zakè & Angela Winter - Mid Sky (2024)

"Mid Sky, the first full-length collaboration between Past Inside the Present label head zakè (aka Zach Frizzell) and vocalist Angela Winter, is the result of a patient exchange of ideas and arrangements over the course of more than a year. True to its title, the album occupies a rarefied place between the terrestrial and the cosmic, as Frizzell’s organic drones and field recordings unfurl in tandem with the cascading harmonies of Winter’s otherworldly voice, which creates a beguiling language absent of concrete lyrics.

“Gale” opens the collection with an incandescent quaver that brings to mind a wisping aurora borealis wrapped in muted static, while Winter’s presence grows from a single note into choral fullness, and a rich low-end gathers with each glowing pass. A hushed hiss is central to the conjurings of “Precipice”, over which narcotic synths allow a candlelit vocal arrangement to ebb and flow with stunning emotional power. Halfway through its side-long duration, subterraneous bass swells break the loam, and new layers of complexity stretch across the sonic canvas as Winter experiments with variations in cadence, tonality, and pacing.

Physicality and physiology are innate fascinations in Winter’s approach to singing; she describes an unavoidable tendency to respond and assimilate to the sounds and textures we all experience on a daily basis:

“Whenever I hear some sort of drone out in the world, I push against it vocally. My body does this spontaneously with sustained or rhythmic tones, such as from a lawnmower, leaf blower, car horn, running water, or the high-pitched hiss of a streetlight. I used to not be aware I was doing this, but now I realize I pretty much do it all the time, and always have.”

Given that Frizzell is an avowed sonic diary-keeper in his compositional process, such a naturalistic method on Winter’s part makes this collaboration seem truly fated. “Terminal Sleep” exemplifies their dynamic, as well as a broader theme of contrast across Mid Sky; the surge and relent of voice and drone convey the growing pains of spring, where progress feeds by necessity on the decay and death of last season, and a trillion invisible interactions happen in every square inch of the underbrush. Especially in its final moments, where the crackle of a dusty record counters a speaker-rattling bass purr, the two artists reach a compelling summit.

“Advent” is a brief, beautiful crystallization of the album’s main ideas, an aural dive into the overcast with slow, harmonic pulses and exquisitely placed vocals. Unsurprisingly, regarding her technique, Winter notes, “I worked quickly and intuitively without reviewing or overdubbing, and once I’d recorded a myriad of voices, shifted to a subtractive, sculptural approach for edits, listening deeply until I heard angels in the mix and editing ruthlessly to set them free.”

Mid Sky closes with its monumental title track, an encapsulation of the territory between earth and the infinite, where the downward view is of land and life without borders, while outward is the exosphere, merging with solar wind and brutal nothingness. Winter’s final, quiet hums convey a solemn pensiveness, as though she’s witnessed some ineffable truth beyond expression, and the album’s final minutes comprise a slow fade into the gentle dissonance of uncertainty. This polarity of human and divine elements creates an undeniable grace that, according to Frizzell, is “the perfect orchestration between two individuals at the right moment.”