In dedication to avant filmmaker Kenneth Anger (Lucifer Rising, Scorpio Rising, Invocation Of My Demon Brother, Fireworks, etc.), Zorn has composed "IAO", an epic seven-part suite inspired by the cult auteur's work as well as the Thelemic theology of Aleister Crowley. Through the seven segments, Zorn's latest masterpiece reflects upon the many facets of Alchemy, Metaphysics, Mysticism and Magick, dramatically shifting through newer, unexplored musical dimensions. With assistance from the talented crew of Jamie Saft, Mike Patton, Cyro Baptisa, Bill Laswell, Greg Cohen, Jennifer Charles, Rebecca Moore, Beth Hatton and Jim Pugliese, Zorn furthers his personal exploration of tenebrous sound. From minimalist generative electronic dronings to faux exotic percussive mantras, ritualistic pagan choral seances to full on death metal blowout, "IAO" is possibly Zorn's most ambitious work to date. And he succeeds in crafting a wicked mÈlange of alchemic erraticism, mystical beauty and diabolic witchery. Not since "Grand Guignol", maybe "Weird Little Boy", has Zorn spawned a torturous and stark behemoth of such exquisite magnitude. And I never thought I'd see a Tzadik record with a huge pentagram on the back! Fuck yeah!
Again, the obi: "Recorded in 1993, Kristallnacht is Zorn's most powerful and unforgiving composition. This premiere work of Radical Jewish Culture features a virtuosic ensemble of creative Jewish musicians: Mark Feldman, Marc Ribot, Mark Dresser, William Winant, Frank London, Anthony Coleman, David Krakauer."
An early Zorn game-piece, circa 1977. Musicians/game players include Eugene Chadbourne, Henry Kaiser, Bruce Ackley, LaDonna Smith, Davey Williams, and Zorn himself. Crazy-sounding results as you might imagine. Previously available on the "Parachute Years" box set. If you didn't spring for that seven-disc brick, here's a more affordable taster of the late '70s work that set John Zorn on his path to today's superstardom...
Three new compositions by Zorn, wonderfully executed by Jennifer Choi (violin), Erik Friedlander (cello), and Stephen Drury (piano). As to be expected, these pieces range from subtly beauty to harsh dissonance, just as the title might suggest: madness and love. Mysticism? We'll leave that for you to discover. Recommended, as this is definitely one of the better Zorn releases of this year. From the accompanying obi strip: "Definitive performances of three dynamic new chamber pieces pushing the boundaries of virtuosity and intensity. Le M�mo, for violin and piano is a work of extremes, a ritual about exorcism and possession inspired by the works of visionary 20th Century shaman Antonin Artaud. Untitled, dedicated to Joseph Cornell, the hermetic New York artist whose delirious box constructions mix innocent nostalgia with uncomfortable personal obsessions, is a tour de force for solo cello brilliantly performed by Erik Friedlander. The piano trio Amour Fou explores love -- obsessive love, mad love, doomed love in a compendium of moods ranging from Bu�uel to Bataille, Scriabin to Messiaen. A mysterious and romantic new direction from John Zorn."
What would a record exploring the worlds of magick and alchemy sound like? Well, if you're John Zorn, it apparently sounds like really intense horror movie soundtrack music. "Necronomicon" is a gorgeously anxious and frighteningly jagged piece for string quartet, that lulls you into a brooding, contemplative languor one moment, and sticks a knife in your back and sends you careening down the stairs into a zombie filled basement the next. Five movements of menacing moans, maniacal screeching and creepy pizzicato plinking that is as angular and aggressive as it is pensive and pretty. The final track "Sortilege", for two bass clarinets, sounds a bit like Peter And The Wolf (sort of unavoidable with TWO clarinets) but is a little more hyper and atonal, with didgeridoo like rumblings and rapid-fire bursts of shriek and skree.
Wow, wild and beautiful solo guitar interpretations of Masada tunes! The long-running, deservedly popular Masada project has perhaps been the most fruitful product of the convergence of two of composer John Zorn's deepest devotions: Judaism and jazz. (His interest in Japanese bondage, on the other hand, intersects with his music in Naked City and Painkiller, but not here). Probably the various Masada recordings would take a primary place among the prolific Zorn's many releases, were we writing his epitaph (or critical discography). And this new Masada disc is a fine addition to the canon. Here, three well-known, Zorn-connected downtown NYC avant-guitarists -- Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell, and Tim Sparks -- try their hand at adapting Zorn's ancient-seeming melodies to their own arrangements and extended techniques. Alternating performances across the twenty-one tracks on offer here, these guitarists wring much emotion from their strings, but generally do so quietly and with care. Achingly beautiful, beautifully tangled. There are three distinct personalities playing here, yet this manages to flow together into one quite lovely whole. Maybe *too* lovely for some of us here who don't like their jazz so pretty...but we're pretty sure this is going to be a hit.
