Your biweekly submersion into new and experimental music.
For those who haven’t heard the work of noise/jazz artists, Zs know this: they are unclassifiable, with jazz being a term that barely scratches the surface. There are saxophones, drums and guitars, but what they make of these instruments is entirely void of the pre-conceived ideas of conventional use.
On their latest album, Xe, don’t expect any bending of the knee towards a more straight forward sound. Things are still ugly and jarred but this is a much more free flowing album than the band’s earlier work, in particular the moments of rigid stoicism across New Slaves.
“Corps” begins with muted metallic guitar loops that work like enchanted hypnosis when layered atop the unhinged sax. Drums slowly encroach and the whole affair morphs into a wave of mutated free jazz that gently lulls the listener despite the underlining menace of its sounds.
Xe worth listening to if only for the snippets of interesting sounds these musicians manage to coax from their instruments and comfortably wedge together into one album of staggering weirdness.
Xe is out now on through Northern Spy Records.
