ITLN
NEWS
THE ATHEIST
BACK STORY: Finding myself stranded in a village in Portugal in the early hours after a gig in Lisbon, and with no taxis to be found - I set off back on a 3 hour walk to where I was staying. At the corner of each dark lane a dog would start barking as I approached, setting off all the other dogs across the valley - the barks would echo across the landscape for a few minutes then stop when I reached the next house where another dog would bark and the whole process would start all over again - I tried to amuse myself by coming up with verses in the time it took to move from one house to another - the barking at each isolated house as the bridge to the imaginary chorus - then dropping to silence and into the next verse and moving down the next dark lane.
INSIDE STORY: That was back in March 2018. Although I got back that night and bashed out the chords on my old piano and thought I had the song, it didn't really hold together when I played it again the next morning. I tried a version for the album 'Infinity Is The Loneliest Number' but abandoned it. Later I used some reworked instrumental sections for 'The Atheist' on my side project NOITAMI GAMI - which partially worked. Then in September 2023 when I read about the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree I suddenly understood how the song should work. The interplay of identity and nostalgia and religion, it's misuse by the ruling class and the tech bros and the weird self-destructive death drive they make us buy into and participate in as we hollow ourselves out from the inside.
FRONT STORY: Loosely about my experience becoming an atheist and then dealing with a weird unshakable feeling of missing out spliced with wondering what happened to the second summer of love (88/89) the positivity that disappeared and was crushed into a sense of futility rather than the progressive energy that was in the air, everything was moving forward without nostalgia, a better future for everyone without looking back. The second verse is a reference to how all this only gets shown clearly in unexpected events like the destruction of the sycamore gap tree - that sadness goes deep. Also it’s a tune about not getting distracted by charlatans and billionaires.
19 SEPTEMBER 2026
IMAGINARY RADIO EDIT
EXCLUSIVE on SUBVERT now
Then elsewhere from 22nd SEPTEMBER
A nice splice and rework of the final track on LIPPER. Keeping faithful to the original but with added scissor work to find a new satisfying end to this particular road. Remastered for the hell of it by Mike Hellier at Metropolis.
THE ATHEIST (IMAGINARY RADIO EDIT)
LISTEN on SUBVERT
NOT available on Spotify
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ABOUT:
11 SEPT 2026
POEMS FOR HELICOPTER BLADES
The new exhibition is on at the Barbara Thuum gallery until 30th October 2026. It includes the work LA FIN / RUNWAY. Tobias was part of the team responsible for editing and visual effects. The film is mapped and projected onto the canopy of a fighter jet.
"The film itself is wonderfully absurd...Humans become aircraft, aircraft become animals, and the seductive visual languages of fashion and warfare begin to collapse into one another."
Review: FAD MAGAZINE (item 5)
MARCH 2026
THE NEW ALBUM 05 MARCH 2026
LIPPER the album aims to find the magic in the chaos and hope in this upside down reality, to try and examine the roots of where we are from the micro to the macro.
08 APRIL 2026
INTERVIEW WITH PLASTIC MAGAZINE
"Tobias Zaldua operates in the overlap between definitions as a London-based musician and filmmaker whose work flows through electronic experimentation and acoustic intimacy, between structured songwriting and abstract sound design..."
Read more at PLASTIC magazine
30 MARCH 2026
INTERVIEW WITH melodicdancers
"Singer-songwriter and electronic alchemist, Tobias weaves spoken word, narrative songs, and immersive sonic textures into shadowed dreamscapes..."
Electronic - Melodic - Chaotic.
NEWS 28 NOVEMBER 2025
NEW SINGLE
LUCKY I WAS: lucky breaks, guitar breaks and breakbeats. Indie drum 'n' bass may not really be a thing but maybe I got lucky.
Electronic - Melodic - Chaotic.
NEWS 27 JULY 2023
NEW EP
Taking and fragmenting the elements of the track HUMANS BROKE MY HEART
Gathering them up and reassembling in ways that might seem like a logical process if you didn't know the original shape. Finding structures that make sense in the moment. Building on the ideas random connections suggest.
Electronic - Melodic - Chaotic.
NEWS 10 JULY 2023
NEW SINGLE
Electronic - Melodic - Chaotic.
NEWS 11/07/2022
Instrumental side project.
Includes the singles ARCHIPELAGO II
and KAIROS
Electronic - Melodic - Chaotic.
NEWS 22/09/2021
Includes the singles IMPOSSIBLE TREES,
INFINITE SELF-PORTRAITS and COMPLICATED.
Epic tactile sounds and songs collecting moments from bright nights and dark days.
NEWS 11/07/2021
Remastered with love for 2021.
Some tracks have also been reworked to include elements lost in the original mixes plus exclusive remixes previously unavailable.
Electronic - Melodic - Chaotic
NEWS 23/08/2021
Taking some inspiration from the short stories of Roger Zelazny.
A song about an AI searching for emotion, empathy and texture
amidst confusion and betrayal.
Space-age chic for lost souls.
COMPLICATED
(REASONS)
NEWS 22/02/2021
A celebration of all the complications and absurdities of modern life and love reworked by Zadquiel, Nave and Waxing Crescent.
Life : consisting of parts intricately combined
Love: difficult to analyse, understand, or explain.
Remixes: a complicated machine/process consisting of parts intricately combined
GEOMETRICAE
MAGAZINE ARTICLE
Tobias was recently approached by Geometricae Magazine to write a guest review on an innovative music of his choice past or present. The invitation came after they picked up on 'Impossible Trees' for review earlier this year.
