ZIRIC THE WANDERER | INTERVIEW + TRACK REVIEW
- May 12
- 7 min read
Some artists write songs. Others seem to build entire emotional landscapes around them. Ziric The Wanderer sits somewhere in that rare space where music feels less like a collection of tracks and more like a wandering world built from memory, curiosity, humour and quiet reflection. Blending folk foundations with drifting indie textures, bossa nova influences and deeply human storytelling, the Los Angeles-based project feels both deeply personal and strangely universal at the same time. In this conversation with Lucid News, Ziric The Wanderer opens up about nostalgia, wandering, emotional honesty, the strange beauty of slowing down, and why sometimes the answers only appear once you allow yourself to keep moving. This is a paid collab with Ziric The Wanderer.
TRACK REVIEW - FROG
“Frog” opens with literal frog sounds, immediately placing the listener somewhere natural, strange and quietly intimate. It’s the kind of introduction that could easily feel gimmicky in the wrong hands, but Ziric The Wanderer uses it as a doorway into something unexpectedly emotional. What follows is a beautifully understated performance, with somber, delicately mixed vocals that seem to drift effortlessly through the instrumentation while still holding your attention with every word. There’s a warmth to the production that feels deeply human, never overworked, just honest.
At its core, “Frog” feels like a song about longing, connection and the small strange thoughts that reveal deeper feelings underneath them. The emotion running through the track is subtle but incredibly resonant, lingering long after it ends. Then comes the chorus melody, instantly memorable in a way that quietly recalls the melodic instincts of artists like The Beatles, without ever feeling derivative. Ziric The Wanderer has created something that feels nostalgic, tender and oddly comforting all at once, the kind of song that rewards listeners willing to slow down enough to really sit inside it.
The name “Ziric The Wanderer” feels like a character as much as an artist. At what point did the music stop being just songs and start becoming a world?
Music, I feel, already reflects worlds. My thought is that when a someone writes a song, they imagine a world that their song lives in and/or reflects. Not all songs necessarily have to feel deep and have a message but I’m guessing that most writers imagine a palette in which things can feel right or wrong for it. I think that means that songs exist almost like small planets where certain feelings and ideas find their habitat.
Your sound blends folk with bossa nova and indie textures in a way that feels almost accidental but intentional at the same time. Do your songs begin with structure, or do they wander until they find one?
You kinda nailed it there. I think the element that ties accidental with intentional is the emotional content as well. Whereas folk most relates to this sound, the core of this music is the feelings that it represents. Take my bossa nova song “Catalina”, the chords came to me after a wonderful trip to Catalina Island . I felt so emotionally charged from my adventure that I felt the need to write about it. The chords came first. I knew the feelings I wanted to capture with them so the lyrics came after most the chords came. Then, the bridge of the song came after I found the right words to reflect my trip. I think in that way, allowing yourself to wander musically will open you up to what really feels right.
There’s a strong sense of nostalgia in your music, but it doesn’t feel tied to a specific time. Are you remembering real moments, or creating new ones that feel like memories?
I definitely am relating to some old memories in many of the songs. My latest release “frog” is based around a conversation I had with my wife while working along a shore. We talked about which animals we’d be if we could reincarnate as one. I chose iguanas and she chose a bird. Writing from my memories both comes naturally and with difficulty as I want to represent the right things. “Visit Me In Menifee” is written about my mom moving further away from us and reflects her sense of yearning to build new memories to be as good as the old ones. Not all my music is written this way but the specific memories carry a weight to them that I can’t deny.
A lot of your work carries a kind of quiet humour or wit. Do you see that as a way of softening heavier emotions, or revealing them more honestly?
Oh I’ve always been pretty unserious, sometimes to my own detriment. My lyrics tend to reflect my personality too in that way. I think having a softer grip in your life can help navigate through emotions. I’ve found that yelling at someone rarely ever gets the right point across but instead alienates them. A calm cool conversation will usually get better results. Maybe my writing reflects that same way of communicating. As far as the wit goes, well I’ll just take that as a personal compliment.
“Wandering” usually implies searching for something. Do you feel like your music is trying to arrive somewhere, or is the act of wandering the point?
That’s a great question that I continue to search for an answer to. Wandering feels like its own reward in a way, as I tend to find things that I wasn’t looking for. Maybe the music is reflecting on what’s past, maybe it’s reflecting on what’s to be, maybe it’s reflecting on what will never come. Either way, the answers come from moving forward I feel. Wandering is a form of living yet letting be and going with your heart. Being open to an adventure both literally and figuratively is at the core of wandering. I feel if you allow yourself to wander, you’ll always find something new.
Your songs have a childlike sense of wonder, but also a reflective depth. Do you feel like you’re reconnecting with something you lost, or protecting something you’ve kept?
Who’s to say? Maybe both. Maybe it’s reminder for the future of what’s important now and could hurt losing in the future. I feel deeply for the past, I care a lot about the future, but I try to remember that each moment I have is a gift. Maybe that’s why they call it the present.
Being a multi-instrumentalist gives you control over every layer. Do you find that freedom clarifying, or does it make it harder to know when something is finished?
Oh now you’re getting personal. I’d said both honestly. I really enjoy the process of translating ideas from my head to the open air and there’s a great joy experimenting with new sounds and instruments especially when I find exactly what I was hearing in my head. It’s really thrilling. On the other side is exactly what you said, it can make it more difficult to know what it’s reached that “release-ready” point. I do really believe that it takes a village to raise a village so I make it a point to reach out to others for advice on my music before release and I also love to have musicians that can do what I can’t do and play on my recordings as well. My track “Catalina” will feature a good friend playing saxophone and flute. I have another friend playing cello on “Visit Me In Menifee”, a friend that whistles on another track. These connections give me joy and make each track feel more special as well. Do what you can, and when you can’t do it, ask for help.
There’s a natural, almost organic feel to your instrumentation, even when the soundscapes get more peculiar. How do you decide when to keep something grounded and when to let it drift?
I believe that the creative process is like digging through the mud looking for a diamond. It’s easy to give up when things get messy, but there is a reward for anybody that continues to try. That aside, I love a more grounded feel. Some of my favorite songs feel so personal, so in the room with you, so important to the performer that you can overlook the imperfection of instrumentation or how perfect or imperfect someone’s voice is and just emotionally connect with them. That’s what I want. Connection. If my music lingers in your mind even for a short while, then I’ve succeeded.
If someone stepped into the world of Ziric The Wanderer for the first time, what would they notice first, the landscape, the emotion, or the character?
There’s only one way to find out.
Your music feels like it rewards slowing down. In a time where everything is fast and immediate, do you think there’s still space for that kind of listening?
Always. Ziric The Wanderer doesn’t need to be the only music you listen to, but there may be a moment that only this music can fit. I think in the same thought, I needed to write these songs because I needed to hear them myself to better understand something. Life can be a lot and sometimes you need to find time to slow down and give yourself a break. One of my favorite meditation exercises is opening your eyes and giving something, ANYTHING a soft focus. Focus something far away or something very close and small. Look slowly but with more intent. What do you notice about it? Have you ever laid in the grass under a tree and noticed the branches? What about the leaves? What about one specific leaf and how it ended up that way? What about the clouds? Do you ever just spend time looking up at the sky? It can calm your spirit and give you a new outlook, hell, maybe a new in-look at yourself. I want my music to feel like the reward of wandering through all of this and more. Wander through your world and feel what you’re feeling.
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