Slow Dancing Society & zakè 'Stars & Silence' [CD]

SHIPS MID OCTOBER ◾️◾️◾️

Glass-mastered, silkscreen printed CD housed in a 4-panel, 300g satin cardstock Digipak. Clear cd tray. Numbered. Shrinkwrapped. Pressed and printed in Canada. Edition of 100.

Slow Dancing Society & zakè – Stars & Silence (ZDR, 2025)

Five years after their landmark début, Mirrored (ZDR, 2020), Drew Sullivan (Slow Dancing Society) and Zach Frizzell (zakè) present Stars & Silence, a double album that invites internal exploration and deep meditation with its fluid blend of rich ambience, hypnotic IDM, and melodic finesse. “Everything we do is about reconnecting with the resonance and energy that we are made from,” Sullivan states, and in each of the album’s passages, we feel the pulse of an expanding universe defined by kinetic, dynamic, and joyously serious craftsmanship.

Title suite, “Stars & Silence”, begins with the tape-saturated drone for which Frizzell is best known, overlaid with slow-attack orchestral swells, rhythmic flickers, and bass pulses that seem to emerge telepathically. Constellations of interlocking textures appear, one by one, as night falls, but soon, the angelic qualities of Sullivan’s sonic palette break through, and momentum gently locks into place. By the halfway mark, softly overdriven countermelodies flutter up and down the scale, and the arrangement continues to shift and deepen, transitioning into a mesmerizing glide. Whereas Stasis Sounds for Long-Distance Space Travel (Frizzell’s three-part collaboration with 36) was a complete interplanetary journey, this is its Earthbound sibling: a vivid, psychonaut daydream on a dusky hilltop.

“The Quiet of First Light” follows with similar pacing, but a distinct and different mood, as we descend to the oceanside, and the black of night exhales into cobalt silver at the horizon. Waves crest and foam at half speed behind staccato synth arpeggiations, and the arrangement balances a mournful, ambient backdrop with a sparse, lo-fi rhythm section and layers upon layers of melody. The patience and care put into the arcs of these works demonstrate the intuition that each artist has developed across their many respective releases, as well as a shared belief in the power of spacious music. Fittingly, Sullivan notes, “We wanted to inject a lucid form of movement into our established styles with this album, while creating a kind of lighthouse for those lost at sea.”

Midway through, a fade into gauzy obscurity is broken by a return to glimmering, beat-driven intensity, ramping up to a final, euphoric rush where keyboards take the foreground through soft distortion, almost howling, almost collapsing. It is a truly exquisite moment of catharsis that feels as organic and mercurial as a solar flare or a storm surge, and as human as an embrace. Appropriately, these miniature galaxies are arranged with almost entirely analog sources, ranging from vintage Roland drum machines, to guitars, polysynths, and weathered tape machines.

In their work together, Sullivan and Frizzell compose with the discrete intention to reconfigure reality for a while, creating works that are decidedly best heard unbroken. While the texturally rich zone-outs of Mirrored only flirted with rhythmic push and long-form structures, Stars & Silence is a natural evolution in ambitious and well-warranted expanse, where two accomplished artists seek new forms of narrative while remaining as compelling and transportive as ever.

RIYL: Ulrich Schnauss, Bark Psychosis, Comit, Global Communication, Angelo Badalamenti, Casino Versus Japan, Tangerine Dream

Written, recorded, and produced by Slow Dancing Society and zakè. Mastered at SDS Studio by Drew Sullivan. Design and layout by zakè. Marketing, distribution, and compact disc copyright: Zakè Drone Recordings. Pressed, manufactured, and assembled in Canada. © 2025 Zakè Drone Recordings. ℗ 2025 Past Inside the Present Publishing (BMI). This is ZD-042. All rights reserved. zakedronerecordings.com / zakedrone.com / pitp.us / pastinsidethepresent.com