Zobol – Rings Of Saturn [Erbium Records]

ZOBOL_FINAL erbium records
With Solar Return EP, Bristol-based artist, Jon Chmielewski, who goes by the alias Zobol, continues to refine his space age-y, sci-fi leaning approach to dance music. Across three sprawling tracks, Zobol takes listeners on a voyage through distant, expansive, awe-inspiring soundscapes.

Opening track, “Rings of Saturn (Fading),” is a sonic portal into another dimension, one seemingly unbothered by the ordinary rules and logic of space and time. The track illustrates what it might feel like for one’s body, or a substance of some kind, to undergo a form of transmutation. Beginning with a skeletal kick-drum pattern, it quickly evolves with glistening synth arpeggios, atmospheric, reverberating keys, undulating bass, and squelchy acid hits. It’s almost as if the track takes on a life of its own as it continues mutating into a surprisingly graceful, multi-tiered organism with every new break.

Dropping on July 31st via Birmingham-based Erbium Records, this track is refreshingly organic and tuneful, while still retaining a mechanized, heady approach. While Zobol’s work here might not be exactly humanist, it certainly has a mercurial, exploratory quality to it that feels very much the work of someone who is tirelessly searching for new, inventive ways of synthesizing machine-made sounds for the dancefloor.

Gilad