musical beginnings principally as a self-taught guitarist, early exposure to post punk/rock and electronic music sparked a desire for exploration beyond standard sounds, into synthesis, field recordings, found sound and heavily treated signal paths. Kane is most well know as one half of Solo Andata alongside Paul Fiocco who have released critically-acclaimed albums on Hefty, Deisre Path, and 12k. Solo Andata’s music goes to deep, dark places and is often made with homemade and found tools. For Solo Andata anything that makes noise is a potential instrument.

Contrail marks Kane’s debut solo release outside of Solo Andata and while the same sense of dark, warm space is present he returns to his roots and focuses more on shoegaze guitar experimentations, lo-fi sample manipulations and warped field recordings. He recorded everything through and onto old technology — aged analog consoles, reel-to-reel tape — and all heard through a hazy science fiction filter.

Steering away from the computer as a one-stop production tool, Kane’s recording process and mindset behind these songs makes for soft and lush sound. Pillow tones hover quietly over guitar plucks and warmly-distorted drones. “Sailing” finds a gentle, broken rhythm, made from found percussion looping underneath a bed of strummed acoustic and walls of inharmonic ambient texture while the title track bathes the listener in sleepy chords and touchable, organic field recordings.

Contrail comes packaged as a limited edition 7” pressed onto clear vinyl and includes a download card for the two vinyl tracks as well as two additional songs, thus creating a 4-song EP. The jacket is a heavy-weight chipboard stock printed with one PMS ink in the style of the previous 12k 7” releases.