Zenapolæ

Paul Edwards

Price: CD $7.5

Description

Dark yet uplifting, heart-scratching ditties that gracefully glide with charming synthesizer melodies, AFX-ish breakbeats that range from splattering minimal blips and clips to uppity drum 'n' bass, soundtrack-y soundscapes, quirky bubbly-ness and sci-fi spookiness. It's all urbanely laced with funk, soul, jazz, psychedelics, and, on three tracks, the alluring voice of the ballsy, Tracy Chapman-ish Sierra Hurtt-Akselrod.

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Album Reviews

Pine Bluff Commercial

Your guess is as good as mine as to what ths title means. Perhaps six billion is how many light years away your spirit will drift after sliding into Paul Edward's creation, a driftingly beautiful, eclectic mix of ambient electronica. Spartan but effective, with jazzy peaks and world music touches in a couple of places. It's a mellow journey the audio explorer will find here among the stars. This is a lovely construction of quiet but highly effective ambient.

Kristofer Upjohn, Pine Bluff Commercial, 2003

Electronic Music World

A perfect blend of organic sounds, beautiful vocals and dreamy electronica. That is the essence of this 9 track album by Paul Edwards.

The third cd release of this independant label that is, among likeminded people known for it's high quality releases, offers a huge variation of styles, blending together. Jazzy influences, drum 'n' bass rhythms, beautiful vocals by the excellent singer Sierra Hurtt-Akselrod, and a perfectly crafted balance between electronic sounds and organic material give this disc something special. It is the new incarnation of braindance. Is it the new incarnation of lounge. Or is it something completely new. If none of these, then where have I been, not hearing this before.

I myself am especially charmed by the wonderful ambience created in tracks such as Vega, where both the long, evolving soundscapes as the rhythmical aspects contribute evenly to the enormous strength of the track. Your Mind, the track following Vega, just takes off nearly unnoticed, though definately more rhythm-driven. Beautiful.

A very varied album, which can be used a great background music, but which is also perfect to play while paying attention to the music. Dreamy yet catchy. A very interesting listen. Highly recommended.

Stefan Koopmanschap, Electronic Music World, 2003

Splendind E-Zine

Understated beat chemistry, subtle instrumentation and a sense of minimalism dominate the tracks on To Six Billion, carving their way through a variety of electronic styles without ever settling comfortably into a single genre. Paul Edwards has a method to his madness: by touching on a bit of everything, the range is endless, never stagnant, full of possibility. Edwards channels the entire spectrum of mood and atmosphere through his compositions, singling out sounds to investigate the emotive effect and then just as briskly abandoning them to introduce something entirely unfamiliar.

"Skywriting" is propelled on puckered, muted rhythms, jazz-tinged synth refrains and punches of guitar, woven into a meandering pattern that remains cheerful despite its underlying low-key melancholia. "Sonoluminescence" bubbles and percolates on a collection of round, reverberating notes, interrupted by warm snake-like melodies and playful keyboard yawns. The dark sighs and blips of "Mattaesque" lie in stark contrast to "Drug&Brace"'s raw drum and bass beats and gnashing, rough chords, the lilting voice of contributing vocalist Sierra Hurtt-Akselrod trailing through the background. Hurtt-Akselrod's voice graces two additional songs: the upright bass-fueled, sticky elegance of "Burn" and the world music flavoured "Your Mind", replete with spacy synth progressions, tumbling percussion and bits of (what sounds like) a Central Asian or Tibetan horn.

Edwards succeeds in blending the boundaries of style and emerges from the opposite end with a whole new definition of experimental electronica. To Six Billion is what happens when soul, jazz, drum and bass, funk, downtempo and lounge collide -- and it is a lovely combination.

Daniela Maestro, Splendid E-Zine, 2003

Aural Innovations

There is something uniquely beautiful on the new CD by Paul Edwards entitled To 6 Billion. With the perfect mesh of intricate detail, sonic balance,
deeply felt/programmed electronics and angelic vocal work by Sierra Hurtt-Akselrod-- Paul Edwards has hit a Babe Ruthesque home run.

After I listened to the new Paul Edwards CD, I dumped a DJ booking on a friend (also a DJ) and began to sample, scratch, compose beats and string sections for two days at my studio. No horseshit Jack, I got some serious inspiration from this new release. I kept shuffling back and forth between Edwards and Underworld's masterwork, up Fish with the fevered compulsion of a fulltime heroine user.

Edwards digs deep on this release and has more than a few tricks up his down tempo/experimental electronic sleeve. In particular, track 1 (Burn) sets the mood with the following lyrics: You're cold, cold and uncaring. It's like your reading a line off of cue cards. There's nothing in your eyes. There's nothing in your eyes. Heavy stuff, and really, who hasn't felt that at one time or another? The drum programming throughout this track (and album) is remarkable and obsessively executed. The whole damn record warrants more than one listen; this should be in the 10- disc CD-changer for the next 100 years as a record of at least one thing that mankind did.

Haven't heard of Paul Edwards? You will.

Aural Innovations, 2003

AmbiEntrance

Talk about a great first impression... burn's smoky noir-jazz is punctuated by cool, crisp e-beats and sultry vocalizations (which are lyrically interesting, even, adding esoteric twists to its torchy lament) by sierra hurtt-akselrod. Definitely the most "structured" track and an enticing bit of misdirection, as the others tend towards more exploratory zones... Electronic vapors hover, twist and warble through sonoluminescence, a zone of gauzey synth-psychedelia and slippery rhythmic pulsations.

Similarly trippy, skywriting spews hyperflexible guitartronic strands, loosely spiraling saxophonics and light percussive effects. More aggressive drum-n-bassisms propel drug&brace while mattaesque takes a leisurely freeform trek though a world of gleams, glares and bass riffles all stirred up by cymbalic rhythms.

With warped tones and fidgety bleeping keys, your mind (3:12) takes on a surreal sci-fi aspect visited by spectral female crooning. Deep undulations are routinely popped by sub-bass thumps in the moodier murk of the box opened which ends the 42.5-minute show with a more somber mood.

Nice work from paul edwards and friends... though the opening number is my fave, the remaining experimentronic tracks are more suited to these pages. Count on to six billion to deliver a number of assorted good things.

One of the more outright "musical" things I\'ve heard from the Zenapolae label!

David J. Opdyke, AmbiEntrance, 2002

Credits and Licenses

Copyright © 2002 by Paul Edwards.
All rights reserved.