
Released February 27 2024
Across our list of affiliate producers and friendly creatives, Jackson Hale continues to deliver pristine polish and professionalism through his Zonra project. Across the arc of his aural evolution, the staples of the Zonra palette have gradually taken on clearer compositional heights, with yearly successive releases driving home the developing narrative within Hale’s musical vision. Once again, we find ourselves excited and honored to platform the latest collection of minted Zonra works and his 5th release with The Rust; The Folded Road.
Consisting of 7 tracks written and produced across a 6-year span on the road, The Folded Road offers a variety of snapshots into the effusive stages of the Zonra sound. Resting primarily in the downtempo wheelhouse, every song features the techy ambience at the core of Hale’s signature style, while perusing both gentle and hard-hitting percussive backdrops across the record. Throaty synthesis and distorted, reverberant pads mingle with delicate pops and transient downbeats in the same simmering dish, dovetailing the early in-roads of Hale’s discography with the contemporary shape of the Zonra catalog. For fans and appreciators of compositionally-driven, emotive electronic music, your next pocket of sound can found within the folds of our 81st release, The Folded Road.
Released June 14 2023
A collection of recordings dedicated to and created amongst the flora of Northern California.
Released April 19 2022
This album has joined the two separate and distinct approaches I've taken to music writing- freely recording textures, sessions with individual instruments and generative melodic content, which have comprised my work under my own name, as well as editing and arranging for many months to arrive at a more nuanced and planned end result- the work that has been filed under my alter ego Zonra for the last 8 years.
From the fine people at The Rust:
"Subverting compositional and design tropes each step of the way, the Zonra project has maintained a striking consistency in its escape from the norms of conventional electronic music. Straddled somewhere between the dance-centric sound of contemporary bass music producers and the aural experimentation developed by IDM pioneers, Jackson Hale achieves a stable balance between groove and intrigue with each subsequent release, moving that needle closer to either end whenever the need arises. In time-tested fashion, his latest LP is a work of beauty from every angle, and as such, The Rust is incredibly excited to premiere Time Is A Tool as our 61st label release.
Previous Zonra records have featured an amalgam of shredded synthesis, mean breakdowns, and carefully threaded melodic elements. Unsurprisingly, Hale flipped the script entirely for Time Is A Tool; The LP’s opening moments involve smooth harmonies egressing into smooth cadence, and that relationship carries on throughout each track. Choice waves of tension and release, told through the intentional splaying of tones and textures into glitched-out symphonies, creates a permeable catharsis within each fold of the record, slowly churning the listener towards the album’s zenith. Opting for slow, caressing tempos and chord phrases reminiscent of serene lullabies, the traditional throaty bass lines and hyper-compressed downbeats are put out to pasture in favor of a record filled to the brim with particularly intentional and resoundingly magical moments of introspection and rest. For those keen on finding their next sonic journey amidst a crowd with a dancefloor focus, Time Is A Tool is assuredly the album you’ve been searching for."
Released Aug 28 2021
"This album represents a shift in my approach to music creation: most importantly, music's function as a mechanism through which the mind may be connected more steadily to the present moment. Each song was played (or, in a couple cases, generated) live without further changes to the original sounds or arrangement. Rather than slowly building a song piece by piece, all the while searching for those next 'correct' ingredients, and keeping only a fraction of what I've made, as my approach has been toward my endeavors under Zonra, these songs came about in one go, with no second guessing. This music is my anti-anxiety medication, and each listen returns me to that calm presence of mind. This album is an experiment in composition primarily via feelings and intuition rather than through a series of thoughts and ideas. There are no beats to be found here: this is music for sleep and meditation (I fell asleep multiple times during my listen-throughs, trying to finish things up); a series of dreamscapes moving by at their own speed and leisure."