Gavin Hellyer
Two outstanding drone masterpieces on show here. Zachary seems to have mastered the intricacies of subtle pitch and tempo fluctuation. This stuff is so good that I'm happy to speak of it in the same breath as La Monte Young's work and John Cale's Sun Blindness Music. I'm getting a very similar and comparable vibe. Well done Zach. Magnificent.
Favorite track: Positively Right On | For Fred Hampton.
My parents say that I used to make “cachunk-ka-chunka-chu” sounds when I was a little person. I remember these rhythms and the joy in discovering a nasty distorted percussion instrument by forcing blasts of air through my nasal cavities. I grew up immersed in an extremely vibrant art centric home. Both parents being visual artists, they seemed to nurture a community of creative and excentric folks. It was especially the young graduate art students my parents mentored that would eventually turn me on to counter culture art and music. In fact, I inherited the UNIVOX guitar I use today from one of these special people. West Texas cicadas during the summer months left a deep impression. Mixed heritage and mixed aesthetics. Mach Band effect describes the new color that resonates when two colors touch. All that to say… I am passionate about expressive / creative music. I see a plane. I see a skyline that if “rendered” acoustic would echo a long dynamic breathe. My boy Cenk Ergun. I am interested in present presence patient patience static stasis resonant resonance noisey noise depth. Listening, “Deep Listening” - Pauline Oliveros. Deconstruction. Making transparent the phenomenon of emotion and sound.
credits
released November 1, 2014
Treatment III
Zachary James Watkins
AiSF Session
October 16th, 2013
S I D E B
Jason Hoopes - Doublebass
Christina Stanley - Violin
Zachary James Watkins – Engineering / Mixing
Special Thanks to Bill Walter and Jeff Hanson for Engineering Assistance
Beautiful combination tones, and that ZW quirkiness that I like so much. What I find so special, and nearly funny, is that your (his) music doesn't seem like it should sound as good as it does. It sneaks up on a person. Besides ZW quirkiness, it is cerebral; you are (he is) cerebral. In fact, I venture to say that cerebral quirkiness is a considerable part of your (his) "mark" or "voice" and that is quite special. Many musicians or artists either never really find their mark or, when they do, don't recognize that they have done that.
You (He or ZJW) have (has) the corner on a special kind of a mark, and have (has) demonstrated that for a few years. On the one hand I don't think it is complete yet but, on the other hand it seems to me to be quite noticeable or prominent if one would but listen.
When I first heard the pauses (silences) I didn't connect to them right away. But then I was also just listening on the computer. The next time I put it through the sound system and then everything took on other dimensions. The silences actually 'breathed" which is quite something when one has digitally influenced material. I know you are an LP analog guy, but there will be some part of production that is digital. Your music transcends that, beautifully. Serves you right…
After listening to what you have, however, I really do not have any suggestion for changing the music; and you have mastered what you do have beautifully.
A tactile few words to say about Positively Right On by Zachary James Watkins
Tom Djll
I saw a clutch of eight palm trees with no heads like overtones standing on their ears in the salty flat patch they sprung out of. The developers pulled up those standing waves out of their heads seven years ago then five of them went south into the Heterodyne Flats. Hit a bump and the two guitars humped a drone B offa pffffat Delta crow’s neck. through that ZJW algorithm to slow it down about 817%. Then Highway 58 curved south-ways.
I don’t have to picture traveling around through the places this music dredges up – I’m doing it. If your mind maps the California desert east of San Bernardino, you got the territory. Zachary’s built up a big development out there, the largest empty kalif city in the desert humasphere. Ava is the south-north axis and John the west-east. Of the inhabited overtones, the first 17 streets drain blackberry soda juice that tips over into your ear cup when the correct voltage is applied.
supported by 10 fans who also own “M I X E D R A C E D”
Eerie, expansive, and breathtaking. This is ambient drone on an epic scale. The effect that some of these pieces have when they abruptly end is shattering -- these sounds become a part of your consciousness, and when they drop away, you're left in silence more intense than you've ever felt. Steven Moses
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