Dawn Chorus And The Infallible Sea

Dawn Chorus

Dawn Chorus And The Infallible Sea make meditative electronic music with edge, and for good reason. Their soft ambient textures evolved from the hard, distorted lacerations of Indianapolis post-rock outfit Pillars. Zach Frizzell and Marc Ertel of Pillars formed DCATIS in 2017, with Texan musician Damien Duque joining them for their second album, 2020’s //Liberamente//.That record was largely assembled remotely during lockdown, with Duque adding his ambient guitar lines as a full member in spite of the fact they’d never met him in person. And that, it transpires, is still the case.

“We have yet to do a show together,” says Frizzell aka Zakè, “and we would absolutely love to meet up with Damien because we’ve been working with each other for a few years now. That is definitely on our bucket list.” The trio’s dream is to make it happen in London, the headquarters of their label Sonic Cathedral run by ex-//NME// journalist Nathaniel Cramp, a label ordinarily synonymous with shoegaze. “We said to Nat, we’re your first dronegazer band,” laughs Frizzell. “It stuck enough that we liked the term and pressed up t-shirts.”

2024’s //Reveries//, then, is the strongest showing yet from the trio, with beautiful, sunny, orange-hued artwork to match. Frizzell brings bright textures to the canvas by sampling out-of-print orchestral strings then elongating them and manipulating them; Ertel adds modular synthesisers; Duque then works in his heavily disguised guitars. So how did these hardcore exponents come to make such lush, thoughtful music?

Frizzell has been involved with a network of ambient musicians throughout the United States for more than a decade, and he even set up a blog in order to write about the music these artists were making. “And then I realised I really hate writing blogs, and I’d rather just release the music,” he chuckles. Zakè Drone Recordings became a way to disseminate the work he loved, but it served a utilitarian purpose too: “Drone and ambient were more of a respite than any prescription,” he asserts.

And that too was the case for Ertel: “Zach and I have our history with anxiety and I had it pretty bad at one point, where I couldn’t even go to school because I had severe panic disorder. Around the time that Zack and I were writing music together, he introduced me to a lot of these artists. I just wanted to make beautiful music, but as a guitar player who’d grown up playing punk and metal, you’d use the tools you were proficient at, meaning trying to make my guitar sound like a choir or something like that.”

Duque, meanwhile, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was five. Ambient music has become a way of reaching out for him. He says: “Social settings and the way I view the world differently have been challenging for me. Sometimes people with autism have trouble communicating verbally and emotionally, so music and art are outlets. This whole adventure has been a way of finding an emotional outlet to express myself. Hopefully I can inspire other individuals with neurodiversity and autism to find this connection, and help people to find some solace.” JA

PROG FILE

Lineup: Zach Frizzell (drones, sampling, synths), Marc Ertel (modular synth, guitars, synths), Damien Duque (guitars)

Sounds like: The trio invented the term “dronegazers” which neatly encapsulates what they do

Current release: Reveries is out now on Sonic Cathedral

Website: https://dcatis.bandcamp.com/

— Jeremy Allen