Tag: Zanias (Page 2 of 3)

Following one of the most traumatic years of her life, Alison Lewis is back as ZANIAS to present more of her emotional catharsis to music.

The first fruit of labours is the excellent ‘Simulation’ which is a bittersweet ode to the Australian’s adopted home of Berlin where she “landed here at twenty-three”.

“This city is a fable, nowhere else to go. This city has enabled us all and it’s breaking my soul” she sighs. But as her vulnerable soul is bared, she counters with the view that “in a world so f*cking awry, let’s talk about our favourite ways to get high…”

From the forthcoming album ‘Chrysalis’, out soon on Lewis’ own Fleisch Records, ‘Simulation’ itself while is typically introspective and moody in that ZANIAS vein with a hauntingly contralto vocal. However it is also eminently danceable and occasionally sparkles instrumentally in a manner that is more akin to Lewis’ other project LINEA ASPERA with Ryan Ambridge.

All these contrasting feelings are captured on the superb visual accompaniment directed by Janis Reichert who was found by ZANIAS live bandmate Laura Bailey aka NEU-ROMANCER on an Italo party boat!

Accurately capturing the feeling expressed that “In a broken reality, everything’s shattering”, the eerie slo-mo effect was achieved by all concerned filming to ‘Simulation’ being speeded up to 138BPM. The end result captures a joyful escapist euphoria with the rave angels at the Untertage club cast as extras.

Alison Lewis has said she has made more music in a single period that any other time of her life and as well as the ‘Chrysalis’ album, there will be ZANIAS live dates which will include Europe, the UK and Canada. “I have soooo much to share” she said on her social media, “this is just the beginning…”

‘Simulation’ is available as a digital single on the usual online platforms and direct from https://zanias.bandcamp.com/

ZANIAS 2023 UK live dates include:

Southampton 1865 (14th February), Liverpool Quarry (15th February), Glasgow Ivory Blacks (16th February), Manchester Rebellion Club (18th February), London Lexington (19th February), London Camden Assembly Hall (17th March) – further information on these and other shows at https://swampbooking.com/zanias/

https://www.facebook.com/zoe.zanias/

https://twitter.com/Zanias__

https://www.instagram.com/zoe_zanias/

https://www.patreon.com/zanias

Text by Chi Ming Lai
16th January 2023

LINEA ASPERA released their self-titled debut album in 2012. A collection of dark but danceable electronic pop, before any new listeners had an opportunity to discover and savour them, the duo had already disbanded in 2013.

One of the nearest partnership comparisons from the past was Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter. But a bit like OMD, LINEA ASPERA produced clever electronic pop with scientific themes acting as symbolism for the less-savoury side of life. Counterpointing Alison Lewis’ telling of terrible things were the beautiful melodies and engaging rhythm construction of Ryan Ambridge.

The duo resurfaced in 2019 with the release of the ‘Preservation Bias’ compilation of EP tracks and rarities, leading to a reunion with live shows around Europe including a triumphant gig at Electrowerkz in London and the announcement of a second LINEA ASPERA album. While under her ZANIAS moniker, Lewis has fully involved herself into instrumentation, programming and production, for ‘LP II’ she has left that all to Ambridge, with the two working remotely in different countries and using Dropbox for the three distinct stages of instrumental / vocals / mix.

Channelling her anxiety and anger, Lewis’ emotive and intense vocal delivery with the spectre of Lisa Gerrard looming uses words that intelligently relate the trials and tribulations of the human condition to aspects of physics and astronomy. Meanwhile Ambridge uses analogue production techniques with his synths and drum machines, so that they really do sound like they could have emerged from a bygone era.

The vocal and instrumental elements combine for a vintage minimal electronic pop sound, but with the twist of an accomplished singer as opposed to the off-key out-of-tune vocal efforts that have often spoiled music of this type in the past.

With a sparkling arpeggio in homage to THE KNIFE and their ‘Silent Shout’, the opening song ‘Solar Flare’ is glorious, with an almost gothic folk delivery over the quietly pumping backing to provide a unique resonance, using the science of the stars as a metaphor for the observation of pain and suffering.

Using a steadier paced octave shifting bassline and the ominous tones of a string machine, ‘Redshift’ uses another astronomy phenomenon for Lewis to bear her soul, declaring “I’d like to choose you to fill the void”. ‘Equilibrium’ combines HI-NRG with darkwave, recalling the American duo SOFT METALS with its looping techno hypnotism. The harrowing words “Take my flesh, take my bones, I don’t use them anymore” document more of Lewis’ existential woes over Ambridge’s mechanised setting .

But with building bursts of synth, the longest track on the album ‘Entanglement’ sees Lewis saying she is “not used to feeling good”. But despite her declaring “you couldn’t fascinate me more” and “this is the warmth”, is it all over as she asks herself “am I spinning back to earth?”.

Despite using a bright keyboard hook, ‘Entropy’ gets serious about the gradual decline into disorder in some parts of the world; with elements of classic SOFT CELL in Ambridge’s infectious electro backdrop, Lewis offers in her statement of resignation that “well it all falls apart, just like everything else does” in a manner which lyrically could be Marc Almond.

With Lewis disillusioned again with love and announcing that the girl who doesn’t need anything is actually a fantasy, ‘Decoherence’ connects to more physics themes via a cosmic synth lattice leading to a metronomic backbone helped along by an enticing bassline triplet.

On the superb ‘Event Horizon’, the cutting synthesized hooks, disco drum box rhythms and supreme vocals confirm how LINEA ASPERA have become such a highly rated and beloved duo and why their magnificent melodic melancholy has been so missed over the past few years.

