PRESS KIT

Aries Zaes
Dust & Debris Tour

2024

Listen on Spotify, iTunes, Bandcamp, etc.
Purchase albums on Bandcamp (digital & physical)

Eli Backer on Dust:
Silica, ashes, PM2.5, flour, carbon, titanium, lens; green sweep, mist, mask, crumb, cold, laser, listing. Dusts– innocuous, potent, dangerous and foundational, easily combined. These smallest parts swept into rhythm, dampened to basses, sifted to melody. Humble debris no more, past remnants are refined and unmitigatable. Aries Zaes make an understated, potent return with DUST. Prior debris has ground and sifted into forms that no longer require distinction, and carry great power in their subtle shifts. The rhythms are inescapable, the bass carefully tuned, and melodies billow through new form.

Mimi Kind on Debris:
“Aries Zaes mill sound components precisely, into warm wholesome synth forms. They can twist themselves into their own threads. Still, human nuance, quirks, sound freckles. pop.stroke.pop. Tracks to dance up, dance down tracks. Aries-and-Zaes-made compositional systems, which take on a momentum of their own.”

Artist name: Aries Zaes
Genre: Electro/Techno/Dance Music
BPM: 120-135

Members:
Annie Aries (Swiss, based in Bern/Switzerland)
Marcel Zaes (Swiss, based in Shenzhen/China)

Web:
https://arieszaes.bandcamp.com

Artist Bio
Aries Zaes (Annie Aries + Marcel Zaes) met while studying together at the Bern Academy of the Arts, and have collaborated ever since on synth and technology driven projects. Their debut album “Debris” was published by Prefermusic (Switzerland) in 2020. With their debut “Debris” (Prefermusic, 2020), Aries Zaes explored the coincidence of analog synthesizer instruments, digital structures, and noisy media artifacts as sound material. “Debris” was recorded while in residency at Brown University back in 2018/2019.

After “Debris” (2020), “Dust” (2023) is the second album by the electronic music duo Aries Zaes. Years after having met in the circles of the Bern Academy of Arts, Annie and Marcel decided that a sonic artistic practice might need a counterbalance, which they decided might be a four-to-the-floor aesthetic that is danceable and comes with its own drive, and yet enlivens analog textures made from noise and other normally “inaudible” matter. Similar to its predecessor, “Dust” is recorded on an assemblage of both historic and contemporary sound modules and synthesizers, including the Arp2500, Moog DFAM and Mother 32, Roland System 500, Korg MS20, Doepfer System 100, Korg Volca Series, and a custom assembled modular system with Make Noise and 4ms modules among others. “Dust” hence continues Aries Zaes’ fascination for mixing new and old, high and low tech, analogical and digital – a blend that materializes across rhythms, textures, colors, and “feel.”

All music was written, recorded and produced by Annie Aries (anniearies.com) and Marcel Zaes (marcelzaes.com) on historic and contemporary analog synthesizers including Arp2500, Moog DFAM and Mother 32, Roland System 500, Korg MS20, Doepfer System 100, Korg Volca Series, and a custom assembled modular system with Make Noise and 4ms modules among others. The build of the musical structures is inspired by Rick Snoman’s Dance Music Manual (Routledge 2013) and by tons of YouTube tutorials by wonderful practitioners.

Thanks to Brown University, Bern Academy of the Arts, and SUSTech School of Design Shenzhen for letting us play their valuable instruments. All our music was made between 2018 and 2023 in Providence, Boston, Bern, Frankfurt, and Shenzhen.
Mixing & Mastering: Ramon Bischoff, nomar.ch
Artwork: Sandra Schmid, schmiderei.com
Liner Notes: Eli Backer @backer_official + Mimi Kind @mimi_kind, mimikind.com
Visuals: schmiderei.com, and Jonas Probst @netlip

Live set recording, Lausanne/Switzerland, 2019:
https://vimeo.com/345895875?share=copy (password: blue)

Record covers: Dust (PM019, 2023), and Debris (PM014, 2020)