Listen: Fractures – “Cadence” & “Tizer”

A lot has happened to Australian Marc Zito since we first featured him as our ’F’ artist earlier this year, not least the fall and broken neck that forced him to cancel his debut show and put him out of action for three months. There are jokes that can be made about Fractures fracturing his neck, irony and such like, but we’re not that cruel. Let’s just say it’s probably for the best that he doesn’t perform under the name ‘flaming ball of death responsible for the decimation of entire cities’. Fully recovered, Zito is back having used his convalescence to make music and is now gearing up for his debut EP release, slightly later than planned, early next year.

As a prelude he has made two tracks available online, “Cadence” and the b-side, “Tizer”, which we like to think is a love song to the classic fizzy drink, but probably isn’t. No, Fractures’ “Tizer” isn’t red, fizzy and synonymous with 80’s kids parties, but you can tell it when your eyes are shut.

In fact ‘eyes closed’ is a good way to experience all of Zito’s work. Just sit back and listen and let the sounds carry you off on a gentle drift of ambient musicality and melody. As we mentioned back in March, his music contains an emotional resonance and elegant beauty that could soothe your soul.

Dealing with unrequited love and the inability to shut away feelings that only cause you pain, “Cadence” is a sombre greyness, like rain at a funeral or the cold December of a relationship. Feelings have long since withered and all that’s left is the sting of dried emotion on your face as the winter wind chills you from the inside.

“Tizer” too is heavy with sentiment, lonely and private. In little under four minutes it embodies miniature heartbreak through melodic, dreamy electronic sounds. Like a scene in a snow globe, all you can do is watch the isolation, the song shakes up and activity bursts out but its transient beauty is soon replaced once more with loneliness and despair.

No longer broken, we hope that Fractures is able to avoid any further ironic injuries and maintains the very high standards he has already set for himself with these wondrous releases. The world is a more beautiful place for having them.

StalkFractures: Website / Facebook / Soundcloud / Twitter

‘F’ is for Fractures

It’s fascinating when you think about it, how we react to a song is very much dependant on the circumstances under which it is heard for the first time, or the mood we are in, in some cases it could be our internal chemical balance, enhanced or otherwise, that makes you think something is amazing. Similarly, the way music can affect you, the change it can impact upon your mood and even your outlook on a situation never ceases to amaze us. In particular, it’s the way music has of seeping into your soul and triggering emotion and memories, you develop associations that last forever and that can be sparked quickly and completely.

So it was with the music of Australian Mark Zito, or Fractures as he is now known as. Specifically his latest work, a swooshing, otherworldly cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” which instantly hit the spot in our brain reserved for ‘ahhhh shit, this is awesome’ moments. As we’ve mentioned before, “Space Oddity” has a very special and important place in our music loving heart, so to hear it remixed in such a unique and beautiful way tickled us way more than pink. It has a suitably retro, 70’s sci-fi flick feel to it while still retaining enough Bowie-ness within this near complete re-working to be instantly recognisable. It’s probably one of the best remixes we’ve heard (and it’s available to download for free as well).

We shouldn’t be surprised though as Fractures is a project of distinguished quality. Dreamy electro soundscapes are complemented with soft, soulful falsetto vocals that, on “Twisted” in particular, ring out with a richness that would stop a rhino’s heart. Elsewhere, on “Embers” for example, they near whisper along delicately before building into big and evocative crescendos of atmospheric folksiness. It sounds like an odd mix but by God it works.

The sounds are patient, controlled but not angular; they melt and float into one another as with the likes of London Grammar and evoke dark atmospherics like Paper Crows. It’s not just the gloriousness of this electronic instrumentation that has us so excited either; it is the combination, the perfect symbiotic combination, with the dusk-like lyrics and vocals. Like Radiohead and even Kindness to a degree, Fractures blends light and dark, retro and futuristic, indie and electro and he does so to a dazzling degree.

Depending on your mood when you listen, his music could balm an enraged soul or stir a lethargic one to action; it could warm a frozen heart or cause ice tears to run down your face. Whichever emotion it sparks, whichever feeling or memory comes cascading to the forefront of your mind, you will be left in no doubt that this is music of genuine quality and deserved of repeated listens and undivided attention.

Fractures is currently prepping his debut EP to be released mid-2013.

StalkFractures: Website / Facebook / Soundcloud / Twitter