zakè & rhubiqs 'Hild' [LP]

SHIPS LATE FEBRUARY

160g black vinyl record housed in a matte jacket. Full color center labels. White dust sleeve. Shrinkwrapped. Edition of 200.

Hild is the first full-length collaboration between zakè (Zach Frizzell) and UK-based rhubiqs (Tom Squires), whose transcontinental dialogue yields an avalanche of deep drone, spacious piano, and immersive texture, alternately colossal and weightless.  Both artists have released solo works with Germany’s Affin label (headed by Joachim Spieth and Markus Guentner), where their kinship found its footing in naturally-inspired environments full of rich harmony and understated elegance.

Each of Hild’s four movements arose from sketches crafted by Squires and passed to Frizzell; across several weeks, ideas were modified and recombined through a prolific exchange, during which the artists found a rare wavelength.  “I am drawn to sounds that already contain history and identity,” Frizzell notes, “those that feel like they have been waiting patiently for their moment.”  Squires follows, “Once we got things running, it all came together quite fluidly; we were both dialed in, focusing exclusively on this record during a very intense phase of composition.”

Opening piece, “Ealdor” (Old English for leader or forebear), conveys both profound peace and enigmatic mystery, carefully mixed to highlight its layers: slow swells of low-end rumble, blankets of sustained strings, and the comforting, granular radiance of some eternal softness. The harmonic strands of “Cearu” (care, sorrow) weave between stereo channels while subtleties develop and disperse in kaleidoscopic patterns, every facet shifting according to those around it, each moment arising and passing without attachment.  Fittingly, both artists have a long history in post-rock – most recently, Squires in his band Transatlantic Alliance and Frizzell in PILLARS – that informs this type of cinematic mood-building and expertly structured, wordless narrative.

Title piece, “Hild” (strife, war), is a meditation on inhumanity, but rather than indulging in brutality, the duo slowly paint a picture of a battlefield in the wake of violence, where eerie calm sets in, birds retake the treetops, and blood seeps into the soil.  A defining moment arrives near its conclusion, as waves of guitar and analog hiss give way to a plaintive, minimal piano line whose clarity and pacing carry the weight of both mourning and resolve, offering a sense of the silent void created by great loss.

“Nieve”, the album’s final act, is its most patient and momentous.  A graceful snowfall, intimated by faint vinyl crackle, cloaks its dynamic landscape, reminding us that the terrestrial world is subject to heavenly forces unbothered by our illusions of power or our relent into despair.  The duo provide an extended moment of calm reassurance, deeply resonant harmony, and pure beauty that seamlessly blends their respective skills, suggesting contrasts of history and impermanence, peace and struggle, tension and release.  Again, a minimal refrain of adagio piano summons a human touch in the infinite expanse, shifting gently amid waves of slow-attack guitar and ghostly field recordings, before vanishing over the horizon.

As a final remark, Frizzell states, “When Hild began to take shape, I was working through a sense of suppression and a broad, underlying uncertainty that was difficult to shake, so the process of creating became a way to confront that head-on. To me, these tracks do two things at once: they recognize those feelings for what they are, without trying to romanticize them, while also pushing back against them. It’s a balance of melancholy and purpose, with a quiet weight that still carries a sense of spiritual action and forward motion.”

Hild’s cover image is an unretouched Polaroid SX70 photo taken by the duo’s colleague, Benoît Pioulard, in Acadia National Park during a midwinter hike some years ago.  In it, we see grassy reeds trapped in cobalt ice, a contrast of vibrancy and hibernation frozen in momentary flow.

RIYL: Tim Hecker, William Basinski, Fennesz, Stars of the Lid, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Markus Guentner, Deaf Center