NOTEP Turns Coral Reef Conservation Into a Six-Track Electronic EP

Pakarang is the Thai word for coral. It's also the title of the six-track EP NOTEP released on September 4, a record built from field recordings, Thai traditional instruments and ambient electronic production rather than anything meant to fill a dancefloor.

NOTEP, born Note Panayanggool, has been releasing music since 2010 and splits her time between Bangkok and Koh Tao, the diving island she calls her second home. On Koh Tao she's a local ambassador for Coral Gardeners, the reef restoration organization, and she runs High On Your Own Supply, a self-funded initiative built around sustainability and self-sufficiency. Pakarang, released through Platoon, is where that work and her music finally sit in the same project.

"Pakarang is probably my most personal project to date," she's said of the EP. "Pakarang means coral in Thai, and the EP uses coral reefs as a metaphor for resilience." The six tracks lean on ambient textures, ethereal vocals and field recordings pulled from the water around Koh Tao, with the reef standing in for something closer to home. "Coral reefs are extraordinary because they appear delicate, yet they build entire worlds," she's said. "The ocean also reminds me of the inner world. It contains mystery, beauty, power and vulnerability."

A video made from what the ocean throws back

Pakarang's lead single, "Radio," came out on Earth Day, April 22, with a video shot on the open water off Koh Tao. NOTEP wears a piece built by designer Eric Tobua out of reclaimed soda can tabs, with the skirt and hair ornaments woven from ghost nets and buoys pulled out of the ocean, a wardrobe made entirely from the kind of debris Coral Gardeners volunteers spend their days hauling off reefs. Visual artist Cyrus James Khan worked on the project's broader imagery. The second single, "Crystalize," followed in June. NOTEP's own line, around circular design and waste reduction, feeds the same loop: nothing about this project treats the environmental angle as a marketing layer bolted onto the music after the fact.

Where the EP sits in Thailand's electronic scene

Pakarang won't show up on a Bangkok club lineup. It's closer to the experimental, diaspora-spanning strain of Asian electronic music that Hong Kong DJ and musicologist Mengzy rounds up monthly on Mixmag Asia, where the EP got a nod in September alongside artists working in techno, bass and breaks. It's a more useful comparison than any pop chart: NOTEP isn't competing with festival headliners, she's working the same niche as producers who build records around field recordings and a concept rather than a BPM. Whether "the EP uses coral reefs as a metaphor for resilience" translates to repeat plays outside that circle is a fair question. What's not in question is that the partnerships are real: Greenpeace Thailand and the UNDP are both named as collaborators on the project, not just thanked in the liner notes.

Pakarang is out now via Platoon on the usual streaming services. The six tracks run under half an hour, built for headphones rather than a sound system, and "Radio" remains the clearest way in.

Cover artwork: official single art for 'Radio,' courtesy of Platoon.