The solemn ‘Wave Function Collapse’ closes this second LINEA ASPERA album away from the uptempo nature occupying most of it with a moody quantum mechanics analogy. In distress, Lewis cannot help her venting her frustration, with the glaring admission that “I can’t do this anymore, I made the right choice this time and it’s making me ill…”

Science and electronic pop are natural bedfellows but despite the pain and anguish through this record, LINEA ASPERA have paradoxically made a very seductive one. Delightfully uncluttered with each part having its role, ‘LP II’ maintains a dark austere without being depressing. As well as being emotive, it is catchy too and highlights why LINEA ASPERA floor the competition. ‘LP II’ may be just eight tracks after eight years, but it is quality over quantity, so up yours Daniel Ek, the rather (he)artless CEO of Spotify.

LINEA ASPERA’s return of has been well worth the wait and with BOY HARSHER having gained much of the attention recently for their brooding style of electronic pop, while they are very good, LINEA ASPERA are even better.

Welcome back Alison Lewis and Ryan Ambridge, modern electronic pop is so much better with you both together as part of it.

‘LP II’ is released as a vinyl LP and download, available from https://lineaaspera.bandcamp.com/album/linea-aspera-lp-ii

https://www.facebook.com/lineaaspera

https://www.instagram.com/linea_aspera_/

https://soundcloud.com/linea-aspera/albums

Text by Chi Ming Lai
7th September 2020

Zoe Zanias, the solo alter-ego of Alison Lewis has released two EPs ‘Extinction’ and ‘Harmaline’, both written and produced in Berlin.

With influences as diverse as MADONNA and DEAD CAN DANCE, her solo work has been in more abstract territory compared to the minimal synth of LINEA ASPERA with which she made her name.

While LINEA ASPERA have reunited following a seven year hiatus, in between Lewis was a member of KELUAR and running her label Fleisch Records. But more recently, Zanias has been her main focus with the debut album ‘Into The All’ coming out in 2018.

Generally working alone from her home studio and only collaborating via Dropbox, Alison Lewis is very much an independent artist, deeply immersed in her thought and creative process, driven by her interest and studies in anthropology and archaeology. And with these two particular EPs, Lewis has undoubtedly stepped up a gear.

The proximity of their release appears to make ‘Extinction’ and ‘Harmaline’ companion EPs, but both differ considerably in concept as bodies of work. While ‘Harmaline’ comprises of introspective songs focussing on personal relationships, the dystopian ‘Extinction’ looks at the scary prospect of environmental catastrophe caused by climate change.

Composed in Berlin but mixed in Queensland, Australia as the bushfires were burning, ‘Extinction’ is a dark, hard hitting statement capturing Lewis’ anxiety and anger at the human race’s arrogance towards life on earth.

“I channeled in ‘Extinction’ this ambivalent mixture of hope and despair that I feel towards our species that is growing day by day.” she said on her Facebook page.

The thundering title track does not mask Lewis’ pain and despair, in a bout of atmospheric body music which is both highly emotive and thought provoking.

Telling home truths and using sections of Greta Thunberg’s notable “How dare you?” speech, ‘Carbon’ is a ferocious techno attack on billionaires and corporations selfishly putting greed first, while bursts of screeching frogs act as aural symbolism that surely the survival of the earth is more important than capitalism.

‘Endling’ carries a mighty EBM flavour, capturing a hypnotic gothique and Lewis in a forlorn anguish that is simultaneously unsettling and beautiful, the shattering percussion in the company of piercing processed samples of an Eastern Whipbird, an insectivorous passerine native of Australia.

Beginning with a spacey rumbling squelch and countered by eerie angelic falsettos over a four-to-the-floor beat, ‘(There Is No) Mothership’ is a dense instrumental statement which Lewis says is “a wordless reflection on our vulnerability as inhabitants of a single planet with no current means of escape”; the message is certainly in the music, uncomfortable but strangely captivating.

After the haunting spectre of ‘Extinction’, ‘Harmaline’ is no more cheery, inspired by a psychedelic-induced ego death and painful personal relationships; but what the two EPs have in common is existential uncertainty. Using more minimal instrumentation in a manner more akin to LINEA ASPERA, it sees Lewis using her music as her own therapy.

The melodic darkwave of the ‘Harmaline’ title song sweeps over danceable metronomic beats, while the solemn ‘Limerence’ sees the howl of a chopping violin penetrating the house derived rhythms in a song about unrequited love.

Pained in the aura of Lisa Gerrard, ‘Excision’ recalls elements of THE XX and plays with analogue drum machine snaps and the harsh graphic viewpoint that failed love can be compared to a tumour that needs removing.

A drowning drone acts as an unconventional intro to ‘Ameliorate’ which then unexpectedly morphs into Vangelis with its sweeping overtones. But as the noise percussion kicks in unison with a pulsating synthetic bassline, it moves round in a three chord structure like THE STOOGES ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ while Lewis admits “I can’t resist it. This is going to hurt”.

Equalling her work with LINEA ASPERA, ‘Extinction’ captures the world’s looming catastrophe if warnings are not heeded, while ‘Harmaline’ highlights the tensions of isolation and deterioration within what is supposed to be the confines of a loving union.

This is all heavy stuff but it makes for outstanding thought-provoking art. With Lewis’ two cathartic creations, her own conscience is now clear.

‘Extinction’ + ‘Harmaline’ are both available as downloads direct from https://zanias.bandcamp.com/

https://www.zanias.co/

https://www.facebook.com/zoe.zanias/

https://www.instagram.com/zoe_zanias/

https://www.patreon.com/zanias

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6ouPbOWchZ9U2ojCpMF9Vv

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Simon Helm
18th April 2020