awakened souls, Benoît Pioulard, zakè 'My Heart, My Beloved' [12"]

160g black vinyl record housed in a 3mm matte jacket featuring photography by Benoît Pioulard. Full color center labels featuring photography by Julia Frizzell. Black paper innersleeves. Shrinkwrapped. Single-sided record. Strictly limited to 100 copies.

My Heart, My Beloved (Zake Drone Recordings, 2024)

Zakè Drone Recordings is very proud to present My Heart, My Beloved, a special collection commemorating a landmark birthday in the life of label head Zach Frizzell’s wife and main inspiration, Julia. Three artists – awakened souls, Benoit Pioulard, and zakè himself – each offer a pair of recordings, cumulatively covering a vast emotional territory and sonic palette.

awakened souls (aka Cynthia and James Bernard, veterans of Frizzell’s Past Inside the Present label) based “valleys and peaks” on Julia’s poem “A Pale Shelter”, collaging her words into an impressionistic lyrical form. It is an exemplary work from the long-time couple, as James’ bass anchors Cynthia’s airy voice while muted clouds of swirling synth & treated guitar drift across the backdrop and echo between the channels. Its brief but striking complement, “yet today is all we have”, is a snapshot of fleeting grace, modest in appearance but overflowing with sentimentality for their dear friend.

At the core of the suite is underground stalwart Benoit Pioulard, who concisely conveys the duality of his nearly 20 years of output for the likes of kranky, Morr Music, and A Strangely Isolated Place. “A Heart Mirrored”, with lyrics once again adapted from the poetry of the album’s muse, is a full, lo-fi folk-pop production, built on rolling percussion, rich vocal harmonies, and fingerpicked guitar. “Our Era” follows, with layers of fuzzy bass guitar loops, twinkling bells, and faint field recordings from a broken tape player.

Completing the record, naturally, is zakè, who conceptualized this release as a gift to his wife Julia, and as a “celebration of the beauty she inspires, the love she so effortlessly gives, and the years of wise counsel she has provided.” He further notes, “Her belief in me has meant everything, and my work as a community builder would be unrecognizable without her; for this very special occasion, I wanted to give her something truly meaningful in return.”

“I Saw An Angel” bears both a dusky sweetness and gravitas, combining to create one of the artist’s most cinematic soundscapes to date. A measured, half-speed harp guides its towering string arrangement, nodding to the motifs of his Orchestral Tape Studies series – much of which was composed in the early years of his and Julia’s relationship – and is fleshed out by additional textures from frequent collaborator Damien Duque (aka City of Dawn). “She Walks In the Sun To Me” is led by a minor-key piano melody, paced with the slow simmer of a specter in the diffuse light of limbo, and evoking the impossible wish to freeze time in the presence of perfect, loving harmony.

zakè’s prolific work over the past decade – both as an artist and as a curator – has been chiefly guided by an embrace of “posterity over profit”, and with My Heart, My Beloved, listeners get perhaps the most direct line yet to this lasting tenor of love and benevolence. The result is an expression of pure dedication, likely to charm even the dourest spirit.

Credits:
‘Valleys and Peaks’ and ‘Yet Today Is All We Have’ written, recorded, and produced by awakened souls. awakened souls is James Bernard and Cynthia Bernard. ‘A Heart Mirrored’ and ‘Our Era’ written, recorded, and produced by Benoît Pioulard. ‘I Saw an Angel’ and ‘She Walks in the Sun to Me’ written, recorded, and produced by zakè. Additional textures and composition on ‘I Saw an Angel’ by Damien Duque. Lyrics/words by Julia Frizzell on ‘Valleys and Peaks’ and ‘A Heart Mirrored’.

Sequencing and continuity by James Bernard. Mixed and mastered at Ambient Mountain House by James Bernard. Jacket Photography by Benoît Pioulard on Polaroid SX70 film. A/B vinyl label photography by Julia Frizzell, 2011 & 2016. Layout by zakè. Marketed, distributed, and phonograph copyright: Zakè Drone Recordings. Pressed, manufactured, and, assembled in Warsaw, Poland. © 2024 Zakè Drone Recordings. ℗ 2024 Past Inside the Present Publishing (BMI). This is ZD-035. All rights reserved. zakedronerecordings.com / zakedrone.com / pitp.us