As I explored the vast Hakuna Kuala label, I struggled to find anything that I actually wanted to write about. I find that unfamiliar music can be somewhat difficult to relate to, which became more and more evident as I listened to increasingly abrasive, confrontational music. While I appreciated everything I heard there were only a few songs that I listened to completely, and only one that I have listened to since. ‘Inside Me’ by Don Zilla.
While this is certainly an unpopular take on the noise/ambient/experimental genres – this song was the only one I heard that sound like a human had sat down and put their own emotions into the music. On the contrary, you could argue that many others like Slikback choose to express their anger through creating music that sounds robotic, industrial and abrasive and while I would not disagree for a second, I feel that Don Zilla retains a good balance between humanistic and digital sounds and still ensures that his music production remains authentic to himself and his beliefs.
This blend of more traditional African influences and digital, synth based production was what stood out to me the most on my first listen. Against a constant backdrop of glitches soaked in reverb Don Zilla often brings the attention towards the much more human aspects of his sound – as the track builds slowly towards a climactic end point he introduces much more acoustic sounding pops as well as ambient sounds that resemble deep water, creating an interesting contrast between an environment and the digital world that impacts it.
“I would pay for a certain time, download demos of FL studio and tried to work out something. At the end of the day, you had no way to save it as it was a demo. You would do a sketch but the next time you would come you find that the software has been deleted because they are not your computers. You have to push on”. [1]
In one of his only interviews, Don Zilla talks about his music production journey all the way from learning acoustic instruments in church to paying greedy producers to let him set and watch them in the studio. The interview was very insightful but the most memorable aspects was Don Zilla’s relentless drive and attitude to making music as it gets pitted against the inaccessible, sometimes elitist nature of the music industry.
To conclude, ‘Inside Me’ by Don Zilla displays his skills and authenticity as a music producer by creating a dark soundscape that emanates both a humanistic environment and a mechanical, digital landscape.
[1] maracuyasoundsystem (2020). In Conversation with Don Zilla. [online] Maracuya Soundsystem. Available at: https://maracuyasoundsystem.wordpress.com/2020/05/06/in-conversation-with-don-zilla/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2023].