Zu
Carboniferous

Zu zu zu zu ZU. Zum Zum Zum. Zum de Zum. Anyone who has had any decent interaction with them (the Zu, the band) will understand how important it is that, in just over a month - exactly on February 20th - their new musical offering, "Carboniferous," will be released (and you will be there to buy it).

It is released under Ipecac, the prestigious label of Isis, Melvins, and any project of Mike Patton, an event that attests to the now solidified fame of the trio on an almost worldwide level (over 1000 concerts in 4 continents), especially not in Italy, where fortunately they have their own close and solid fan niche. These fans know they share with Luca Mai, Jacopo Battaglia, and Massimo Pupillo - these are their names - something more than mere, pure, and unconditional musical passion. Perhaps (the Italian fans) also feel they share their roots with them, the roots of a life possibly spent in a desolate place like the seafront suburbs of Ostia, with the marshy sea lining up with the senselessly amassed buildings, cement upon cement. Maybe not all Italian fans of Zu grew up in these places, but who knows why we young Italians all have this empathy when it comes to desolate, semi-urban environments devoid of prospects. Perhaps, however, the Zu have never felt any damn empathy with any Italian or Roman suburbanite or inhabitant of such dreary urban scenarios simply because their musical discourse is too free, devastating and total to leave room for such considerations.

Drums, saxophone, and bass, lovers of all-round collaboration (this album sees the varied contribution of Mike Patton, King Buzzo, Giulio Ragno Favero, and Alessandro Rossi), overflowing, irreverent, lava waves of free-jazz hints adorned with an ultraviolent noise and hardcore attitude, dynamic vertigo, megalithic distortion. Eternal struggle (without hate, but with a smile on bloody lips) between rhythmic irregularity, total spatial/visual/musical freedom, and sudden order and regularity, refinement of the edges among the instruments (the interplay among the three has never been so hormonal and instinctive: it feels like listening to the deviations of a giant with six [or even more] arms). It's 50 minutes and 11 seconds (ten more than "Igneo") yet time becomes a purely accessory factor.

What is created in this timeless non-place is probably the best work the band has produced so far, who had already accustomed us to releases of remarkable quality. Visceral, intense, and deeper than ever. Magnificently rich in negative will (destructuring and destruction) and positive (ironic attitude, 'sound jokes'). Dance hints (right from the magnificent beginning of Ostia), noise-sorcery (Chtonian, Mimosa Hostilis), even melancholically melodic (Obsidian). There even emerges a certain inclination towards constructing soundscapes on the verge of imperfection (Orc).

If you want to wait for this month and a little more that separates you from the album's release, listen to me. Do it. What you are about to receive in your face (in your brain and on your ears) is one of the most wonderful things that can happen to you (at least on February 20th). Everything else is noise. The rest is Zu.