A Zorn-approved rock band plays Masada songs, that's right.
One of Zorn's most popular groups continues in its quest to take up as much space as possible on the cd-shelves of loyal fans. This concert, recorded for Belgian radio, features more of their wild and wonderful klezmer-inflected jazz.
But music for whose children? Cover art by Katan Amano, Yoshida Ryoichi, Macioce, Henry Darger, Hans Belmer and other artists give this music a context of abject child sexuality.
The music is really diverse, from the quick-change acrobatics of Boston's Prelapse performing Naked City compositions, to Zorn "playing" wind machines (lovely!), to Anthony Coleman playing a celeste music box, to a spaghetti western sounding piece with Ribot, Friedlander and Greg Cohen, to a piece with the Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio. This is one of Zorn's best cd's in quite a while.
Reissue of the reissue. Previously an actual black box, with 2 cds, now everything fitted onto one disc. When these two Naked City records originally came out, it was before aQuarius had started doing our "list". But then Tzadik reissued 'em in The Black Box back in 1996, and we had a chance to review them... but all we said was: "Stars John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz, Fred Frith, Joey Baron & Yamantaka Eye. For their re-issue, Zorn has packaged these two albums in a black box, presenting all of the original, controversial artwork in the liner notes. Zorn gives a bit of history behind the graphics for Naked City releases. The albums, one fast and furious, the other slow and brutal, are without equal. They demonstrate the most aggressive sides of these incredible musicians."
True that, but there's more that could be said! Perhaps we figured, at the time, that everyone must already know all about Zorn and Naked City and there was no point in any extensive description. But, nowadays, there's gotta be people reading this who haven't yet experienced the mindboggling, genre-jumping musical mastery of Naked City, especially as intensely expressed on Torture Garden, originally released as a 45rpm 12" on the Shimmy Disc label in 1989, and if you're one of those folks, you're in for a treat - as long as you dig the idea of a "jazz" band playing almost every style of music imaginable, from lounge to country to surf to grindcore, in jarringly short, sharp stop on dime bursts, with Eye from the Boredoms vocalizing over top like a gibbering demon, screaming along with Zorn's saxophone, performing songs with titles like "Thrash Jazz Assassin", "Speedball", "Jazz Snob Eat Shit", "New Jersey Scum Swamp", and "S&M Sniper"! It's like the cartoon music of Carl Stalling meets Napalm Death meets, well just about everything else in the realm of music. Utterly insane and influential (though it must be said, Napalm Death was a HUGE influence on this). It's how we first heard about the Boredoms, too!
Blew us all away the first time we heard it. 12, 17, 28, 43 second songs that had more and better riffs in 'em than some ten minute Metallica epics. Well maybe that's exaggerating. But you get the idea. Amazing. And definitely Naked City's most "metal", grindcore-iest moment. Utter mayhem, with Zorn and Co. cramming a crazy number of changes into each track. Videos of them performing reveal a reliance on sheet music, but we don't blame 'em. That almost makes it more insane.
On this disc, the 42 tracks of Torture Garden (the longest of which clocks in at 1'19", but most don't come anywhere near the minute-mark) are followed by the single, 31'38" track that comprised the entirety of the 1992 Naked City album Leng Tch'e, long out of print, the yin to Torture Garden's yang for sure. Leng Tch'e is like the Naked City version of Earth or the Melvins, one long sludge trudge, super heavy and doomic and nightmarish. Again, Eye's vocals vie with Zorn's saxophone in emulating the screams of the damned.
If we had to choose our favorite Zorn album from amid his VAST discography (The Big Gundown? Spy Vs. Spy? Spillane? Bar Kokhba? Absinthe? Execution Ground?) Torture Garden would get a lot of our votes... it's certainly one of the most "extreme", though an argument could be made for Leng Tch'e too. No wonder they both belong together here (which also has something to do with the original, controversial cover art, necessitating the "black box" treatment). Nice to have 'em back in print, for the uninitiated, and also for old fans like us who had almost forgotten how incredible this shit is.
