Track by Track: Zanias – Ecdysis

Berlin-based electronic musician and producer Zanias has a sound that seamlessly reaches from the cinematic soundscapes of Hans Zimmer to the delicate and vulnerable musings of James Blake via the glossy shine of Grimes’s futurist sonic experiments.

Zanias graciously agreed to write about the songs on her Ecdysis album, whose eight tracks can be both primal and ethereal, as part of our Track By Track series. This is one of the most beautiful and moving albums you will hear this year.

EARTHBORN

Earthborn is a soundtrack to our most ancient evolution and early history. I’d drive by the sign of an earthworks company called ‘Earthborn’ near my parents’ house and felt it was a perfect summation of humankind and what we’ve lost sight of in the destruction of nature: we are born of the Earth, and the Earth will determine our future survival.

The watery sounds at the start are a reference to the primordial soup from which our earliest ancestors emerged, while the metallic clashing of swords references the conflict that arose alongside civilisation and our domination over nature. The storm at the end signifies the Earth reclaiming its power over us, her most mercurial offspring.

MARA

Mara is a reference to the Buddhist demon of suffering, or any forces that are antagonistic to enlightenment. It was the first track I wrote that ended up on Ecdydis and it actually started out as an exercise in making cloud rap instrumentals in the style of Clams Casino since I was rinsing I’m God with Imogen Heap. I was working on this with our family dog Lexi in the room, and she was still a tiny puppy and very upset that my mum had gone away for 5 minutes so she was crying and crying. I sampled some of her crying and dedicated the entire track to her suffering.

DUNESKIPPER

Duneskipper is another soundtrack to some serious epic conflict, and possibly the most ‘Dead Can Dance’ inspired track on the album with its percussive elements. I was really envisioning a battle of gods rather than humans. I’d recently re-read Dune and watched the latest film so images of desert planets and the clashes of grand, corrupt powers were fresh in the mind. I was quite proud of how I was able to process my vocals in this – into deep pads, bird sounds and a multitude of characters. Even the weird wind instrument whistling across the landscape at the end started out as my voice.

ACACIA

Acacia is my tribute to the Australian landscape and the deep connection to Country I feel when I step outside here. My relationship to the land has always been one steeped in sorrow and guilt due to what my ancestors did here, and my remedy for that is to learn the lore of the first nations people who cared for this land for tens of thousands of years.

In Australian Aboriginal lore the relationship one has with Country is a source of healing and inspiration, and I really understand that now. I feel it every day. I named it Acacia partly due to the presence of acacia trees in all my most treasured surf beaches, and partly due to certain species containing DMT that I have no doubt was accessed by indigenous Australians in the dreamtime.

BLOODWOOD

Bloodwood is another tribute to this landscape, but it was written when I was back in Berlin, missing it terribly. I was struggling to name this one until I was hiking in Queensland some months later and came across a Bloodwood tree and realised what a cool sounding word it is. The way trees pull water from the ground always had me imagining them as hearts pumping the blood of the Earth.

HABENULA

The Habenula is a part of the brain involved in serotonin and dopamine regulation, and also processing pain. This one was written at a time when I was wondering why I could never seem to feel ok, and I was reading an amazing book called Connections by Karl Deisseroth that described, in beautifully poignant language, the neuroscience behind various mental health issues. The role of the Habenula came up a number of times, and this track somehow felt like it was the one regulating serotonin and dopamine.

SWIM

Swim really is just channelling the way my thoughts feel while I’m swimming. I’m often struck with a lot of inspiration in the water, and process a lot of melancholy there. Diving under waves feels like the most cleansing thing I can do for my emotional state, so I tried to translate that feeling into sound. Madonna’s Swim is also a favourite track of mine, and William Orbit’s production on Ray of Light most definitely influenced my production on this, so it’s a small nod to that too.

ECDYSIS

I started writing Ecdysis on one of the hardest days I ever experienced, when the ground felt like it was ripped out from under me. I needed an uplifting melody to prevent total collapse. I put it away for months then returned to it when all the other tracks were complete. It turned into the emotional soundtrack to a life, from birth to death. Consciousness slowly and joyfully flits into clarity, with that main melody representing one’s sense of self.

The low pads that increase with intensity in the latter half of the track are periods of grief. The high vocal loop is the experience of contentment. There’s a sudden loss of energy towards the end, as the melody gradually disintegrates and fades out. Physical and cognitive decline… then death.

Ecdysis can streamed on Apple Music, Deezer, and Spotify, while you can pick up CD, vinyl, and digital editions of the long player on Bandcamp.  

For venue and ticket details of upcoming gigs, as well as more streaming options for Ecdysis, check out Zanias on Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram.

Header photo by Tim Darin