Vienna's The Gap magazine presents its album of the month, available for a special price from zero". This month's choice is Zanshin's 'Rain Are In Clouds' album.
Affine Records has a new race horse in the stable. On his debut solo album as Zanshin one half of Ogris Debris, Gregor Ladenhauf, indulges in his love for conceptual broken beat electronica. An exciting record that makes no compromises.
We presume for multi-faceted artist Gregor Ladenhauf free time is quite off the cards. Not only is he being tipped as one of Austria's hottest electronic music acts with Ogris Debris, he is also part of audio-visual art collective Depart and has lately been recordings solo under the name of Zanshin. His signing to Affine Records might not come as such a surprise, him releasing the label's first artist album more so. Zanshin's music veers widely off the path set by Affine so far. Instead of hip-hip-infected broken beats with a tendency towards playful virtuosity, Gregor Ladenhauf delivers arty, at times even gloomy electronica, rubbing shoulders with experimental sound design, dubstep, hip-hop, techno and field recordings.
The album's tracks convey a pleasant vastness. Not only because of the echo chambers Zanshin frequently sends his sounds into, but also the aesthetic of the entire album leaves a distanced impression. No philanthropic chord or flat hook line tries to lull us, Gregor Ladenhauf's sound is multi-layered and uncompromising. 'Rain Are In Clouds' confronts its listener with complex harmonies, beat thunderstorms, scourging grooves, broken strings and avant-garde sounds.
In spite of his ambitious sound concept and diverse building blocks of his music Zanshin manages to create a homogeneous album. The album's conceptual approach never feels forced but rather a logical ingredient. The beauty of Zanshin's music lies in the fact that it doesn't succumb to the listening habits of broken beat hipsters, but confidently embraces a sound which Autechre with Burial on the passenger seat could hardly have improved upon. 7/10
Maximilian Zeller
Affine Records has a new race horse in the stable. On his debut solo album as Zanshin one half of Ogris Debris, Gregor Ladenhauf, indulges in his love for conceptual broken beat electronica. An exciting record that makes no compromises.
We presume for multi-faceted artist Gregor Ladenhauf free time is quite off the cards. Not only is he being tipped as one of Austria's hottest electronic music acts with Ogris Debris, he is also part of audio-visual art collective Depart and has lately been recordings solo under the name of Zanshin. His signing to Affine Records might not come as such a surprise, him releasing the label's first artist album more so. Zanshin's music veers widely off the path set by Affine so far. Instead of hip-hip-infected broken beats with a tendency towards playful virtuosity, Gregor Ladenhauf delivers arty, at times even gloomy electronica, rubbing shoulders with experimental sound design, dubstep, hip-hop, techno and field recordings.
The album's tracks convey a pleasant vastness. Not only because of the echo chambers Zanshin frequently sends his sounds into, but also the aesthetic of the entire album leaves a distanced impression. No philanthropic chord or flat hook line tries to lull us, Gregor Ladenhauf's sound is multi-layered and uncompromising. 'Rain Are In Clouds' confronts its listener with complex harmonies, beat thunderstorms, scourging grooves, broken strings and avant-garde sounds.
In spite of his ambitious sound concept and diverse building blocks of his music Zanshin manages to create a homogeneous album. The album's conceptual approach never feels forced but rather a logical ingredient. The beauty of Zanshin's music lies in the fact that it doesn't succumb to the listening habits of broken beat hipsters, but confidently embraces a sound which Autechre with Burial on the passenger seat could hardly have improved upon. 7/10
Maximilian Zeller
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Album released 28-10-2011 on Affine Records
When not rocking clubs as part of minimal house duo Ogris Debris Vienna's Zanshin has been developing his own idiosyncratic brand of glitched-up electronica breaks. With its innovative rhythms and melancholic synths 'Rain Are In Clouds' is a perfect album for fans of Autechre and early Boards of Canada.
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