FYI some of the Torture Garden tracks also appeared on cd on the self-titled Naked City disc on Nonesuch (1989) and the Avant-label release Grand Guignol (1992).
Archival John Zorn reissue, recorded in 1980 (previously to be found in the massive "Parachute Years" box set). With Zorn on saxophones, clarinets, and his trademark (back then anyway) duck calls. Other players: Bob Ostertag (electronics), Charles K. Noyes (percussion), Mark E. Miller (percussion), and Polly Bradfield (violin). "Pool" is a bit similar to Zorn's later "Cobra" game-pieces. A rare false start version of Zorn's "Alchemy" is tacked on as a bonus. Zornophiles, line up.
Downtown jazzmaster cum avantegardist John Zorn plunges into the world of opera with Rituals, composed for the Bayreuth Opera Festival in 1988. At just under 27 minutes it has to win the Guiness Book of World Records award for the shortest opera. An engaging and mysterious work written for solo voice and 10 instruments, Rituals' strange orchestration includes Owls, Wind Machines, Gravedigging, and Ritual Magick! This recording of Rituals features Heather Gardner, Tara O'Connor, Mike Lowenstern, Peter Kolkay, Jim Pugh, Jim Pugliese, Stephen Drury, Jennifer Choi, Fred Sherry, Kurt Muroki and the inimitable Willie Winant.
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Mike Patton, Trevor Dunn, Joey Baron, Jamie Saft, Ikue Mori... it's pretty extreme this one!
Zorn's latest venture consists mainly of tributes to twentieth century artists/visionaries. Zorn's homage to Harry Smith is his first attept at an exclusively electronic music; it sounds like abrasive short-wave crackle with twinkly star-trek video game
"The Big Gundown" is John Zorn's famed Ennio Morricone tribute album, wherein Zorn and his downtown cronies (Diamanda Galas, Fred Frith, Arto Lindsay, Vernon Reid, Ned Rothenberg, Christian Marclay, Michihiro Sato, and many many more) play the music of the Italian spaghetti western soundtrack master. Now it's been reissued 15 years later in a digitally remastered, expanded edition. Yep, there's six new, recently recorded bonus tracks (which feature another slew of notables, from Derek Bailey to memmbers of Masada and Mr. Bungle). Arguably one of the Zorn essentials, at the very least it, along with "Spillane", are the Zorn documents that point to his later fixation with soundtrack-music inspired compositions in Naked City.
This weeks' John Zorn overload intensifies with the release of these 1986 Zorn radio-play soundtracks, similar to his noir-genre-splice piece Spillane of the same period.
Wow! Essentially part two to Zorn's wonderful Bar Kohkba. Let's go with the obi: "The first cd, Issachar, showcases the exciting Masada String Trio and features the telepathic interplay of Mark Feldman, Erik Friedlander and Greg Cohen. The second cd, Zevulum, expands the trio into a sextet with Marc Ribot, Cyro Baptista and Joey Baron. Passion and virtuosic fireworks abound in this historic set of New Jewish Music at its best."
Obi (Wan Kenobi) explains: "Zorn's infamous solo music for saxophone and duckcalls brings together his obsessive love for cartoon music, free jazz and musique concrete in a passionate and astonishing heterophony." 2 albums on one disc, c. 1981-85.
Otherwise known as "Masada 10 Years Volume 3" this disc is the third in a series of covers discs celebrating a decade of jazz iconoclast John Zorn's Masada, the jazz-meets-Judaism project that in a lot of ways is his masterwork. What do they mean by "The Unknown Masada"? Well apparently the twelve tracks here are all Zorn/Masada compositions that have never before been recorded! The diverse lineup of contributors include the usual downtown NYC jazz supects, outsider avantgardists, some klezmer-oriented troupes, and prog rock weirdos. Specifically, this features Mike Patton's Fantomas (with easily the most frightening cut on here), Dave Douglas, Naftule's Dream, Eyvind Kang, Wadada Leo Smith, Eric Friedlander, Jami Saft, and others. Tatsuya Yoshida of Japan's Ruins contributes an amazing acrobatic progged-out track that's one of the disc's highlights. If you heard the previous "Voices In The Wilderness" double cd comp of Masada covers (vol. 2 in this series) this is quite similar, varied yet sounding "Masada" through and through (with the exception perhaps of that Fantomas cut). A worthy tribute, again.
