Zaumne – Élévation

Polish musician Zaumne (Mateusz Olszewski) constructed Elevation from pieces of ASMR poetry, homemade field recordings, and samples of natural phenomena. Releasing on Poland’s Mondoi label, Élévation takes in quotes from Charles Baudelaire’s volume of French poetry, The Flowers of Evil, as Zaumne aims to ‘elevate the soul and consciousness’.

Initially recorded for the WET (Weird Erotic Tension) community, Zaumne’s four tracks explore erotic aspects of the environment and our intimacy with other beings and objects. Zaumne concentrates on physical space, but emotions are also explored, and there’s a crossover between the two – intimacy is evident in its whispered, close words and its eerie melodic undercurrents, but emotions also naturally filter into the spoken word.

The same can be said of the violent thunderstorm and the patter of rainfall, which collects in deep puddles on ‘Poison’, the first track on the record. Rain is often tied to emotional distress or depression, and the subdued, clanking melody feels as dark as a depressive episode. Similarly, thunder raises the drama, so the natural, physical world always has a bearing on an individual’s emotional state. This would be subjective, but weather patterns have become ingrained in the collective psyche, associating a deluge of rain with a dreary day.

Spine-tingling intrigue is set against a backdrop of interesting and cavern-cool melodies, which chime and ring out dully, and the rainfall is similar to the whispered, barely-there words, as both are close enough to touch; the intimate coming into greater focus. The male voice can be just as intimate and expressive as a feminine voice, and the two are married here, taking it in turns to read. Emotions, sensations, and moods impact on and influence the physical world and how we subsequently interact with it. They shape perceptions, and therefore behaviour. Everything is connected.

www.mondoj.bandcamp.com

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