[ reviews ]

buzzin' fly / dormant spores46. buzzin' fly / dormant spores [ rec. 2004 ]


> rel. 2006 - CD Lapilli, UK (website)
z'ev & Francisco López - "buzzin' fly / dormant spores" (CD Lapilli, UK 2006)
Z'ev's "Buzzin' Fly" is dedicated to Tim Buckley, but there's not a single sound in there you could associate with Lorca. It's the perfect soundtrack to today's weather: black and grey, wind and rain, headphones full of thunderous slams and cavernous echoes, electronically manipulated into a complex if indeterminable tissue of menace. The third and the fourth movements are the most intriguing, as Z'ev reconfigures his world of suffering through repeated trips to the purgatory of treated percussion. Don't lower your guard even for a split second, in case you're mentally challenged - suffocated, rather - by outbursts of malevolent droney bubbles and sparkles. It's intense, involving stuff not for the fainthearted, like the urgent need to awake from a very bad dream. "Dormant Spores" also starts with thuds and rumbles, but within two minutes we're in typical López territory, ears shaken by glacial low-frequency subsonic wind like the slow breath of a giant whale a dozen octaves below. This soon becomes an eye of the storm / natural catastrophe recorded 10,000 feet underground inside a sealed coffin surrounded by a cybernetically generated dam-burst. It's a gorgeous moment that tops the whole disc as far as vehemently intangible emotions are concerned, until it stops abruptly to plunge us back into a distant percussive reverberant fog, before a tip of the hat to Z'ev himself in the form of "industrial" clang and clatter. www.paristransatlantic.com (France), 2007

z'ev & Francisco López - "buzzin' fly / dormant spores" (CD Lapilli, UK 2006)
When two distinguished artists of the Industrial and Post Industrial scene get together for a recording then you should sit up and take notice. Out of respect for the immense body of works both have released over the years if nothing else. Zev is rightly acclaimed as a percussionist who could basically make a tune out of anything he could lay his hands on and pummel a beat out of. Francisco is a leading light who embodies the whole experimental ethic in releasing challenging music to change perceptions. Put them together on a recording with shared material to work and manipulate and the resulting music is nothing short of spectacular if you're into this form of music.

Buzzin' fly are Zev's five pieces which are dedicated to the late Tim Buckley. Though any resemblances to the music from this departed musician, greatly venerated in many quarters, is lost on here. Instead Zev has gone and created soundscapes that seem to capture the troubled mind of this creative troubadour who died at just 28 years of age. Falling somewhere in-between Dark Ambience and Experimental Electronics Zev creates a claustrophobic and schizophrenic atmosphere of disturbing manipulated sounds. Music that hints at the hidden demons of the mind that speak of the futility of ones existence. Doubts are raised and abject misery comes to the fore. These intense pieces are surrounded in the shroud of blackness where sonics rumble and clatter over a maelstrom of whirling screaming effects and dank dripping echoes as the darkness descends to envelope and snuff out the last vestiges of light and hope. All the pieces merging seamlessly into each other making for a long 32+ minutes trip into the mind of the late artist ridden with guilt and destroyed by narcotic abuse. Or that's the way I hear it anyway. Perhaps Zev's intentions for this music wasn's meant to be deciphered that way. Maybe you will feel differently and reach your own conclusions as to what it all means. After all that's why any piece of music affects each of us individually. We read into it what we want to feel at the time of listening to it.

Dormant Spores' is one long 40 minute piece that starts with some dark rumbles like thunder clouds in the distance and then near silence. The calm before the storm. A low gradual build up of manipulated sound slowly takes shape as sub bass frequencies begin to manifest itself. You wait expecting the worst. You just know that this will get more wilder and extreme. Still the sound rumbles building up the anticipation. Any time now you think. Just when you believe that you could be wrong Francisco throws the frazzled electronics to the fore and your head buzzes as the charged electronics dances into a crescendo around your head. The frequencies intensify and the storm takes shape. Louder and louder as the onslaught rains down without respite. The speakers vibrate wildly threatening to come away from their mountings and blow apart. Still the piece increases in volume as further sonic effects are added then silence once more. Replaced by a slow percussion led piece of dull bells being tolled. As you adjust to this sudden turn around of events Industrial electronic noise then takes centre stage for the final assault. A fitting end for a monumental piece so characteristic of the artist. Expect the unexpected whenever Francisco releases a piece of music. That is after all how he works.

There you have it then. Two artists on top of their game combining source material between themselves to create two different sets of music that will appeal to those with the spirit of adventure coursing through their veins. Not for the fainthearted by any means and definitely not one for the Tim Buckley fans out there. I doubt they could or ever would comprehend this tribute to their hero. Which kind of makes me smile. www.heathenharvest.com May 2007