The "Masada Guitars" disc from a few months back was but part one of Tzadik's 10th anniversary celebration of John Zorn's Masada group. Volume 2, "Voices In The Wilderness" continues the tribute, this time with two discs worth of catchy Masada covers by a host of musicians from downtown NYC and beyond. There's a lot of jazz and klezmer ensembles represented, as you'd expect, but also rock and electronica artists as well, many with previous releases on Tzadik. Some of 'em: Mike Patton, Naftule's Dream, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Satlah, Mephista, Pachora, Cracow Klezmer Band, Marc Ribot, Steven Bernstein, Jewlia Eisenberg, Tin Hat Trio, Kramer, Davka, Medeski Martin and Wood, and more. Definitely a lively crew! This is kind of the "party" Masada release as a result.
MPEG Download: PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER "Karaim" [/audio/masadapharaoh.mp3]
MPEG Stream: PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER "Karaim" [/audio/masadapharaoh.m3u]
Nothing can do better justice to a John Zorn release than his own obi (that chic Japanese-style paper card that fits over the spine), so without further ado, we give you the word from the horse's mouth: "This exciting release initiates a new series of CDs documenting the best of John Zorn's infamous game pieces, harnessing improvisers in complex compositional formats, combining the unpredictable edge of improvisation with the structural integrity of written composition. "Xu Feng" (shoo-fung) was composed immediately after "Cobra" and is the most dynamic and fast-paced of them all. Intense and violent, and featuring an extraordinary all-star band [Fred Frith, John Schott, Chris Brown, David Slusser, Dave Lombardo & William Winant], "Xu Feng" captures the exciting Kung-fu action of the martial arts for which the piece is named."
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Unbelievably, the FINAL volume in the Masada series, featuring as usual Zorn, Dave Douglas, Greg Cohen and Joey Baron. Also, as usual, it's great.
Long-awaited reissue of rare 1984 lp, a collaboration between Zorn's saxophone and the Japanese shamisen of Sato Michihiro (who has also been heard collaborating with other downtown NYC types on his wonderful "Rodan" album from a few years back, and solo on a great PSF disc). Includes bonus tracks.
Includes the infamous "Bad Hawkwind".
This is John Zorn and "Yamantaka" Eye, part of the Radical Jewish Culture series.
Zoroaster's monster debut ep from last year had us looking forward to more from this heavier-than-thou Georgia band, and Dog Magic is no disappointment, being another devastating display of brutal doom metal in the Eyehategod tradition, putting 'em up there within the ranks of such bands as Khanate and Graves At Sea. It's six songs, just under an hour, featuring several epics approaching the 15 minute mark, like the massive "Algebra Of Need".
Zoroaster takes doom to all of its extremes, from trance-inducing passages formed from nothing but distorted electronic drones, to bulldozering bursts of thrashing speed -- that's right, doom doesn't always have to be slow! Though plenty of this is, slow and sludgy and laced with all sorts of disturbing experimental textures. Zoroaster should provide not only your requisite doom fix this week but lots of good headphone listenin' for months to come, but be careful to have mercy on your ears and not to turn it up too loud or those headphones will clamp together and crush your skull just when you're trying to enjoy the electric organ solo in the middle of "Terminally Charged", or something...
Four albums in, and Georgia's Zoroaster have established themselves as more than just a band of bearded Southern boys with bad attitudes getting sludgy, Eyehategod style. They certainly started out that way, and we liked 'em then too, but quickly a penchant for spacier, more psychedelic exploration sent them off in a variety of interesting directions, mostly all of 'em still quite HEAVY though. Synth-drone, slowcore, stoner riffery, that's all part of their trip... dunno if we'd even really call them doom (or dooooOOOOoom) any more. They're just way "poppier", and spacier, and also more experimental than you might expect. There's mantric dirges here totally worthy of Om at their finest, other parts where they freak out like Acid Mothers Temple... or rock out like the good ol' Southern boys we mentioned that they indeed are. But it's just as "Eastern". Tracks like "Odyssey" sound like Buddhist monks zoned out on Hawkwind, with someone from a Tokyo Flashback act on lead guitar, or maybe Stephen Wray Lobdell... Sometimes these songs are storming, sometimes they're slow and languid (well, a lot of the time), no matter what though, Matador is an heavy-lidded yet uplifting listen, with an oxymoronically "urgently relaxed", stoned vibe generally absorbed via throbbing waves of synthesizer, low end guitar, leaden battery, and sometimes even a bit of (heavily effected) vocal melody.
