Introspective electronic reflection on fragile states, nature and inner stillness
REVIEWS
Chuck van Zyl (Album review, Star’s End Radio USA)
Electronic Music by Cells Interlinked feels so real you could live inside it. Their second album presents Mary Zakharova and Albert Zakharov in several states of improvisation – making music across varied locations and landscapes out in nature, then fashioning the results into the six tracks found on Cold Spring Notes.
This style, which appears effortless throughout, requires much unseen effort. Tapping into the same transcendent state of all fine Spacemusic, this release gets into your head with the most satisfying results. Conveying a strong sense of time and place Cold Spring Notes rambles in transient intimacy – providing a distinctive range of affirming subtle states. Like slow dancers in an intimate embrace, cycling sequencer notes saunter from beneath resonant waves and swirling forms – winding out above a cerebral synth orchestration of pure sonic stimulation. While spiraling, tumbling and ratcheting the mechanized tone patterns transform spare, evenly paced melodic lines into dramatically shifting broken chords – offering lush detailing, the stability of consonance and a captivating contour and design. Via intriguing and renewing arrangement, thoughtful pacing, and appealing dynamics this duo convincingly conjures a singularly gorgeous aural realm.
They may hear the whisper in the resistor, but are less impressed with synthesizer technology, and more moved by the indomitable spark of the mind. Listeners mellower in mood and keener in attitude will enjoy Cold Spring Notes for all its exquisite features, yet we should consider it a forerunner to future work. As their young sound grows more polished and inviting, these musicians will become more soulful and assured – in some future that reaches us at just the right time.
Beata Pardela (Album review, El Stacja Poland)
“Cold Spring Notes” by Cells Interlinked is a compelling conceptual work rooted in the aesthetics of the Berlin School, unfolding as a sonic reflection on a cold and introspective spring.
The album’s sequence-driven, nostalgic character evokes the feeling of a solitary walk through nature – observing subtle movements, textures, and rhythms. One can almost visualize a watermill in motion, its hypnotic cycles mirrored in the repeating patterns of the music. Pulsating sequences rise and return like waves on a lake, while the ambient layers carry the quiet melancholy of a flowing river.
Despite its restrained and contemplative atmosphere, the album radiates a gentle sense of optimism. Its compositions are both delicate and immersive, creating a space where stillness and movement coexist. The third track, “I`m SQ – Stream”, in particular, stands out with its evolving and refreshing energy, revealing the expressive power embedded in sequencer-driven structures.
Overall, “Cold Spring Notes” is a beautifully crafted release – one that not only soothes, but also invites reflection, offering a subtle yet profound sense of calm and inner balance.
Rodrigo Passannanti (Album review, Hypercube UK)
Presenting a remarkable and profound addition to the Cyclical Dreams label, this album taps into the very sonic DNA that resonates with both artists and listeners alike. It guides you on a meditative journey through shifting atmospheres, meticulously designed for deep listening and immersive experience. Each track unravels a tapestry of subterranean emotions and mystical revelations, inviting the audience to delve into an enigmatic underworld where sound becomes a gateway to introspection and transcendence.
M!D! B!TCH (Album review, Germany)
Cold Spring Notes by Cells Interlinked is a restrained, contemplative ambient work built from fragile textures and muted electronic tones, unfolding like scattered reflections in a cold, quiet season where every sound feels deliberately placed and quietly resonant.
Gianmarco Del Re (from interview for “A Closer Listen” music blog)
Music on “Cold Spring Notes” draws on Berlin School traditions while remaining very personal and contemporary.
Cyclical Dreams label
“Cold Spring Notes” masterfully blends haunting atmospheric textures with intricate electronic rhythms, capturing a unique sense of resilience, introspection, and raw emotion.
INTERVIEWS
Ukrainian Field Notes LV:
talk with Cells Interlinked about creative flow and making abstract, luminous music
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(Українська версія 
)
Notes on Cold Spring:
what this album is about
Cold Spring Notes is a small notebook of inner states from the cold and somewhat otherworldly spring of 2025. In Ukraine this season unfolded against the backdrop of a long war and unusually frozen weather, turning spring itself into a strange liminal space between stillness and uncertainty.
In the quiet intervals between missile and kamikaze drone attacks, we searched for places where the world could briefly return to silence – lakes, birds, old watermills. In those moments nature seemed to enter into a quiet dialogue with synthesizers, reverbs, delays.
These recordings are simply Cold Spring Notes.
Yet contemplation of the outer landscape slowly opens a doorway to a deeper mystery. Cold Spring also becomes a dimension of inner reality, where the seemingly fixed world of perception dissolves into the fluid movement of an undivided stream of consciousness – a land of an eternal liminal season, the quiet eternity of awakening.
The music moves between hazy drones shaped from field recordings, fragments of Berlin School electronics, and melodic ambient passages. But genres and names are not our concern. For us, sound is only a language through which the subtle movements of inner space can take form and enter into a silent dialogue with the listener.
And so we leave the listener with the flow of the music and a short poem written by Maria in the spring of 1994, at the beginning of a similarly cold spring:
“The wind carries the sky.
It never repeats.
It disappears to be born again.
And every moment beneath it waits in silent wonder –
to flash once,
then fade.”
(Maria Zakharova, Cells Interlinked, 1994)
Drift (Summer Memories of Spring):
“Drift” is the closing piece from our new album, Cold Spring Notes. While most of the album was recorded during spring 2025, “Drift” emerged later, during a summer improvisation in the Carpathian Mountains. The music is interwoven with field recordings of the surrounding landscape: mountain winds, insects, and the subtle sounds of open space. In this way, the composition became a kind of echo – a summer remembrance of a cold spring. Two different expressions of stillness and contemplation meet here: the fragile uncertainty of spring and the expansive calm of summer, slowly drifting together into a single flow.
GEARS WE USED:
* Nord Lead A1r, Moog Subharmonicon, Behringer ARP 2600 / Pro-VS mini / JT-4000 micro
* Doepfer Dark Time & Korg SQ1/ SQ64 sequencers, Zoom LiveTrak L6
* Alesis Midiverb II, Strymon Cloudburst Reverb, Strymon Timeline Delay, BOSS Giga Delay DD-20,
Vitalizer MK2-T
* Zoom H4n Pro recorder for field recordings (the creak of the Water Mill from the village of Lybokhora,
late 19th century, Shevchenkivskyi Hai / singing of grasshoppers)
CELLS INTERLINKED are:
Albert Zakharov “Alexxdrum” & Maria Zakharova “Mindzero”, Ukraine, Lviv
