released December 24, 2023

zakè & Benoît Pioulard – eve (2023)

Winter’s most precious gift is its snow-muffled hush. eve, the first full-length collaboration between zakè and Benoît Pioulard, pays tribute to the kind of supernatural December night where fleeting moments of peace manifest in visible exhalations and crystalline silence.

Comprising four side-length pieces, eve arose from more than a decade’s worth of sound fragments, recovered and arranged into harmonic strata like photographs in a family album. For each chapter, zakè crafted the sonic bedrock from these remnants, and Pioulard added varying orchestrations of tape-processed guitar, voice, dulcimer, melodica, and synthesizer. The results strike a perfect balance between the idiosyncratic textures of each artist, while conveying the kinship of melancholy beauty that defines their solo works.

The title track, “eve”, rises with rich, low-end swells and the subtle scrape of a turntable stylus, suggesting light hail on a metal roof, or the comforting crackle of a fire in the next room. It is pensive and patient in its slow-moving expanse, a cold sun nesting behind gray clouds. “frost” sets in on swirls of Pioulard’s reverent voice, progressing into windswept drones and shimmering bells, which ripple across the stereo field throughout its glacial second half.

Side three, “pine”, evokes the imposing stature and strength of its namesake, and the eerie union of comfort and mystery that occurs in the depths of the forest. Across twenty minutes, a dark undercurrent is accented by soft-needle dulcimers and reedy whispers, eventually opening to a final few minutes of utter calm.

Monumental closer, “slept”, is sourced from the same sessions, and was added to round out the first anniversary, limited double-LP release of the album in late 2024. Its first half cycles in measured breaths as it builds, with buried vocal loops cresting and receding across a deeply layered whorl. Midway through, its rumbling peak leads into a barely perceptible key change, and a long-tail fade into hissing quiet and tenuous resolution. Here we find the edge of the wood, and a windless snowfall settling on an open field.


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zakè (aka Zach Frizzell) is the founder and head of Indianapolis-based Past Inside the Present, which has become a standard bearer for modern ambient and experimental artistry since its creation in 2018. In addition to PITP, he runs the collaboration-focused Zakè Drone Recordings, and has released for Affin Records, Azure Vista Records, Dunk!Records, Sonic Cathedral and others.

Benoît Pioulard (aka Thomas Meluch) is a Michigan-born, Brooklyn-based musician and photographer with an extensive body of work for kranky, Morr Music, A Strangely Isolated Place, Dauw, and others. Previous efforts for Past Inside the Present include the May/Atra LP (2019) and Silencer EP (2021), as well as many of the label’s album covers, which he shoots exclusively on Polaroid SX70 film.



Written and produced by zakè & Benoît Pioulard
Side A-C Recorded late 2023 in Indiana and New York
Side D Recorded mid 2024 in Indiana and New York
Mixed at Kaleidoscope Tone Studio by zakè
Mastered at Ambient Mountain House by James Bernard
Cover image by Benoît Pioulard on Polaroid SX70 film
Design and layout zakè

© 2024 Zakè Drone Recordings, ZD-028
℗ 2024 James and Margaret (ASCAP)
℗ 2024 Past Inside the Present Publishing (BMI)

Marketed, distributed, and phonograph copyright: Zakè Drone Recordings. Pressed, manufactured, and assembled in Warsaw, Poland.

zakedrone.com / pioulard.com




◾️◾️◾️ REVIEWS

"We’ve often mused on what makes a successful collaboration, but the truth is the best collaborations have a kind of magic to them that can’t be planned or replicated, and eve has that feeling of unforced serendipity.

As we’ve come to expect from Past Inside the Present, eve is joyful music to get lost in that rewards both attentive listening and blissful abandon.

Listening to eve, I’m reminded of this capacity that sound has for creating social spaces, for bringing us into relation with one another, sharing in joy and sorrow, celebrating the hope of what tomorrow may bring.”

-Joseph Sannicandro, A Closer Listen / Sound Propositions


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“Over three long form tracks, “eve”, “frost”, and “pine”, zakè & Benoît Pioulard gather lush sound fragments and bring them together into an epic 52-minute sound journey. One that unfurls into epic moments of spiritual exaltation, an organic oneness with Mother Nature, and that syncs you with that great cosmic hum.

For a few fleeting moments escape into its world, bask in the beauty, and find yourself immersed in this musical gift from two masters of sound.”

-J. Hubner, Complex Distractions


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“Long gone it may be, but lest we forget or perhaps missed out, a gift from Frizzell’s Zakè Drone Recordings, came last Christmas/New Year in the form of (eponymous?) eve, first full-length drone-mance for zakè with Benoît Pioulard.

An archive of sound refound, based on a decade’s fragments and offcuts capturing snow-flecked spectral swells and swirls suggestive of celebration—a vespertine scene with signifiers of peace passingly presented in glacial hush with vaporous exhalations.

A decade of recoveries, crafted by zakè into substructures for each section, then sculpted into harmonic strata, to which Pioulard added various orchestrations of tape-processed guitar, voice, dulcimer, melodica and synth.

A fine balance emerges between each artist’s timbral idiolect in nigh on an hour of choreographed slo-mo unfurling. Stepping into a wintry night, a Big Still prevails, oneiric, with “frost” setting in on Pioulard’s vocal wisps, proceeding to windblown drones and bells tintinnabulating across the sound field through its glacial remainder, building into iridescent ‘scapes; ending as the uncanny mix of blithe and mysterious, glow and gloaming that is “pine,” with its sylvan-slivered underlay of dulcimer and reedy susurrations, finally cedes to a few moments of dead calm.”

-Igloo Magazine


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"... Exceptionally blissful calm. On this late-in-the-year release on Zach Frizzell's personal-work label Zakè Drone Recordings, we find him collaborating with, Thomas Meluch and it’s a perfect four-piece long-form excursion into textures, timbres and tones. I love all the tiny details embedded within all these single progressions – from the rustle of the fire in the cold and dark corner to the crackle of the needle on the calmly spinning disc. The track titles on the album reflect the quiet and long nights in December, “where fleeting moments of peace manifest in visible exhalations and crystalline silence.”

-Headphone Commute






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