Zoroaster are the "sludge" band we'd recommend to White Hills and Wooden Shjips fans. Likewise if you like UFOmammut, US Christmas, Litmus, Los Natas, Boris and even a bit of Baroness too...
This new one was produced by Sanford Parker, heaviness studio guru de jour for good reason. Probably, uh, "420 friendly" but you don't need any help to get a high from this, just turn it on up!
Anyone who has happened to catch Atlanta's Zoroaster in a live setting will more than likely mention the same few details: walls of multiple full stacked amplifiers, strobe lights with no apparent "off" switch, and three dudes bringing the DOOM like nobody's business. But most of all, massive, MASSIVE volume. And while Zoroaster effortlessly lay waste on stage, their albums manage to retain this monolithic heaviness while also revealing a method of songwriting that probably wouldn't be described as "nuanced", but nonetheless brings more than a few surprises. Unlike many doom bands, Zoroaster display a notable melodic presence, which makes for one hell of a combination with their metallic tendencies toward sloooooooooow, lumbering riffs, powerful caveman drumming, and vocals that sometimes venture into guttural black metal territory. Without fail, any time we put on a Zoroaster disc, someone in the store, be it aQ staffer or customer, will come up with a slightly confused look on their face and ask what we're listening to. After all, you could probably count on one hand the number of doom bands who manage to incorporate French horns and Theremins into the mix while still coming across as uncompromisingly heavy. Atmospherics are another staple of Zoroaster's psychedelicized approach, with strange bursts of oscillated fuckery worming into the mix but never taking over to the point of distraction. AND everyone in the band is credited with playing Moog, which is just fucking awesome...
On Voice of Saturn, the band's second full length, things start with a brief ambient intro that leads right into the first song, "Seeing the Dark". Rather than trying to explain "stoner rock" to someone, it might be more advantageous to simply put on a song like this, a plodding burst of fuzzed out heaviness that rocks ridiculously hard with gigantic guitars and sandpaper vocals. But then, in maybe the biggest what-the-fuck moment in Zoroaster's career, a simple repeated piano note takes over as everything else dwindles away before returning with cleanly hummed vocals for a beautifully mind-melting slowcore jam. Bravo guys. "Spirit Molecule" clocks in at a lengthy 13 minutes, allowing the band time to brew up a heavier than thou dirge with bits of otherworldly noise before heading into "Undying", an ominous downtempo groove accented by strange witchlike vocals that sound like they were beamed in from some unknown galaxy. "White Dwarf" is a decaying soundscape made up of white noise and underlying synth pulses that segues into the title track, where the band sparks up another doomed out blast of negative energy as the appropriate mantra of "Chaos" brings the song to its conclusion. "Lamen of the Master Therion" closes the album with a familiar sound that you quickly realize is the aforementioned beautifully mind-melting slowcore jam, the piano now accompanied by a strummed acoustic guitar! FUCK YES! Even after that, you can stick around a bit for the secret track, a cool drumcentric moment that we will not describe as "tribal".
Hopefully this new disc will bring Zoroaster to the attention of more people, since they are obviously choice candidates to the current throne of doom. Anyone digging Sleep, Electric Wizard, and UFOmammut will do themselves a real favor by picking up Voice of Saturn, and adventurous non-metalheads might find something to like as well. Needless to say, this one is coming to you highly recommended.
CHAOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!
Another entry in the slow, low, sludgemetal sweepstakes! (First prize, win a giant anvil dropped on your head! Second prize: a lifetime of depression! And for five runners up: rusted old guitar strings that once belonged to Tony Iommi!) These Georgia boys are all about total, trance-inducing heaviosity in the vein of Eyehategod, Bongzilla, Buried At Sea, old Melvins, and Om. Utter "dun dun dun dun dun" riff-mongering. Like certain strains of grim black metal, and modern minimalism, this is music that one can describe as "monotonous", but in a GOOD way. And the five tracks here (one of 'em an untitled, unlisted coda) are varied enough across this disc's approximate 33 minute running time to leave you wanting more. Released by Battle Kommand, who know quality darkness (Leviathan, Xasthur, Ruins of Beverast) and distributed by the equally discerning folks at Southern Lord, this is indeed a promising debut from Zoroaster. Oh, and there's a giant squid on the front cover, that's worth automatic mega bonus points in our book!
