Nearly four decades into the pursuit of Electronic Music Chuck van Zyl seems to have more to express now than ever before. Carried out as the second of two substitution sets during the Back in Time six-hour special edition of Star's End Ambient Radio the album Live on Star's End 11.05.23 (54:01) reveals an artist occupied in a deep level of self-searching and discovery.
On 5 November 2023, as Philadelphians partook in the annual turning back of the clocks and returning their lives to Standard Time, Chuck van Zyl and his associates provided listeners with an extra-long live concert edition for one of the world's most persistent programs of Spacemusic. His Live on Star's End 11.05.23 was realized on-air between 5:00am-6:00am as the last of six sets in an extended broadcast of live-to-air performances.
The piece Lodestar was plotted and patterned to light up the small hours before dawn. Within its beautifully crafted opening zone of reverberant random piano we transition into a refined ethereal realm. Roaming on a moonlight moon-ray, soon a spare sequential pattern emerges. As the vague, drifting notes cautiously align and organize into mechanized pulsations, further in fluttering effects emit echo trails in swirling spacey traces of sound.
When random gives way to rhythm additional lines emerge - with sequencer runs overlapping, interweaving and wandering along the inevitable arc of this expanded nocturnal excursion. Developing in converging assemblies of broken chords, then mending and blending in circuits of synchronized signals, a tricky timing subtly slows the rate of the well-ordered patter - where the unwound, decelerating tones allow Van Zyl's lead line narrative to narrow in on the truth.
Seeking, striving, in it with all his heart, Chuck van Zyl's radio recital resolved at 6:00am in a soft Sunday morning landing back on Earth. In thoughtful repose the receivers of this epic transmission slipped further into their electric poetic galaxy vast dreams - waking later to wonder where and with whom had they travelled the long night before.
Live on Star's End 11.05.23 was released by Synkronos Music on 15 September 2024 to coincide with the Chuck van Zyl concert with The Gatherings Concert Series.
- From the Press Release 15 September 2024
