Premiere: ZES – More

A few days in advance of the release of Darkened via Fog Mountain, we got in touch with ZES to ask a few questions about the forthcoming album, which is due out on Wednesday, 18 May. Shying away from his customary anonymity, ZES steps out with Darkened, presenting a new, darker shade of ZES, which comes laced with melancholia. It is our pleasure to premiere the sixth track, ‘More’, off the new album. Please enjoy the track below.

I always find myself extremely inspired in times of stress and late nights work.

Darkened is due out in a couple of days; can you tell us a little bit about it?

Making Darkened was definitely a time consuming process. Although for me especially in the final months running up to the date that it had to be finished. I always find myself extremely inspired in times of stress and late nights work. Some of the tracks on the album are even products of that stress level, trying to cope with it all. It was actually never the plan to do a release this time of year, but me and my friends (Pepijn Gaalman and Remy Brokke of Fog Mountain Records) started talking about it about 5 months ago. I had a few tracks done by that time already and I thought that I could make it into a 10 track album.

I have always been a melancholist and I feel this release really shows that.

You’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on social media and people are really hyped about the release. How do you feel about that?

During previous summer, ZES got into a bit of a slipstream onto bigger stages on festivals and I started to notice a lot of attention coming my way from bigger managements, artists, festivals and companies. I don’t know if many other artists have this but after a while I really started to pay attention to what people were expecting of me, during shows and in terms of new music. This is what caused a pretty serious writers block at one point. I decided to take it all down a notch and start from scratch and work on new tracks that captured my true self again, not what people expect me to make but what I want to make. Darkened is the first release of which I feel that shows a new, more mature and true direction in my music and sounds. I have always been a melancholist and I feel this release really shows that. To be honest, I could not be happier with the way people have responded so far. I actually was extremely worried that people might not enjoy my music as much, now that I have shown my true colors. On the contrary, people really seem to like it, which is amazing. I could not be happier with my fanbase, their patience, and great comments every now and then.

The release party is going to feature a new live set in which i introduce new live elements to my show and perform tracks of the new album. Also, with Know V.A as support act, and a surprise vocalist appearance, the night could not be any better to me.

ZES will celebrate the release of Darkened at Paradiso in Amsterdam on Wednesday, 18 May. As a special treat for our dear members, we’re giving away 2×2 tickets to the release party. In order to win, shoot us a mail at mailinglist@subbacultcha.nl with ‘DARK’ in the subject line.