Benoît Pioulard, Viul, From Overseas, zakè, Marc Ertel, Wayne Robert Thomas 'Koselig' [LP]

160g Audiophile Black LP

160g black vinyl record housed in a matte jacket, featuring photography by Benoît Pioulard. Full color center labels. Black paper innersleeve. Shrinkwrapped. Limited to 200 copies.

Also available at:

🇬🇧 Norman Records
🇬🇧 Juno Records
🇺🇸 PITP.US

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In celebration of Zakè Drone Recordings' fifth year of releases, we are proud to present Koselig—a curated collection of long-form compositions featuring contributions from close friends of Frizzell and esteemed artists. This release showcases the talents of From Overseas, Benoît Pioulard, Wayne Robert Thomas, Marc Ertel, Viul, and zakè himself.

Zach Frizzell (zakè) conceived Koselig while working with Kévin Séry (From Overseas) on their 2023 opus, Demain, dès l’aube, issued by Past Inside the Present, whose sessions resulted in “A Whisper”, their entry on the album. Frizzell is known not only for his tape-worn, classically inspired solo output, but also as an open-minded collaborator, whose sonic fingerprints become more distinct with each work. On “A Whisper”, his deep bass interweaves with Séry’s tonally rich guitar clouds, billowing through chord changes with the cadence of an epic impressionist poem. Its pacing evokes the sensation of a loop, but there is a slight evolution with every pass, and the subtle pitching-down of certain elements creates a slow motion effect that intimates the infinite whims of weather and decay.

With “Kinderness” and “Canaan”, Luke Entelis (Viul) and Thomas Meluch (Benoît Pioulard) present their first new music since 2022. With a collaborative history dating to the early 2000s, Entelis and Meluch bring a particularly diverse palette of textures to “Kinderness”, an 18-minute suite composed especially for this release. It begins with a tape-saturated guitar loop that pushes the limits of its iron oxide, and melts into a midsection of subcutaneous analogue synths and distant melodies. Its final act is a direct nod to the pair’s early post-rock and shoegaze work, as a bed of grainy field recordings gives way to a syrupy loop of bent-neck, fuzzed-out guitars and pillowy drums, all underscoring Pioulard’s trademark baritone vocals, mixed just beyond a point of clarity in a way that makes you want to turn it up that much louder. “Canaan” is a brief coda, pairing Viul’s melancholy Minilogue warble with Pioulard’s multi-tracked vocal loops and soft-edged bells.

On “Coronation Ring”, the signature guitar drift of Wayne Robert Thomas meets the misty stillness of Marc Ertel’s electronics and treatments. Throughout its patient unfurling, reverberant anomalies play across the stereo field, and a progression of synthesized strings wanders in and out of soft dissonance, suggesting a precarious mystery in the wires. Thomas created the primary drone theme just after learning of the death of a personal hero, the theorist and composer Phill Niblock – he describes his motivation as an “attempt to capture those first moments of experiencing a life-altering piece of music, while also reflecting on inevitable feelings of loss and the pendulum of hibernation during winter months.”

Koselig is a distinctly Norwegian term that describes ineffable feelings of comfort, generosity, and intimacy, and can be applied equally to experiences, objects, and people. In the curation of thoughtful, collaborative work in the ambient realm, we can think of no more appropriate sentiment to convey our aims. Nearly all the artists on this collection performed at Past Inside the Present’s sold-out Evening of Ambient at Indianapolis’s Crown Hill Cemetery Gothic Chapel in 2023, which placed our ecstatic philosophy in suitably reverent surroundings – with Koselig, we invite you to find that blessed space in your own world.


‘Kinderness’ and ‘Canaan’, written, recorded, produced, and mixed by Benoît Pioulard and Viul. 'A Whisper' written, recorded, and produced by From Overseas and zakè. 'Coronation Ring' written, recorded, and produced by Marc Ertel and Wayne Robert Thomas. Sequencing and continuity by James Bernard. Mixed and mastered at Ambient Mountain House by James Bernard. All photography by Benoît Pioulard on Polaroid SX70 film. Layout by zakè. Marketing, distribution, and phonograph copyright: Zakè Drone Recordings. Pressed, manufactured, and assembled in Warsaw, Poland. © 2025 Zakè Drone Recordings. ℗ 2025 Past Inside the Present Publishing (BMI). This is ZD-036.