mellow

Zen Garden was inspired by an actual Zen Garden – a Chinese restaurant with sleek minimalist decor, running water, fish tanks, and chilli prawns that are, by all accounts, amazing. The track captures that specific atmosphere with considerable success: an electronic groove provides the contemporary backbone, a slow filtered breakbeat gives it that mid-nineties chill-out quality that made the genre so enduringly pleasant, and Eastern-influenced melodic elements add flavour and character without tipping into pastiche. Glockenspiel adds bright, warm texture at intervals, and the overall mood is modern, positive, and genuinely relaxing in the way that good chill-out music always is. The chilli prawns are not audible in the mix but their influence is present throughout.