Electronic drone duo Slomo have recalibrated their sonic vision over the past several years, which has yielded a recent quantum jump with their fifth album, ZEN AND ZENNOR. Producing vastly articulated soundscapes that are singular, organic and highly considered, ZEN AND ZENNOR shows much refinement to their articulations. Which remain every bit as mesmerising, organised, and unyielding to silence as it is equipped with a fully developed sense of elongating time that spreads like aural kudzu in both range and magnitude. Slomo, comprised of Holy McGrail and Howard Marsden, create sonic interplays are understated whilst simultaneously wrapping themselves inside silence as well as the imperceivable crevices within sound itself as they burrow deeply into inner space and outer time.

Inch-worming and ear-worming itself into Shepard tone infinity, the ever-spiraling “Zen and Zennor” is 22 minutes of solace lapping the shores of one’s present mind as though a constant reminder of ‘this too shall pass.’ Although sonically sounding like nothing else, it’s in a similar headspace as Kraftwerk’s curveball chill-out “Ananas Symphonie” until its constantly evolving unfolding-ness is nothing ‑less than a reverberation sister piece to “Eckstasis — Beyond Rome” from L.A.M.F.’s AMBIENT METAL. It is a transcendental and ever-nudging psychic wipe across the mindscreen, and one that keeps the listener in its thrall until its finale and beyond. As the undulations maintain a steady rising and falling away, scant accents collect whilst inside perceived widdershins rotations and there they remain. Until. They do not. For they have vanished, seemingly never to return. Until. They do.

Side two, “Zennor Diode,” clocks in at 20:27 but feels like an unlimited edition of several seconds re-stamped with gilt edging whilst unique watermarks blot gently into the periodically reversing action of the warp and weft threading itself with strands of reality as billowing clouds of finely graded colour softly erupt and dissipate in billowing art nouveau formations. As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once wrote that “the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” so does this track start with a single guitar drone phase-shifted to fuck and echoed to precise parameters. In time, it will transform magically into a web of diffusive tendrils that slowly curl, extend then reduce into vapour. It is the sonic parallel of those thoughts becoming words; then those words becoming actions; those actions becoming habits; those habits becoming character until finally — it becomes its own destiny (to paraphrase Lao Tzu.) As a quiet sonic tectonic shift, piano-like chords emerge into a cyclical, John Cale-like pattern while electronic blots, thunder and various swarms of electronic gnats gather and disperse. Emitting diodes as it rumbles off.

“Antechamber” is dizzying minimalism with multiple polyrhythms weaving a net that capture, then fasten together, your thoughts. Sonic after-images abound behind the persistent ping-ponging in a perfect variety of detailing. While the piece channels onward into near-ecstatic free fall at the speed of falling snowflake, darkened drones edge in as if to frame the delight of its wafting buoyancy. Until all is consumed into a low-frequency hum and ultimately, a dissolution into silence with an accompanying auditory after-image that may be an echo of the spectral Hummadruz of Land’s End, or just silence’s stillness finally absorbing the leaden pace of the proceeding hour.

ZEN AND ZENNOR is a recording that inspires a sense of mystery, awe, and spiritual fascination. Within its gradually un-changingness exists an enveloping world of gentle revelations, total release, and a grounding in the moment that is highly meditational.

Available on both hand-numbered vinyl and limited edition CD‑R of 100 here.