Hidden Terrain by Hyphae – my first EP. A step deeper into the art of world building which I deeply admire.
6 songs – which I started writing in the end of 2022, and primarily completed with the participation in a month long residency in September 2024 and the collaboration with my producer Proda from October 2024.
The creation of Hidden Terrain has been an engagement with the subconscious and an effort to reconsider that which resides on the surface.
What is this emotion, experience or phenomena really a portal to? How do we find strong foundations in these landscapes?
Hidden Terrain is: inspired by the landscapes that healed me and showed me what it takes to thrive in any circumstance. Hidden Terrain is: inspired by the journey that I have taken to try to be the best version of myself.
After all of the songs were written and produced and mixed and mastered and ready to be released into the world, I came to develop a symbol through sketching and painting that felt representative of the portal that these songs and this body of work was created from.
The circles at the top represent the Hidden Terrain. The subconscious nested inside of the mind and body/bodies that carry us. The circle below representing the continuation, the growth, the way forward.
This drawing of mine is layered upon a photo from the Makoshika badlands. Makoshika is an alternate spelling of a Lakota phrase maco sica meaning land of bad spirits or “bad lands.”
The formations in the photo look kind of like mushrooms to the mycelium minded, which is a relation to my name Hyphae. Hyphae are the single filaments that make up mycelium (which is where mushrooms comes from). They form vital symbiotic relationships in the soil, absorbing nutrients with their special enzymes, and helping plants absorb nutrients for their uptake.
I loved finding out about the meaning behind Makoshika, as it inspired the symbology that I later externalized through my painting and drawing. The maco sica, or badlands, are known that way because they are hard to travel through. The same can be said for the subconscious, as it may be impacted by past traumas and old grievances that are begging to be integrated to build a stronger spirit.
The first song that I put out is called Venusian. This song wasn’t officially a part of my EP. It came from a poem that I wrote, written here:
I know we can exist in any lifetime, and have
My arms are outstretched for you
and as we move through dimensions,
my arms become wings,
and you let your wings show,
and we release into the atmosphere to experience something more
I can't shield my heart around you,
it's everything you know
A dot inside a circle is beaming red around my spine One scythe down a meridian calling me to the divine
The zenith to my nadir
They won't tell you what it's like to oscillate in the unknown,
How the energy permeates every atom and we are designed to feel it
Being the channel
Letting the water rush
The Earth give you patience
The air take you higher
And the fire transform
Held in every regard, especially when it's lonely Kindred spirits in the night,
paint my understanding as a humble creation,
and truth as the highest praise
Venus, associated with desire, pleasure, creativity and a cultivation of self love. The perfect way to begin to share my world.
The cover for my single Honeysuckle Fine came about from collaging a photo of a former lover picking a honeysuckle flower from a bush under the Southern California sun. The flowers poke through the fence with a vibrant red and orange color. They grow up from the top of the fence to catch the sun.
Layered with a photo of me with a white flower in my mouth, and these luxurious gloves I had picked up in Paris a few years ago as a gift to someone I love. This is a still from the music video.
Honeysuckle Fine was written in the mountains of Borinquen, with the sun shining, dogs out and about with me while I was picking coffee at the Forgotten Forest farm. I worked on that song in the beneficiado of the farm that night, with the soundscape of the coquis and the swirling spirits of the land.
Sometimes I describe my music as “future soul.” The making of this song is a tribute to that. In a moment where my soul comes alive, the music comes. But the whole vision coalesces sometime further in the future, at some point that I cannot really, and don’t really need to, know.
Pyramids was written in about 15 minutes during my first studio session with Proda, who is a major collaborator for Hidden Terrain. The beat that Proda played was completely transporting, mesmerizing, inspiring. I was taken to another place.
The music video for Pyramids was shot with Phairy of intentional creative at a couple different locations in Montana, where I was living temporarily for work in the spring of 2025. One of the places I would go frequently is called Four Dances, a place that has deep history to the Apsaalooke people who are indigenous to this region.
At one of the overviews at Four Dances, you can see these pyramid shapes with the way that the rock face is shaped like a triangle. The “pyramids” sit right in front of the Yellowstone River, and then move backward into a hilly landscape that rolls on and on.
The photo collage that I made for the Pyramids single comes from a layering of a photo that I took at Makoshika park in eastern Montana and a fisheye photo still from the Pyramids video. To me, the layering emits this other worldly sensation that I feel in those places, and that I also felt the first time I heard Proda’s beat.
This layering is reminiscent of the symbology of Hidden Terrain. The way that I layered a larger, expanded version of myself over another version of myself.
A lot of my work in the past 2.5 years has been trying to visualize the experience of spiritual evolution and growth, like Spirit Realms dark and mysterious travel through locked doors, and my song vibrational pull eliciting the start of this growth, Hidden Terrain took these themes and came to be more playful with them.
The When it Snows song and video expands on this playfulness by externalizing the emotions that I felt going through heartbreak. In this case, I use makeup to show on my face what I am actually feeling inside, whether that is anger and frustration or sadness and trust. Contrasted with a peaceful but icy environment, after one of the last snows of the winter, the surroundings speak to walking the final stride of cold and bare before the next bloom.
There is still more to be said about the inspirations and continuations from each of the songs on the EP. But for now, the visuals have helped to lead us on a journey of reflection, connection, and growth.
Welcome to Hyphae World
Xx
EMILY DAVIS 