Credits

Music by Wil Bolton
Mastered by Alex at quiet details studios
Artwork by quiet details in collaboration with Wil Bolton
Design by quiet details

Reviews

“Starting the year as they mean to go on, qd flew out of the traps last week with their first monthly offer of 2025. ‘South Of The Lake’ comes from Manchester-based Wil Bolton and is inspired by a spring road trip he took in South Korea. The tracks, he says, are drawn from “moments of stillness and quiet in temples, nature reserves and a tea garden”. The recordings centre around field recordings made on location and augmented later by all manner of instrumentation, everything from stones and pine cones from Korea to an OP-1, Buchla Easel Command and an Arturia Microfreak.

It is glorious stuff. ‘Sun Tree Trail’ is utterly lovely, you can almost hear the rays of sunshine dappling on the ground. As if to underline the point, as I was typing an email landed from Wil where he said he’d made a couple of videos in the actual locations that inspired the tracks. There’s one for ‘Sun Tree Trail’, which is exactly what I was imagining. Musically, it comes on like Penguin Cafe limbering up, you almost expect the track to suddenly burst into a song, which of course it doesn’t because it doesn’t need to. It’s great just as it.” – Moonbuilding

“The name of Wil Bolton sounds familiar for a majority of followers and lovers of modern day adventurous ambient music. This sound artist has a substantial catalog and signed his materials for a myriad of valuable indie labels in touch with reflective electronic music, microtonalism, lowercase, and ambient sound mapping. Too many to be named but we can mention a few; among other albums, the preciously melancholic and semi-classical orchestrated micro ambient-ish Marram (Fluid Audio, 2015) and Like Floating Leaves (laaps, 2023). With South of the Lake, inevitable contemplative sound artists from the digital era come to mind for the shrouded and diaphanous soundscapes: Olan Mill, Yui Onodera, Taylor Deupree, Tobias Hellkvist, and many others who design and celebrate balmy and transportive electronic pads and solemn sonorous melodies.

South of the Lake is a meticulously crafted soothing ambient release where processed micro-sounds and green field recordings interact with meandering textures and almost glitch-esque bass lines, everything floating in a vast and sentient spaciness. Imagine On Land by Brian Eno shifted into a more Zen-like conceptual aesthetic background where spiritual energy flows in a beautiful garden of essences and you will approximately have an idea. The album works like a solitary promenade on an oasis of lush textures and opal colors; a mind trip in search of a new arcadia.

Warmly recommended for those who are into textural, timbral, sculpted, and discreetly melodic minimal ambient works forged by Harold Budd, Robert Rich, Vidna Obmana, and Hiroshi Yoshimura.” – Igloomag

“I’ve regularly written about Quiet Details releases here, and, on the strength of their first release of 2025, it seems like it will be another year of high quality, gently reflective albums. Wil Bolton’s contribution to the series was inspired by journeys around South Korea, featuring accumulated field recordings, instruments found and played on his journey, and electronic arrangements of extreme subtlety. In many ways, what Bolton has delivered with South Of The Lake is the very essence of what Quiet Details founder Alex Gold was seeking to achieve with this series. Pieces like the standout ‘Sun Tree Trail’ are deeply contemplative, evoking the Buddhist notion of being the still point in the turning world, wherein the listener is surrounded by bird calls, running water and a textural accompaniment of singing bowls and synths that rest lightly and comfortingly upon you. Last year, I spent some time at Lake Shrine in Los Angeles, not far from Pacific Palisades. It was a transcendent experience, and one of the most significant places I’ve ever had the privilege to visit. My only disappointment was the sound of cars whizzing down the mountain toward the Pacific Coast Highway, something that took some intense meditation to ignore completely. If I ever get to go back, South Of The Lake is what I would choose to listen to while there. Bolton’s album is a truly beautiful listening experience.” – Further.

“Anytime I check out a new album, I do my best to go in blind. I allow myself to simply listen and interpret with as little preconceived notions about what I am hearing as possible. In this case, I am ever so grateful that I went with this method as just from the very first airy tone, this album is an instant stress melt. The purely meditative quality stuck me instantly with its long tones and tranquil quality. It was only after my first listen through that I read up on the album’s concept and inspiration, which instantly made sense. The album was influenced in its entirety by Wil’s journey around South Korea. Having stayed in the country myself for some time, it instantly felt so familiar as it conjured up the times in which I got to experience the Korean countryside, standing amongst the lush green hills and feeling the serenity of the world immediately around me. 

The album features heavy elements of the traditional culture to include singing bowls, tingsha, stones, and field recordings of the Korean countryside with all of its depth of wildlife and natural environment. Wil takes this traditional sounds and pairs them with more modern electronic elements such as as the Arturtia Microfreak, OP-1, and various effect pedals to create something that sounds purely transcendental. He takes care to never overpower or drown out the natural and cultural elements that make this album so special. Rather, he uses these tools as a type of accoutrement to the naturalistic approach. Much of the album feels very much like standing on that grassy hill once again after stepping off of the train in Daegu. Taking a moment to look around myself and see the beauty that the natural world is capable of. 

While the natural and cultural elements are the focus of this album, they manifest and dominate to varying degrees. “Sun Tree Trail” is a track which focuses on much more on the melodic elements while “Early Morning Rain” leans heavily on that natural elements of the world, sinking deeply into the field recordings and taking a lofi approach to the more harmonic and melodic elements of the track. It all makes for such a wonderfully raw approach that leaves the refinement to the broad strokes while preserving the finer details, such as the sound of rain softly pattering on the ground and the sound of the wind on a lone hill. A beautiful amalgamation of sounds that brings tranquility and peace, plus a sense of warm memories for myself personally.” – Fringes of Sound

“Another album I regularly re-played is South Of The Lake by Wil Bolton. It is released on the Quiet Details label. Quiet Details is very actively promoting their new releases, which means that I must unfortunately say that the CD version is already sold out (which for this label is usually the case on or shortly after the release dates). But, there’s still digital, so no reason not to mention this beautiful album. 

South Of The Lake is inspired by a (spring) road trip around Honam, the southwestern region of Korea. The music radiates serene ‘moments of stillness and quiet in temples, nature reserves and a tea garden’. Many field recordings are taken from this journey – a temple, a tea garden, a nature reserve – and create an extra layer for the music. The bright atmosphere, fresh like spring indeed, is created with singing bowls, bells, windchimes etc, that matches perfectly with their electronic counterparts (a fascinating Cocoquantus among them). 

We’re nearing Spring again (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway), so be sure to make South Of The Lake part of your seasonal soundtrack.” – Ambientblog

“Inspired by a spring road trip around the Honam region of Korea, South of the Lake is the latest full-length solo album from London based Wil Bolton, an artist known for weaving environmental sounds from places all around the world into his musical creations. The album centers around field recordings Bolton gathered on his trip and knitted into serene soundscapes crafted with bass, synths, and effects pedals and enhanced by objects such as singing bowls, bells, glockenspiel, and wind chimes, as well as other tactile objects.” – Stationary Travels