We Speak Music
WØLZT Drops Atmospheric Album ‘Tapes From The Maze’
For French artist WØLZT, music is a maze of echoes, emotions, and stories waiting to be unearthed. His latest album, Tapes From The Maze, is a bold venture into what he calls “hypnagogic rock,” an innovative fusion of ambient, post-rock, and cinematic music that reflects his fascination with sound as an immersive experience. With just three long tracks, WØLZT takes listeners on a journey through dystopian landscapes and cosmic realms, exploring moods that range from haunting to meditative.
Each track on, Tapes From The Maze, is an exploration in itself. In “Noise,” he combines minimalist synths with subtle, haunting arpeggios, setting a suspenseful tone that feels like the opening scene of a sci-fi thriller. Then, with “Driving Out,” WØLZT delves into a darker, more introspective space, combining textured synths and brooding bass that feel like a descent into an urban dreamscape, something akin to a John Carpenter soundtrack but with a modern twist. By the time we reach “Signal,” the album’s climactic track, we’re in a realm that feels both vast and intimate, a cosmic space painted with pulsing bass and otherworldly synths that evoke the wonder of interstellar exploration.
WØLZT’s sound design is key to the album’s magnetic pull. By using restraint and allowing each note to breathe, he gives listeners a sense of scale and depth that makes this album unforgettable. Every sound feels intentional, like a puzzle piece in the album’s broader sonic tapestry. His use of pauses, sparse instrumentation, and gradual builds make each moment feel as much about silence as it is about sound, creating a meditative space that’s both immersive and introspective.
Tapes From The Maze, reveals WØLZT’s capacity to craft not just music but a transportive experience that blurs the lines between reality and dreams. Through the layered intricacies of, Tapes From The Maze, WØLZT is redefining how listeners engage with music, making it less of a passive experience and more of an interactive journey. This album is a testament to his skill and artistry, and an invitation to listeners everywhere to step inside the maze of sound he’s so meticulously crafted.
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
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