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ZS "New Slaves moves the band fearlessly into more rhythmic, noisy, and downright terrifying waters…the band has transformed itself into a battering ram of brackish sound and befuddling rhythms--think of Steve Reich phasing experiments produced into a blackened soup by the Boredoms and you're getting close; think Black Dice performed by Sun Ra and you're getting closer." - Village Voice "New Slaves is an imposing-sounding album, full of deep echo, with weird juxtapositions of close and faraway sounds, of real tones and digitally altered ones. One thing about ZS you notice right away: they play hard, and they play well." - New York Times "Electronics take an even larger role on New Slaves, creating their most diverse record yet, and one which simply can't be summed up with a few genre-crossing adjectives. The painting-with-synths approach recalls Black Dice and Excepter, as does the way they make a clean beat sound blurred, or condense dense noise into something like abstract hiphop. There are still jazz and minimal influences, but they're played off against digital glitches and found sounds. Perhaps the album title refers to the electronics, since it gives the group something to struggle with and play off against, with a friction to match their gut-punching live performances." - The Wire "If there were any doubts, New Slaves proves ZS to be at the vanguard of new experimental musics...extremely daring and powerful release." - Tiny Mix Tapes Ah, a new decade of experimental music is here and, no, it has nothing to do with making “weird” disco and throwing a Pro Tools filter over the top to make it sound like a cassette tape. New Slaves is the new album from ZS, and is the most physically visceral experimental LP we’ve heard in a minute. Hitting with a similar impact as Oughts giants like The Boredoms’ Vision Creation Newsun and Black Dice’s Beaches and Canyons (while sounding nothing like them), it is a true behemoth – epic, unapologetic, painfully and artfully composed, mind-boggling in complexity, original in sound and intent, while maintaining a minimalist, chugging funk groove throughout its precise post-capitalist haze. New Slaves is arguably the most defnitive statement from a band that have been challenging listeners for a decade, demonstrating, over the course of 70 minutes, just how versatile their sound can be. If you don’t know already, ZS are Sam Hillmer (tenor sax and pedals), Ben Greenberg (electric guitar and electronics), Ian Antonio (percussion and electronics). For New Slaves they are also joined by Amnon Friedlin (electric guitar). The album was recorded by the band at Greenberg’s Brooklyn-based studio Python Patrol. Opening track “Concert Black” kicks things off with pensive circular harmonics that naturally swells to a robust (and perhaps horrifying) cloud, using the studio as a tool to swirl the band’s steadfast and forward-looking compositional techniques. It blurs into “Acres of Skin” – a clanging mishmash of industrial raga. As the record progresses, each member gets to show-off with some co-operative individual compositions. Greenberg’s “Gentleman Amateur” brings your disorienting microharmonic drones, while Friedlin’s “Don’t Touch Me” is debased through a Black Dice’s Broken Ear Record meets Aphex Twin meets Stockhausen guitar-based pastiche. Antonio’s “Masonry” vaporizes the formula and floats away like the band collectively decided to do whip-its and drive some slow-mo doughnuts in the parking lot outside the studio. “New Slaves” – the twenty minute title track – is the record’s peak and brilliant mission statement, harkening to the visceral live sound of 2007’s The Hard EP. It’s a minimalist, jerky take on progressive funk and dirty as all hell. Every band member – particularly the otherworldly skronk of genius saxophonist Sam Hillmer – shows chops well beyond their peers while adding some next level physicality to the stew. The musicianship is seriously so insane that ZS push right through the vanguard of 21st century classical into something that’s spiritually akin to hardcore punk ferocity. It’s rare that you get a track that simultaneously makes you think about Hegel while punching through a wall like you were attending a Minor Threat show in 1981. The record closes with a two-part composition by Hillmer called “Black Crown Ceremony.” Both movements present an ideal comedown from the record’s intense antecedents. It’s by no means mellow, but presents a softer, looser ZS that dwell and innovate in a subtle, ambient freedom. Guitar creates a soft metallic vibe while the saxophone runs in precise, interloping circles within the palette. By the end, vocals return to the mix (for the first time in years), and all has arrived to the beginning – a perfect exploratory loop. |
Catalog Number: TSR078 LP OUT OF PRINT Tracklisting: FOR MORE INFO ON ZS All Tracks Listed In Blue Are Linked To A Downloadable MP3
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