Simona Zamboli – Ethernity [Mille Plateaux]

We could try to define this album with just one word, but it is impossible. Any adjective must be accompanied by several other adjectives to be able to minimally describe this album. The first attribute, without a doubt, must be heterogeneous. Many artists tend to settle in and repeatedly use the same resources, so most albums tend to sound uniform, with a great similarity between tracks, be it in sounds, rhythmic structures or harmonic conjugation. Ethernity is widely diverse, seeming to have been composed by different artists, from different eras and with disparate musical genres.

Another word we could use to classify this release, or in its case to detail the skill of Simona Zamboli, is dexterity. Skill in designing a complex rhythmic system full of microscopic molecules, as in Bless Interlude, and that each of the innumerable sonic elements, as well as having their own space, provide dynamism. Skill in combining a large number of textures in a single track and making it homogeneous, as in Dream But Be Careful.

Unpredictability is another of Ethernity’s qualities. On a first listen to Noise Hub we can appreciate an unexpected evolution, with continuous changes, in fact, it is difficult to obtain any relation between the initial development and the end. On the other hand, Take Me Somewhere, which is the next track, seems to have more in common with the second half of the previous cut. This continuity it gives to the album converges in a kind of mantra, with several hypnotic voices and a background created with a multitude of details.

With Russian Galaxy we can use several adjectives, one of them is robust, as it is a track with a penetrating beat, which predominates over the rest of the components, thus managing to keep the listener’s mind focused. Let It Drain From You Your All is the opposite, as is A Lightning Bolt Strikes The Mountaintop. Both tracks show fragility, a captivating beauty and a narcotic condition that brings you back to a state of placidity and serenity.   

Compossibility is a regenerative track, with an initial rhythmic structure that feeds on different patterns, each situated in its own space-time and at the same time, alternating in the different dimensions that appear. Trittico is the only track on the album created jointly by Simona and another collaborator, the Mexican Transgresorcorruptor. This production is daring, as well as original, as it not only mixes sounds that could be separated by several light years, but also manages to get all these textures to form a single block, the tuning between them changes slightly. This may sound simple, but in other circumstances it would probably be closer to disaster than consolidation. And finally, the track of the same name could be labelled in several ways; energetic for its constancy, positive for the aura that its tonalities give off, and demanding because it is the culmination of a truly admirable overall work.

Release date: March 20th, 2021.