Minotaur by Zenial (review)

Zenial is the name for the sound collage work by Polish sound artist Lukasz Szalankiewicz. His compact disc Minotaur contains 40 minutes of music that he claims “will appeal to fans of experimental electronica.” Five of the seven compositions on this disc were realized and recorded while the composer was in residence at the well-known Elektronmusikstudion EMS in Stockholm, Sweden, using Buchla and Serge synthesizers, samples, and various field recordings. The other pieces were extracted from a collaborative project with the Norwegian artist Jørgen Knudsen. The compact disc cover features an evocative image by the painter Wiktor Jackowski of a man’s face imprisoned behind a labyrinth form, fittingly representing the disc’s title.

The first track, Minotaur, is immediately captivating. We hear rich, analog synthesizer timbres that fade in and crescendo in such a way as to suggest that the repeated patterns are increasingly feeding back and quickly becoming uncontrollable. At about the 30-sec mark the piece reaches maximum amplitude, which, given the use of raw waveforms such as sawtooth waves, presents the listener with a challenging listening experience. While the repeated materials start to feed back, other layers build and diminish in waves. This process leaves rhythmic traces, or trails, akin to how a spectral composer might dynamically fade various partials of a complex, fused timbre. At the rather short length of just over 3 minutes, the listener is left with a craving for more. Functionally speaking, this track served well its introductory purpose.

Track 2, Lament of Ghoul, begins with a battle between various amplitude-modulated layers over a slowly propagating simple amplitude-modulation layer that uses a square-wave modulator. The composer combines slow-attack amplitude envelopes with a periodic series of crescendos. There is a sense of sheer sonic delight wherein the sounds themselves organically suggest their own development. This process imitates nature more so than, say, traditional Western tonal musical practices. This track also features a gradual unfolding of chant-like vocal samples that rapidly fade in and out and field recordings from Jerusalem and Gaza.

Hades, the third piece, presents subtler and sparser textures than the first two works. We hear a poignant, triple-meter ostinato and crescendo sweeps with time-stretched mate-rials, against a background with cricket-like sounds. Experienced separately, this track might be perceived as overly simplistic and uninteresting. But in the context of the whole disc, it serves an ambient, ear-expanding function.

Track 4, Soul Check, is from the aforementioned collaborative project with Jørgen Knudsen, recorded live at a club in Braunschweig, Germany. This piece opens with an aperiodic ostinato sample that oscillates between high- and low-frequency sine-wave sustains that could be described as screeches or screams. At various points other, brief, amplitude-modulated sounds enter the texture, adding an element of destabilization. The ostinato layers repeat at different rates. In combination, they sound unpredictable and chaotic, similar to hearing several simultaneous pulse patterns that are related by high prime numbers.

Track 5, Serapeum, begins with a low-frequency drone texture that undulates or vibrates rapidly. Gradually sampled layers are methodically brought into the piece, repeated and often in the disguise of a drone. The samples range from instruments to dripping water sounds, all of which suggest a virtual space because of how they are spatialized in the mix. All of the layers repeat in a static fashion not unlike Brian Eno’s ambient work. Enjoyment of this piece is undoubtedly premised on one’s appreciation of the beating that occurs when rhythmic patterns come in and out of phase.

In many respects Gorgona, track 6, is not unlike track 5, but the undulating layers are much louder and more menacing. Beneath a repeated, filtered sawtooth wave sounding like a telephone busy signal, we hear time-stretched or convolved layers that dynamically move with respect to amplitude, space, and time. Gradually the sawtooth’s filter opens to reveal more upper-partial content, while the underlying layers solidify and fade out. Because of its rawness...