Zanshin - Ok Ocean (2024)

What kind of story are you going to tell when all you believe in is poetry? What kind of poetry are you going to write when you collarbone is broken? Some years ago, due to an accident Zanshin was constrained to sitting on the couch for several weeks, his artistic output limited to drafting rough skits on a tablet. To resort to something limited like this as someone who is used to maneuver a flock of synths was not an easy feat, but as we know sometimes limitation provokes proliferation. All these short bursts of creativity were left to wait patiently until their rediscovery and conversion to something bigger. A concept album that does not want to be a concept album. This collection of tracks is an ode to the sea from a landlocked region born being who had not been swimming in salty waters until he was 18.

Think all kinds of situations over and under water, involving the power of waves, smashing relentlessly againt the same rock for thousands of years, and the fleeting beauty of a large school of fish, glimmering in the reflections of the sunlight. The uncanny depths of abyssal currents, the wonder of whale fall, the silence of the doldrums, the 16 parts of this album serve as an imaginary soundtrack to all these ocean related situations. They are born from a place between the many cliches and tropes concerning the sea, but also from a true heartfelt desire and longing for the sea. Not to forget accepting and confronting real fear from its dark deepness and concern for its further well-being as a huge part of our endangered nature. A lot of pathos, beauty and awe. But in the end it is all going to be “Ok Ocean”.

Zanshin has worn a lof of genre hats already, often at once, his musical roots growing in Funk, Punk, IDM and Breakbeat (and also House/Techno as Ogris Debris). The Vienna-based musician and producer also shares his birthday date with Erik Satie and Trent Reznor, which seem to be somehow two ends of a spectrum that he dwells in comfortably anyway. Hence a new approach that already started with some beatless tracks here and there on earlier releases, like last years "The Subject Changes" mini-album, which served as a starting point to this new branch in the tree of Zanshin evolution.