One of our favorite Record Store Day offerings has been repressed, and is now also available on cd as well.
A Lament for Epirus compiles 78 rpm recordings of Greek violinist Alexis Zoumbas, and it's a stunningly melancholy collection of solo recordings (though some tracks are accompanied by cymbalon and bowed bass) that showcase the joys and grief of life in the mountainous region of Northwestern Greece where Zoumbas hails from. Reminding us of those funerary violin cd-rs we had awhile back ago, Zoumbas of course is the real deal, and you can feel every beautiful ache in each note he conjures. Fantastic stuff!
No need to belabor the point on this one. This is the first Zoviet France record in 13 years. It's a triple vinyl set with a 12", a 10", and a 7". This is the second pressing mind you, as the first sold out in less than a day when it was released back on October 7, 2012 (a fitting date for the format!). We can safely report that the droning loops are as good as anything that Zoviet France did during the latter part of the Robin Storey era (e.g. Shadow Thief Of The Sun, Shouting At The Ground, Look Into Me, etc.). Storey and Ben Ponton were responsible for the best work for Zoviet France from 1981 to the early 90s, producing beautiful hypnogogic sounds, looping passages, and ethnomusicologically unhinged instrumentation all cast through tape delay effects and time-lag accumulation. Storey left unceremoniously in 1992 taking with him Zoviet France's prolific work ethic, but never really achieved the full glory that Zoviet France once had. Ponton continued on with the project in fits and starts, but he never seemed to find the right chemistry... until now. If you know Zoviet France's work even in passing, you will NOT be sorry. At the same time, we are not all that confident we'll be able to stock this in the future. Delay picking this up at your peril.
It's a little strange that we had never written anything about Zoviet France's 1995 classic album Digilogue, since we love this band and their albums were all uniformly exhilarating and hypnotic, this one especially. So, here we are waxing poetic about this album even as Zoviet France has all but disappeared from the public eye, with founding member Ben Ponton holding onto the project even though no new recordings appear in sight and as former member Robin Storey has released a whole bunch of middling albums (amidst a couple of greats) as Rapoon.
Given how many contemporary gutteral drone artists have been delving into tape loop manipulation, multiple delay pedal configurations, and transcendent tones vulcanized from base elements, listening to Zoviet France in today's climate is essential... as it would prove that this British semi-anonymous collective had better ideas, better execution, better packaging, and better results than 99% of what's coming out today. Sadly, the Zoviet France albums that would have best paralleled much of the current lo-fi drone obsession (i.e. Eostre, Norsch, Mohnomische, and even Shouting At The Ground) are all woefully out of print thanks to a unreconcilable rift between the aforementioned Ben Ponton and Robin Storey. Only a handful remain available for public consumption; and Digilogue is one of them, demonstrating the Zoviet France process of overlapping loops, hypnotic atmospherics, and ephemeral dub activity when applied to digital technology. While there is a considerable crispness to many of the sounds heard on Digilogue, Zoviet France still managed to render their sounds as if they were the liturgical / ritualist music for some hitherto unknown non-Occidental culture hidden in the English countryside. Digilogue's opening track "Alchemagenta" is a noteworthy entry into the Zoviet France pantheon of sounds for its eerily dubbed out miltaristic horn stab which former AQ-employee Byram Abbott was convinced made its way on to an early episode of The Simpsons. Mechanized bells, streched out vocal plainsongs, and oceanic swells of electric wash all cascade through Zoviet France's graceful use of delay patterns for what truly is one of the best records of the '90s and is absolutely required listening for anyone with a passing interest in experimental music over the past 50 years.
Digilogue has been out of print for quite some time now, and now is available once again.
Throughout the '90s, the legendary post-industrial ensemble Zoviet France had experienced a handful of changes within its anonymous citizenship, with newcomers bringing forth digital technologies and propensities for that 'new' electronica sound. While Zoviet France itself maintained its aesthetic trajectory of building miasmic looping drones and radical dub deconstructions that
While Post Modernity and its malcontent little brother Punk effectively deconstucted and ridiculed religious institutions by pointed out their hypocrisies and inconsistancies with rational thought, the two have been wholly unconcerned in addressing the possibilities of transcendence or the notions of the sublime. Zoviet France is an anonymous collective of British sound artists who have been clearly educated with the halls of Post Modernity and inspired by Punk's self-sufficiency; yet, the lack of an existential awe in the face of the Divine never settled easily with the group. Beginning back in the early '80s, Zoviet France developed a musical aesthetic for private rituals built from the artifacts and residues from what they saw as a cultural disintegration (both physically and existentially). To a certain extentw, Zoviet France was making liturgical music to a religion that never existed, but offered resemblences to what transcendent music should sound like. The hypnosis from a drone, the relentlessness of a tribal drum circle, and dub's etherial references to various nether regions are all part of Zoviet France's arsenal of quiet noise making devices.
