Closer is an album born from the depths and extremes which human emotions are capable of reaching. The constant fluctuation of sensations - from panic to love, from fear to freedom - and our desire to control them. Channeling these extremes into music is Dutch producer Zes. Closer brings to light his personal journey in regaining control of a non-deterministic state within his life; a state composed of extremes where one neither “is” nor “isn’t”.

The creative process was focused solely on this concept and led purely by his emotions. This drove Zes to create a personal album. He did not allow the music to be compromised by external factors such as other people’s opinions or even other musical influences. Fearless and trusting of his own music, he never let anything hold back that writing process.

Despite this, the album features a series of strong collaborations with the likes of Saro, Trench Dreamer, Anuka and Belle Doron. The collaborations worked successfully due to an instant understanding of Zes’ music, something which could not have been achieved without the transparency with which he approached the making of Closer.

Naturally, the foundations of the album also pushed production and musical experimentation to the limits, to the point of getting a kickdrum to sound “like a fucking earthquake”. The use of analogue and modular synths also contributing the the human side of the production style. Now available in vinyl, Closer can be experienced with the same uninterrupted flow with which it was created.

In his own words, Zes tells us all you need to know about Closer. From his interest in metaphysics, to inviting friends to hold sticks for a photo-shoot. Let’s get closer to ‘Closer’.

So how did these spectrum and extremes influence the writing and sound of the album? Did you find yourself writing in a certain mood at one point and then coming back to it in a different state of mind and changing it up again?

Absolutely. This is present a lot throughout the whole album. My main go to song for this is ‘Stakes’.  It starts with a nice chill kind of ballad and halfway it turns into a nightmarish post-rock electronic thing… collapsing.

I think this was possible to do because it was also a very isolated process. I wasn't really interacting with anyone during the writing. I barely showed anyone any songs at any point and therefore there wasn't much input or unwanted noise from anyone else. I think you can hear that - no one was there to stop things from flowing or change that the songs evolved when I was in a different state.

"The album is ultimately a process of realization... about getting 'closer' to the point of making a big decision"

It's a concept I'm sure not everyone has thought about in such detail. Will you continue writing like this in the future? Or do you want to switch things up?

I think whatever comes next will be a continuation of my approach to writing the album. In terms of not allowing any compromises, even less so than on this album. I found myself spending so much time on the last little stages of production, rounding off tiny details. You can't necessarily hear it, but a lot of the songs contain over 100 tracks. It's great because I now have those skills as a kind of tool-set, but now I want to spend way less time on production and more on writing, lyrics, building the story first before going into all that. I really want to continue putting all of myself into the making of my music; yet again with no compromises. So it won’t be the same journey, but it will be a continuation of this story  - finding out what I want for myself and making decisions.

Tell me more about the collaboration on the album. You said the process was quite isolated, so how did bringing other people in this come about?

It was a really interesting process, and actually quite a humbling and motivating one. My manager and I started contacting all these vocalists and artists, and what was amazing that the people we reached out to were incredibly responsive and showed that they were keen to work on it. Saro, who was involved on 'Floodgates' was a particularly fun journey.  He basically wrote the lyrics and sang that whole thing in about a week. Normally I get stuff back and it's only a rough sketch, but this time it was exactly what I needed. It was a great feeling.

I've done this before… I send them the original demo, I get their versions back and basically spent another 2 days remaking the entire track. Then I sent it back and they're like 'woah that's completely different'. So it was nice that I didn’t have to do that. It was amazing to work with these people and have them understand my music in a way which was so constructive.

I couldn’t give you an answer this myself, but what's your favorite track and why?

‘Stakes’ is definitely my favorite track. I spent a lot of time making that a very smooth sounding track and then changing it into a very harsh beat with distorted vocals. It felt so cool and natural to make these decisions. There was hardly any thinking going into it. It was just an amazing creative flow to experience.

Let's get a bit more technical now. How did the concept influence your recording, production and instrument choices?

"You can't necessarily hear it, but a lot of the songs contain over 100 tracks"

"Stakes is definitely my favorite track... there was hardly any thinking going into it. It was just an amazing creative flow to experience"

Was there a Eureka point somewhere along the writing process? A specific section or beat which really captured the essence of what you were trying to portray to the listener?

A definite eureka moment was when I was making doing some drum production and I managed to make a standard kickdrum sound like a fucking earthquake. And then also distorting samples or vocals by pitching it one way, compressing, distorting it, compressing it again, pitching it back up and see what comes out.

It was also important to find a middle ground with these machines. Between going absolutely ham with them and still finding something that other people are able to resonate with.

Are there any albums or artists that inspired the sound-scape of the album?

An obvious one for me is Flume. He has always been present in some ways. He's always pushing boundaries and just creating insane production. For this specific album Lorn was a big inspiration. He's always making super dark beats. Flying lotus also played a part.

But I actually didn't listen to much music during the whole process. Again, I think this also has to do with the more isolated space which I'd put myself into, and that also meant limiting music as an exterior input.

Something that did inspire me was the idea of combining several genres and not limiting myself into a specific confine. People are a lot more accustomed to that nowadays because of how accessible any type of music has become. You get artists like Travis Scott being on a James Blake album for example, and that’s very exciting. Trying to fit 3 or 4 songs into one song is something I was trying to explore and try out myself. Nowadays people's attention span is getting smaller and smaller, so this approach felt risky but also liberating.

A lot of the time you can have people coming up and saying you sound like ‘this artist’ or ‘that artist’, which can be a huge compliment… but in this case I wanted to put all of myself into it and really try and making personal. At the same time it's hard to escape that, the electronic production side of things I feel is still influenced a lot by other artists.

Is there a story behind the artwork? And how does it link to the music?

Finally - now that you also have a vinyl release - where and when should this album be listened to? In what mind frame? Time of day? Location?

The vinyl release is really special because it was actually professionally mastered with vinyl in mind. What's also important is that when I went into the studio, I wanted to make sure that all the tracks flowed into each-other seamlessly, with no interruption. So vinyl is the perfect way to listen to that because it's just rolls continuously. Apart from swapping sides obviously... but that's all part of the experience I guess.

It's a pretty intense record and there are no stops or resting points. Like bang, bang, bang here comes another track. So I would say it's definitely not a 'Christmas dinner with your parents' kind of album, but it's good music for periods which feel very heavy or if you want to completely clear your mind with some sonic information.

I've probably listened to the full thing about 1000 times now and every time I do that I hear new specific things which I forgot I’d put into the tracks. I think anyone who listens to the album can do that and really immerse themselves into everything that's going on. It's weird because it's a meditative state, but a very noisy one.... like inside out mediation.

"It's definitely not a 'Christmas dinner with your parents' kind of album, but it's good music if you want to completely clear your mind with some sonic information."

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"It's a meditative state, but a very noisy one... like inside out meditation"