PREMIERE | Zoe Polanski, "Ya'ar Bein Olamot"

Electro pop shaper of worlds — Zoe Polanski; photographed by Ori Kroll.

In the hyperactive minds of all during these restrictive times of lockdown; the expanses of the imagination has been one of the most critical faculties that have offered respite from the mania of ennui (providing an outlet to at least temporarily calm the omnipresent anxiety of duress). We imagine places, landscapes, vistas and exotic locales that offer a temporary sense of escape from the grueling and often grim realities we are left to contend with in this arena of the mortal and material dimension. Reaching these celestial planes of awe are the visuals from Zoe Polanski’s “Ya’ar Bein Olamot”, animated by Ruth Patir with funding from the Mifal HaPais Council for the Culture and Arts. Featured off the Israeli artist’s album Violent Flowers; the track’s title translates from Hebrew to forest between worlds as Ruth develops an entirely computer generated ecosystem for the electro-atmospheric assembly to dwell and wander within an ambient space.

Conceptualized and developed by the two friends in quarantine, the creative building blocks of “Ya’ar Bein Olamot” take inspiration from the mystic and natural spaces in between realms found in the book The Magician’s Nephew. Taking cues from the subtle and slowly rising synths and trickling rhythms of Zoe's production; Patir offers a universe that exists within its own time and space. "Olamot" begins with the airy washes of breeze and wind, inviting at first one, then two, to three and then herds of galloping wild wolves that can be seen galavanting across the hills and valleys of digitized earth. Ruth keeps the animated realm partially rendered, allowing for daytime and nighttime cycles as the camera slowly pans out to reveal the track's world as being a malleable canvas that exists within its own cosmic galaxy.

Reflective moments with Zoe Polanski; photographed by Assaf Tager.

Zoe provided some inspirational insights on the making of “Ya’ar Bein Olamot” and the video from Ruth Patir:

The inspiration for this track came to me when I was going through a collection of old guitar loops I had on my phone. I came across this loop that I recorded a long time ago, and I noticed that there was something weird about it. It started with four notes with a certain accentuation, and a few moments afterward the accentuation changed when a new melody began. What was weird was that the actual change in accentuation took a few seconds to be perceived, and there was a moment in between that kind of floated between the two different accentuations. That moment felt completely free of any musical timing or emphasis. It struck me as magical.

I decided that I wanted to explore this liminal, weightless space that I found using the loop. It reminded me of the ‘Forest Between Worlds’ from the book The Magician's Nephew by C.S Lewis. My production partner Aviad and I imagined this forest when we worked on expanding the sound palette from the original loop. The forest was also the initial visual reference when we started planning the visuals with Ruth Patir.

The styles & synthesis pop of Zoe Polanski; photographed by Ori Kroll.

Soon after we started discussing the video, Ruth came up with the idea that the forest between worlds is actually best conceptualized and visualized with the use of an unrendered 3D environment. How we viewed this, was that this naked digital space is an actual forest between worlds, a virtual space of multiplicities waiting for realization. There is also an element of infiniteness and an element of non-teleological movement that were important for me in the track. The weightless moment that I originally spotted in the loop is also characterized by timelessness.

The movement of the wolves in the video is a representation of that timelessness — there is no beginning, middle, or end to their gallop, which might as well go on forever.

Zoe Polanski’s album Violent Flowers is available now via Youngbloods.