Originally released as a cassette back in 1988, "Loh Land" is one of the few albums from Zoviet France's early days that is still in print, and encapsulates many of their ideas for a fictional music rich with amorphously spiritual connotations. The aforementioned drones, dubs, and drums alongside distanced vocal chants with have been thoroughly abstracted through a series of delay effects boxes, tape loop machines, and multi-track studio tricks, to create the album's murky atmopshere. Zoviet France's "Loh Land" succeeds in being beautifully but indeterminantly holy.
Zoviet France formed in relative isolation in Newcastle, far removed from the rest of the UK industrial and art-punk communities. They furthered the mystery around their sonic abstractions by working in anonymity and by presenting their work in beautifully eccentric packaging (i.e. roofing shingles, aluminum foil, wood boxes, porcelain baked cassettes wrapped in radioactive feathers, etc.). The exact history of Zoviet France remains elusive, although a dramatic rift in the project occured in the middle '90s when founding member Robin Storey left Zoviet France to form his solo project Rapoon. Ben Ponton, one of the other founding members, continued on with Zoviet France, drifting away from Storey's signature looping technology and towards an alien isolationism tricked out with disembodied samples. While both Rapoon and the recent Zoviet France records have certainly had plenty of successes, none had matched the collaborative genius of Zoviet France during the Ponton / Storey days.
In a rare interview in the mid '80s, Ponton explained that Zoviet France would record hours of material and then sort it out at a later date. This brings us to Music For A Spaghetti Western which dates back to 1986, one of the most prolific periods for Zoviet France as they began recording numerous large scale projects including the 4-part series Charm, Ceremony, Chance, Prophesy which included two LPs and two cassette only material as well as the monumental Popular Soviet Songs and Youth Music (originally housed in the aforementioned porcelain packaging). Given the amount of material that Zoviet France had finished during that time, it's not surprising that a couple of things never got completed, such as Music For A Spagehtti Western. With many of the ZF recordings being splattered collections of short fragments anyway, the shards of hypnotic loops that comprise the ZF Spaghetti Western make sense in the greater context of the band.
As on those aforementioned albums, ZF explore the imagined ceremonial music for non-existant cultures bringing chiming strings, hand percussion, breathy flutes, and extended vocalizations to a dark kaleidoscope of tape loop machinations and multiple delay pedals. If this sounds similar to the work of Finland's Avarus or Kemialliset Ystavat, Zoviet France does share some of those aesthetics, expect for the undeniable fact that ZF are maybe even better at it. With almost their entire catalogue in limbo, any new recordings are a reason to rejoice, and recordings as beguiling as these are certainly most welcome indeed.
We first heard of Zoviet France's latest offering "The Decriminalization of Country Music" back in December; yet it has taken until now for the distribution channels to get into place for this record to finally make its way here to Aquarius. With almost
Zoviet France began 20 years ago as an anonymous collective of musicians who embraced the DIY attitudes of Punk and Situationism, yet found inspiration in Terry Riley's tape mechanisms, Lee 'Scratch' Perry's schizoid dub production, and the wonders of non-Western instruments (tablas, bouzoukis, Tibetan bowls, Egyptian reeds, etc.). While each of their albums hold very distinct aesthetics, the basic ZF sound is a eerie cyclical drone built from a interlocking network of tape loops with dubbed intrusions of the aforementioned ethnic instruments. One of the subtle ties between all of the Zoviet France records is the process of recycling material, in which a handful of discreet sound elements repeat throughout the album within a broad spectrum of recognizability. For an album like "Hessian" it would be the surreal chant "OK, Boys!" and for "Feedback" it would be the distant whir of a sputtering drum machine.
