zakè and City of Dawn : Ash

There’s a kind of musical alchemy when Zach Frizzell (zakè) and Damien Duque (City Of Dawn) come together. I first heard these two back in 2020 as Dawn Chorus and the Infallible Sea(along with Marc Ertel.) Their Azure Vista Records debut Liberamente was a breath of fresh air; blankets of sonic warmth and sublime tones that to my ears felt like an evolution in sound. Stepping into the New Age of melody and composition through tonal manipulation and hazy production, Liberamente was eye and ear opening musical transcendence to buzzing hearts and minds that were open to it.

That album led me to zakè and City Of Dawn’s work with Past Inside The Present and Zakè Drone Recordings, which was like discovering some new plane of existence not yet discovered. The world of ambient and new age music had been opened to me and I was ready for it. Frizzell and Duque were particularly prolific in their output, and if you’re ready to open your mind to the world of ambient music I can’t recommend albums like A Pale Shelter(PITP), Frizzell & Duque : A Sorrow Unrequited, Wander, Pinehaven, Tape Hymns(all on Zakè Drone Recordings) enough.

Following last year’s near perfect Agape, Frizzell & Duque return as zakè and City of Dawn to the Azure Vista Records fold with the equally engaging and transcendent Ash. Over the course of five meditative, lush tracks these two masters of the ambient/new age realm offer up a musical journey in lush production and hazy significance.

Lead single and title track “Ash” is the doorway into the record. A slow-moving elegance permeates the track; a sonic study in musical contemplation built in layers of tonal melancholy and what could either be static, rain, or circuital noise just under the surface. Fans of William Basinski, Brian Eno, and Stars of the Lid will find much to love here.

This is the genius of zakè and City of Dawn, their ability to build these majestic tonal universes though sound manipulation. It’s the sound of a buzzing mind slowing to a steady, single thought.

Besides “Ash” and the light-filled “Lo”, Ash is bookended with three gorgeous and epic tracks. We open on the 10 1/2 minute “Quiet Spirit” which encapsulates all the Frizzell and Duque have honed and built over the last few years. Subtle shifts in tone fill the listener with a kind of effervescent optimism; a sonic cathedral for meditative bliss as electronics turn from synthetic to organic before our eyes and ears. Likewise “Invocation” stuns in its 12 minute time frame, painting a technicolor vision of space and time coalescing in a kind of cosmic dance. Crackling static underlays the grand aural experience zakè and City of Dawn have built here for us. A galaxy seemingly dripping from a turntable needle.

“They Know Not” closes out this aural experience in dusty orchestral tones and blooming circuital beauty. A sanguine ending for us to savor, long after the last note wavers.

Ash is yet another stunning album from the team of zakè and City of Dawn, two modern pioneers of the ambient/new age scene. By now these two have built a discography of stunning grace and sparse, simple beauty. There’s not much more to say, other than drop the needle and get lost in all they have to offer. A music journey worth taking over and over again.

‘Ash’ arrives 8/11 on Azure Vista Records.