Year: 2025
Label: Zoharum

Vidna Obmana, who we’ve covered a number of times, may have been laid to rest about 20 years ago, but the creative mind behind it gets no rest. Testament to this is the sheer volume of releases Dirk Serries has released under his own name. Discogs lists an impressive 141 albums under that name.

How relevant is it to mention a long past project right from the bat? Perhaps not very, and perhaps it’s even a slight injustice towards Serries to so prominently link his current output to an old project. But it’s also the only thing I have to work with, never having listened to any of Serries’ other numerous projects.

Less than surprisingly, Dirk Serries anno 2025 sounds a lot different than the older Vidna Obmana releases we’ve covered before. Zonal Disturbances II takes several steps into a more industrial territory, and even a somewhat more dark and sinister timbre whilst still remaining in the field of ambient.

To put it simply: Zonal Disturbances II looks like its cover artwork. It’s got that characteristic abstraction of ambience all about it, but there’s a far more industrial, electric nature about the music. What sounds like an electric guitar takes center stage in many of the compositions, complemented by elements familiar from darker strains of ambient, such as layers of slowly droning metal structures groaning under weight. Eerie murmurations and echoes haunt the background. There’s a sense of beautiful desolation to the music, like abandoned industrial complexes bathed in the benevolent light of a summer morning’s sunrise.

Zonal Disturbances II is one of those albums that refuses to be easily pigeonholed. Whilst it contains plenty of elements familiar from dark ambient, I wouldn’t lump it under that descriptor. At times, the music engages the listener far too proactively to entirely snugly fit into stereotypical definitions of ambient. Drone it is not, despite heavily leaning towards long, droning passages of electrical tones. And industrial, broad as the genre is… well, not that either.

And in a way it’s all of those. At least insofar as “if you are into this, you might like Zonal Differences II.” If any of the genres ticked above belong to your steady musical diet, Zonal Differences II will find a place on your plate.

And therein is the beautiful paradox of Zonal Disturbances II. In many ways, it continues Serries’ style of understatedness and minimalism both in composition and arrangement – without being explicitly minimalist music. But at the same time, it’s industrial ambience draws from a vast array of styles to create something in which numerous genres overlap. This is not something one usually associates with minimalism.

Reading Zoharum’s promo sheet, apparently Serries has been so inspired by the soundscapes he explores on this (and, presumably, the first Zonal Disturbances album) that continuation is imminent. Well, let this be my verdict of the album: I’ll welcome a Zonal Disturbances III with open arms!

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