Zenas
Bellace :: zenas[prime], D-form (with Greg Quinzi)
on the Zenapolae label
Zenas Bellace aka zenas[prime] is the co-founder of the zenapolæ label and one half of d/form. The latter is an ambient electronica project Zenas worked on with Greg Quinzi (who has retired from making music and has since moved off to Boston to live happily ever after).
Zenas is still enthusiastic about continuing and advancing the d/form project and welcomes any audition/demo CD's from interested parties. It is highly recommended you listen to this album and familiarize yourself with it before contacting him at zenasprime@zenapolae.com.
"what/are/you/thinking/?", d/form's first contribution circa 1999, is both beautiful and haunting, a good example of dark ambient. Recommended for an hour staring at Rothko or Newmann or for an evening with your cat. Excellent and exquisite.
Zenas writes:
The first zenapolæ release- d/form
What are You Thinking? is a
collaborative effort from Zenas
Bellace and the currently retired Greg
Quinzi.This entire album was recorded
live and spans the course of an hour.
An ominous hour.
d/form's what are you thinking? is an
album which is hard to categorize,
being best described as an audio
atmosphere. Unlike the traditional new
age and space music genres' odes to
the beauty and mystic allure of the
universe as we know it, what are you
thinking? paints a darker and (perhaps
more realistic) picture. This album
pulsates and writhes across a
beautiful but foreboding star scape,
sporadically introducing new
phenomena which -by the sounds of
them- one would wish to keep a safe
distance from during their celestial
journeys. It will lull you to sleep, only
to wake you up with a creepy
sensation that something is lurking in
the shadows -something not quite
earthly.
Zenas has released a few more tracks since on Zenapolae's compilation album "Pegged".
independent reviews of d/form -what are you thinking?
ambientrance dec 2000
After transmitting the listener into an otherwordly realm of science-fiction soundscapes, d/form asks the musical question... what are you thinking?...
I'm thinking that these dark void-spaces are pretty cool for letting the mind almost-weightlessly trip in some Tron-like expanse of computerized (and semi-ominous) microworlds.
Fading in on airplane-like drones, 00:00:00/00:05:50 begins to rhythmically pulsate in various alternating currents. The breezy electronic floes of 00:05:51/00:11:58 are infused with percolating waves, ripples and hisses which hypnotically intertwine. Thin layers of sweet e-symphonics are merged with isolationist drones in 00:11:59/00:21:15 (9:17), a slowly evolving expanse of subatomic activities which grow increasingly bleepier at its end, segueing into...
the up-and-down blip-patterns of 00:21:16/00:25:39 and its Morse-code-like messages. The deeper, buzzy oscillations of 00:29:21/00/:37:02 are backed by smoother phases of drifting synthstreams. 00:37:03/00:44:49 emits semi-gritty transmissions which blend with low, subtly swooping drones for that pleasantly lost-in-space effect. The track shifts modes somewhat though still retains a spacious interplay of electronics.
Gently swirling blits and hums filter through the refractive lens of 00:48:24/00:51:08 (2:44), sometimes spiraling off in glimmering rays. Bass frequencies hover, fluctuate, rise and spread into a steaming mist; 00:51:09/00:60:00's atmospheres begin to pulse regularly as the piece closes the disc... (at 00:59:08 according to my CD player's readings, whatever that 52-second discrepancy means)
In the faraway electro-universe of what are you thinking?,10 tracks of d/form's gray celestial meanderings add up to 59 space-chilled minutes of exploratory ear-intake. An appreciative 8.6 for such darkly sparkling remoteness.
This review posted December 30, 2000
Mute! Magazine issue #6
A one hour live dark ambient piece from Z. Ballace and Greg Quinzi. Opening with quiet electric atmospheres, What Are You Thinking? slowly climbs into and quirky little hop reminiscent of Noise Museum artists like Oil 10 and ElectroniCat (tracks three and four). It then moves into some heavier experimental music that is perfect for the score of a porn scene between androgynous aliens. Each wash of eerie tones matching the slow grind of the intergalactic species.
Grooves
"Experimental Electronic Music Magazine" issue 3 (p.56)
"'Pulsating' is the term to best describe this
record, as D/Form [sic] sends legion after legion of
throbbing soundwaves through the cosmos. Though there's
nary a beat in sight, there's enough change in the
patterns to keep them from becoming sonic wallpaper.
Not for casual listening, What Are You Thinking? will
please minimal ambient fans listening on headphones."
-Sean Portnoy
