Long behold the voyage that is worthy to dig deep into; with Zalo’s eerie EP, someone should be ready to travel to the stream of his subconscious realm.
Sometimes, the mind can do so many things, and can wander in all the places one can never get into, and whether it is merely a product of one’s otherworldly creative imagination or one’s pursuit in the forests nearby their suburbia or the rivers that are forbidden to be entered, there is something to cling on with records that are somehow made not like how we usually listen based from the wide selection of songs to be played on the radio, but to songs like are eerily creeping one’s flesh and bones, and it is worthwhile to be wallowing in that particular state—eyes wide open, hands barely moving an inch, and body all magnetized on the floor.
Zalo’s enigma echoes throughout the record, as he was summoned by someone from the folkloric tale wherein the majority would deem as unreal or something that only books can remember but never witnessed by the real eyes of the people, allegedly. From the shallow perspective, it is, indeed, a fright that is somehow crawling within one’s skin, which makes it more terrible to begin with. However, this is Zalo’s perspective as a voyager to the unknown, and who are we to initiate some judgments when we never know where did he go, and the process of becoming one with this album. Music is, at the end of the day, disturbing the comfortable, and comfort the disturbed, which questions you at this stare in time: which person are you in his musings?
For the whole duration of 13 minutes, it does not necessarily sound short, and this phantom-crackling of a soundscape honestly puts much more depth and intricacy upon making this record, as if it was, in the forefront, 13 minutes, but in hindsight, an hour long. Although it is never dragging or pulling one’s interest down as the track progresses as it actually uplifts one’s state of mind (and strands of hair) as for the usual case for shorter tracks with longer feel, this EP is actually more of a bewitched collection of songs that are worth welcomed by every lost psyche wanting to be found even in the place of wilderness.
The opener track, a breeze that whispered to me, starts with just a simple chord just repeatedly plucked, and there comes his voice that calls out nature and happens to bond with it, and progressively becoming one with it. “It was time to go, no turning back,” he breezes along the lines of the song. It is off-sounding at times, but he sang it as if he never meant to reach those notes in its right place. It seems like he never sees melodies and notes as a prison cell, but as a wanderer like he is in his record. Quite intentional, and something to ponder at when someone is becoming the personification of solitude that much.
Zalo has his way of repeating lyrics as if he was casting some spells which, if you look at it, would create a declaration stating this power of a track. In the song, clouds in your eyes, the sun felt beautiful, he added every repeated line with more intensity, “See the universe in your eyes.” It is somehow bewitching in a way that the singer is filled with wonder and awe to someone he’s lending his songs to. It is romantic with depth in his case filled with zephyrs.
One interesting track here is the fourth track, kayak angst, probably because it is somehow recorded quite faded in the background, and is the most intense of the songs featured in this record. He is somehow finding his voice and screaming it in his own way about what has happened in the story he has shared with someone for quite such a long time. He is trying to let someone remember what happened in those days as he was just somehow jaded and lost, trying to find what needs to be found, until there isn’t something to be done as it doesn’t need to be found in the first place, putting himself in distress as emphasized through his oohs.
This is not a scary album. This is just from a lad who is deeply heartbroken from the things that could have been the best because of the love he thought was shared. Zalo’s romantic musings are consumed with rage and anger; he has to be one with nature so that he wouldn’t be heard and seen when he’s in his darkest. It is ever-consuming, it becomes a different feeling, and to be able to have such a heart is blessed with danger, but real.
Zalo deserves to be heard.
Follow Zalo
About the Author
Jett interestingly seeks every supposed-to-be-life-changing almost: getting a Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education, submitting a finished compilation of epistles and poems to some book publications, and releasing passion projects to audio streaming platforms. However, his inkling of his pen and his reverberating of his music, being the ones that keep him sustained in somehows, never stop him from walking to a road yet to be taken.
