Over the past decade under the zakè moniker, Indianapolis experimentalist, Zach Frizzell, has been responsible for some of the most delicately produced ambient compositions.
Spending his formative years playing drums and growing up on a diet of alt-rock, through constant exploration, Frizzel eventually found his natural habitat in experimentalism.
Also founder of the label, Past Inside the Present (home to the likes of Marine Eyes, Tyresta and City of Dawn), Frizzell is someone that quietly goes about his business with little fanfare. Staunch on collaboration and community focus, this ethos has seen him work alongside the likes fellow underground pioneers, Benoit Pioulard, bvdub, Joachim Spieth and Markus Guenter.
Consistent in his ideas and approach, this year alone has seen Frizzell deliver four albums under the zakè banner, and his latest, Dolere, is arguably the pick of them.
Two compositions both exceeding the 30-minute mark, in what is zakè’s lengthiest voyage of 2024 so far, Dolere is like a rolling miasma that shields and masquerades you from life’s ills. An addendum to zakè’s mission statement, which is to guide his listeners through the kind of labyrinth where a muted daze ensues.
Zakè - DolereTeaming up with Spieth’s Affin label with Guenter providing artwork design and layout, it’s a seamless match – the three respective artists forming a common bond in the notion of their crisp production and the exploration of the inner grains of sound. In zakè’s case, he searches at the greatest depths, and it continues on Dolere.
Beginning with the title track, zakè’s cascading textures and drones move freely to and from mediation dreamscapes to grainy, cinematic swells. Again, it’s down the production, which rivals some of the best ambient composition out there today.
On Dolera, zakè unveils his emotional side, splicing together crestfallen, white tunnel moodscape drone with the mediative aspects of deep listening. The latter influenced by the open space farmlands on the outskirts of his native Indianapolis and the tranquility these landscapes offer. At times so quiet, you can almost hear the blood running through your veins, and together with the title track, both offer the kind of glacial sonics that unshackle the mind from the chaos of population density and city living.
In that sense, Dolere could be considered reactionary and, by extension, punk. On the flipside, Frizzell carves out his own version of civic vitality. One that feeds into vast space and the abandonment it commands, and as the world continues to move at frightening speeds, it’s vital that artists like zakè continue to produce the art that they do in a bid to slow it down.
Dolere is out now via Affin. Purchase from Bandcamp.
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