"The Decriminalization of Country Music" is one of the more obvious examples of Zoviet France's recycling process, as they had been commissioned by the Tramway Gallery in Glasgow, Scotland to re-interpret the sounds of the gallery's extensive redevelopment from a desolate warehouse to a workable exhibition hall. While ZF utilizes various construction site sounds and the resonant properties of the room itself, the dominate theme for "Decriminalization" is the sound of a languorous slide guitar, making comparisons to Ry Cooder inevitable. At the beginning of the record, Zoviet France boldly introduces the haunting guitar sounds against quiet static loops and rich drone synthesis. Yet as the album progresses, the guitar's presence becomes more diffuse, with only a few fragments of muffled twangs hovering amidst the post-industrial ambience by the end of the album.
"The Decriminalization of Country Music" stands as Zoviet France's most minimal piece to date, and like all of their records is an amazing, if not required listening experience.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Early recording by Zoviet-France circa 1981.
Following their debut disc on the Mick Barr (Orthrelm/Octis) directed Vothoc imprint, here's an intriguing 2nd cd of hard to describe and doubtless hard to play music from this instrumental Brooklyn-based sextet, a double trio actually. Here's their formula: (tenor sax + electric guitar + drum kit) x 2. And yes, their music is suitably "mathy". It's not exactly jazz, not prog, not chamber music, but some sort of underground avantgarde amalgam of said genres. Imagine a blend of John Zorn (particularly with his Carl Stalling influenced stuff in mind) and a minimalist composer like Steve Reich, perhaps.
The disc opens with a synchronized swim through the watery rhythms of "Bump". It's chattering, breathing music that goes to extremes of repetition more than volume. There's two more tracks besides that one on here, totaling about 20 minutes overall, so I guess this qualifies as a just a "mini album" or ep. But playing this sort of precision madness is probably hard to keep up (or keep up with) for long, so the length makes sense.
Those crazies over at Troubleman have done gone and let Mick Barr (Orthrelm/Octis/ex-Crom Tech) 'curate' a series of releases under the Vothoc moniker, devoted to obscure prog-core weirdness from the NYC underground. The first Vothoc release is also the first release from Zs, a mostly-instrumental very very very prog band not unlike a chamber-rock version of Orthrelm, with a lineup of two drummers, two guitarists, and two saxophone players!
The first three tracks on here are total herkyjerky, typewritery, stop-start stuff, with that 'cartoon mouse tiptoeing around' kinda feel to it. All the more impressive considering how together six musicians have to be to do this. Math for math's sake. Can't call it math-rock, even, 'cause there's not a lot of rockin' going on. Guaranteed to drive certain people insane, whilst simultaneously provoking twisted delight in others (you know who you are). But, after three tracks of this maniacally hectic stuff -- culminating in the under-2-minute frenzy of "Olympics" -- they calm down quite a bit. Track four, "Mimesis", is a slow, spacious 15-minute epic of mournful jazz-drone. Real nice n' spooky. And then they follow that with an album-ending track that's even mellower and prettier and features some sorta Brian Eno-ish singing! When that's over, even if the first few tracks annoyed you, they will be long forgotten... But the proper audience for Zs is folks who are gonna like both the mathy and the mild.
Italian hardcore jazz attack! We're big fans of these guys, and were happy to get to see 'em play in San Francisco earlier this summer. A super intense performance indeed, with the saxophone practically used as a percussion instrument alongside the thrashing drum battery, and the electric bass being utterly brutal, this nimble instrumental "jazz trio" was almost metallically heavy, and definitely were mindblowingly tight and technical. It's no wonder that the Steve Albini-recorded Igneo bears a dedication to The Ex. This new Zu is actually a 2001 album, at last brought out in the States by our pals at the Frenetic label, who have added on four bonus tracks, all of 'em creative remixes from a surprising quartet of remixers, from backgrounds as diverse as underground hip hop to experimental drone: DJ Olive, DJ Andy Moor, Dalek (who adds a rap vocal, that works in context), and Giuseppe Ielasi. Pretty neat. The album itself also boasts some heavy guests, well-known Chicago indie jazz cats Ken Vandermark, Fred Lomberg-holm, and Jeb Bishop. So if blitzkrieging (but beauteous too) free jazz / math rock is your thing (if you're a fan of the likes of John Zorn, Alboth!, and the Flying Luttenbachers) and you haven't heard Zu, this is the disc to get! And by the way, there's a song here entitled "Solar Anus" -- not a Skullflower cover, nor anything to do with the Japanese band of that name. Just another Bataille reference we must suppose.
