After Divergence and Paranon we see the return of Zeno van den Broek to Moving Furniture Records with his to date most intense album Breach.
Breach dives into chaotic systems and creates a manifestation of the recent events of protests and riots across the globe. The album and live audiovisual performance explore the build up and release of tension, anger and energy in a new form of pitch black metal electronics and dense polyrhythmic structures. Utilising electromagnetic recordings of communication devices and found footage of uproars Breach establishes an intense experience by putting the beholder in the centre of a system on the verge of breaking into chaos.
Breach is presented on transparent vinyl LP + CD in edition of 300 and on CD only in wallet in edition of 100. Both come in mind-blowing artwork designed by Philip Marshall (the Tapeworm) and on the LP you also find release notes by Sven Schlijper which you can also read below.
You can order the album through our webshop.
Or find the album on your preferred streaming service: https://orcd.co/breach
About the album
‘Breach testifies to the blackened sounds of tectonic shifts shaking the worn habits of society’s nature and nurture. NOW! blares from metal screens. As stability is a long-lost illusion and equilibrium stands at odd angles, Breach screams: Come out and play. Offers on billboards: Tables filled to the brim, a riot in excess. Over there! Look, out of the window: The movement of revolutions per minute in a rapidly changing landscape where as below so above can very well be the next trending hashtag for barricade-progressive action. If not thought.
Breach sloganeers: Your anger is a gift. Breach unleashes: What was kept pent up, creeping slow like glacier ice, but advancing surely as the scorching lava that entombed Herculaneaum. Leaving behind the spiked blast of unloading, Breach does not represent — fashions disruptive events: compositions of chaos in flux. Breach breathes the frantic fumes and pulsates with the moving noises of electromagnetic rebels in the streets: This, the density of today. For Breach is manifest.’
Sven Schlijper, 2019.
Reviews
Toneshift
https://toneshift.net/2019/04/21/breach-by-zeno-van-den-broek/
The resonance of Zeno Van Den Broek’s work has grown exponentially in the past few years. His multiple releases on different prestigious labels such as The Tapeworm and Moving Furniture has proven him to be not only prolific but also to ensure an outstanding quality standard in his productions.
The past year was definitely a year of consecration for this composer who has got gigs in many of the major electronic music festivals around Europe and established himself as one of the names not to overlook.
In Breach, Zeno offers a very personal view of the “post-club” phenomenon. Here the Ikedian glitch aesthetic gets structured into stable rhythmical patterns that remind of the golden age of minimal techno and blend with deep drone noises that wink at Lawrence English. The drum driven nature of his music pulls it out of the pure experimental scene and puts him at the forefront of the grey zone that is in between all this and Marcel Dettmann, thanks also to the harmonic and industrial elements in the materials he uses.
This is music for the masses, where “mass” is not addressed in a political sense but more as a physical entity: a meaty clump shaking, throbbing and vibrating together with the low waves and the pulses. In this sense Zeno fully inherits all the key characteristics of the Dutch club scene from the ‘90s acting as a refined offspring of Djax-Up-Beats and R&S records. His sounds are intense, massive and unquestionably dark.
On the other end, this record also feels as a landing point, not only for Zeno but for the entire “post-club” movement, in transition from being a wave of artists in a process of definition to an established, fixed genre with its rules. Breach, in this sense, is so precise and iconic that sets the ground to define a paradigm for contemporary club music, 2020’s IDM.
As such declination of techno might appear unheard of in the contemporary experimental music scene, also due to the timbres Zeno uses that are so rare to find tossed in this sauce, the presence of loose structures and the illusion of non-determinism is something that sent me back to the American outsider techno circa 2013 that has its best examples on labels such as L.I.E.S, The Trilogy Tapes, C.C.C.P and Forbidden Planet. Whether this reference is conscious or not and albeit with some differences, I couldn’t avoid thinking of releases from Greg Beato and Steve Summers when listening to this.
In conclusion Van Der Broek’s work appears strongly relevant to scene he refers to and it’s an interesting and very well crafted add to the record collection of those who like to spin bizarre tunes at parties.
SilenceAndSound
https://silenceandsound.me/2019/05/08/zeno-van-den-broek/
Zeno van den Broek
Breach
(Moving Furniture Records)
C’est sur l’excellent label Moving Furniture Records, que sort Breach, nouveau projet de Zeno dan den Broek. Travaillant sur la notion d’espace et d’acousmatique, l’artiste propose une vision urbaine de la modernité, concassant les sons pour les libérer d’une certaine forme d’oppression et en inventer d’autres.
Breach aborde la radicalité en souplesse, bâtissant des surfaces glissantes recouvertes de moisissure et de crasse électronique. Il en faut peu pour que cet amas de titres flirtant avec une certaine idée du chaos, ne se transforme en tracks dancefloor pour mutants en perte de contrôle.
Zeno van den Broek broie les sons pour en ressortir un suc vicieux aux émanations mortelles, disséminant dans l’espace un poison sonique, capable de faire exploser nos perturbateurs endocriniens et faire de nous les esclaves de boucles drones à l’acidité brulante. Epatant.
Roland Torres