Föllakzoid / I
Artist Föllakzoid
Album Title: I
Album Cover:
Primary Genre Rock: Psychedelic Rock
Format FLAC 24.44
Released 08/01/2019
Label Sacred Bones Records
Catalog No SBR-223
Bar Code No none
Packaging Download
Tracks
1. I (17:00)
2. II (13:00)
3. III (17:00)
4. IV (13:00)
Date Acquired 02/02/2022
Personal Rating
Acquired from Qobuz
Purchase Price 8.99

Web Links

All Music Guide Entry:
Bandcamp entry:
Discogs entry:

Notes

The long-awaited fourth full-length by Föllakzoid isn’t merely a recalibration for the band. It is a multidimensional reconsideration of what the process of songwriting, performance, and creating a work of recorded music can be.

Föllakzoid grows via depuration, aiming with each record to fill longer spaces of time with fewer and fewer elements. The creative perspective of the band has always been about unlearning the narrative and musical knowledge that shape the physical and digital formats and conceptions available, both visually and musically in order to make a time-space metric structure that dissolves both the author and the narrative paradigms. “We found our sonic and metric identity even more in these songs than in our previous attempts,” guitarist/singer Domingæ Garcia-Huidobro explains.

Unlike past Föllakzoid records, that were done in single takes with the full band, this record took three months to construct out of more than 60 separate stems – guitars, bass, drums, synthesizers, and vocals, all recorded in isolation. Producer Atom TM, who was not present for recording, was then asked to re-organize the four sequences of stems without any length, structural restrictions or guidelines. Those sequences ultimately became the four long tracks that appear on I.

The result of this was a set of songs where neither the band’s, nor the producer’s, structural vision primarily shaped the metric or tonal space shifts, but where both were still subliminally present in each of the parts that form the structure and the frequency modulations that guide them.

“We invite you to join us in sharing the experience of being led by this non-rational, sonic artform and its energy. It is also an invitation to connect once again with your inner master and his intuition, erasing the systematic rationalization that usually follows creative forces when perceived, to guide you on this holographic simultaneous simulation where reality is rooted in,” Domingae added.

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Analyzed Folder: Follakzoid-I_dr.txt
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DR          Peak          RMS      Filename                      
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DR7     -0.50 dB    -8.69 dB   01 - I.flac                  
DR7     -0.50 dB    -8.99 dB   02 - II.flac                  
DR7     -0.50 dB  -10.22 dB   03 - III.flac                
DR6     -0.50 dB    -7.28 dB   04 - IIII.flac                
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Number of Files: 4
Official DR Value: DR7
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Reviews
All Music Guide I Review by Paul Simpson:

Chilean Krautrock enthusiasts Föllakzoid collaborated with Atom™ (impossibly prolific electronic musician Uwe Schmidt, a German-born resident of Santiago) on 2015's III, adding more of a techno influence to the band's hypnotic guitar-based psychedelia, additionally claiming inspiration from traditional Andean music. The group's fourth album is titled I, and it appropriately strips down their sound even further than before. Instead of taking time to develop songs and then recording them in the studio in single takes, on this occasion the members of Föllakzoid individually recorded dozens of isolated stems of their instruments and handed them off to Schmidt, who reconstructed them however he wished. The results have far more in common with minimal techno than psychedelic rock, with throbbing rhythms at the center and a constant, ever-shifting array of trippy effects surrounding them. There isn't much in the way of melody here, and there aren't any lyrics either, although there are moments where weird, garbled voices emerge. Precision seems to be a priority here, as all four tracks are numerically titled, with the odd-numbered ones both clocking in at exactly 17 minutes each, and the evens both 13 minutes. The shorter tracks happen to be the ones that have stronger beats, with an insistent boom-tick moving your body, and the swiftly mutating effects altering your mind. It's not at all improbable to imagine minimal techno guru Ricardo Villalobos (who also happens to be Chilean-German) dropping these tracks in a DJ set, perhaps mixing them with something like his own marathon-length "Fizheuer Zieheuer." "III" is the least rhythmic piece, with Schmidt arranging the guitars into slowly vibrating drones for several minutes before he's finally ready to start the kick drum. "IIII" gets a little heavier on synth effects and sequences, and the eerie cyborg voices are a bit louder and sharper. Other than these types of structural differences, the whole album is essentially variations on the same idea, and while it might test the patience of some of the group's listeners, those willing to simply lie back and get caught up in the flow will find it more than worthwhile.
Cover 1