ZENI GEVA

I guess most of you won’t like this. I know why: you are too weak. But to me, Zeni Geva were always and still are a revelation. You don’t know what this band can make people do. Zeni Geva (and Shellac, do not forget!) were the reason I started writing about music. My initiation into fanzine-ism, if you like. Years ago, about 1990 (yes, I am that old) we started a zine, ‘cause we wanted to tell people about bands like Zeni Geva, Shellac, Merzbow, Boredoms, Oxbow and some others only three or four people in Austria actually knew. Some more have heard of them. Now guess, how many issues we sold. But just as Zeni Geva and those other bands kept on putting out records and distributing them all over the world, until they came to the people, who want to hear them, we kept on producing the fanzine. Now, two fanzine-projects and some other stuff later, a lot has changed. But actually not that much. CRACKED is not printed anymore – the reasons are too many to get into this issue right now – only available on the internet. But the content is in the same direction as always: letting people know about the crazy and interesting stuff that happens in the world and that is somehow important to me. So there is a lot of stupid stuff, some rants and ramblings, and a lot of music. And, of course, there is Zeni Geva.

Some things have changed with Zeni Geva as well. A new drummer, but you won’t really hear the difference, except if you listen very hard, because Kazuyuki K. Null is the band-imperator who gives directions. K.K.Null also brings along his special effect-machine, the “nullsonic”, into the studio with Zeni Geva for the first time. After several solo-records with solely recordings of the Nullsonic, this comes as a little surprise. I thought he wanted to keep these things separated or pure. But it is actually a good addition, since it is not played into the foreground. Well, times change, so people and ideas change as well.

What hasn’t changed with Zeni Geva is the mighty punch this recordings still have. They are very clear and distorted at the same time. The first song on the CD, the title track 10.000 light years, is an exception to that. K.K.Null tries to sing in a “normal” voice and the song is more tightly structured and doesn’t groove as much as the rest. Maybe you should take it as an intro to rest of the CD. Implosion, the following track, is back to ten years ago, offering that blood-melting groove of a devilish, eastern noise-machine rolling over your city. Remember the movie TETSUO? It’s like that in a lot of ways. Later on, as in Blastspehre or Last Nanosecond, they also introduce a few slower, or lets say, more silent parts, but the added dynamic adds to the songs and gives even more power to the harder parts. Anyway, what I call groove here, is always far away from what you would expect. Zeni Geva are still a Japanese band, but unlike most of the bands from Japan, they have developed their own style and they don’t hyper-imitate a foreign, mainly US-American style.

Traditional Japanese music has only five notes. Zeni Geva puts notes next to each other that you won’t expect at first, especially if you only know American Noise-Bands. But if you submit to their songs, they will blow you away. Unfortunately, I don’t know a lot about Japanese philosophy and I can’t judge how urban or westernised K.K.Null has become, but I have the feeling that somewhere between traditional Japanese war-philosophy and the emotional craziness of a Japanese urban metropolis with its degenerations and perversions lies the answer to many of these questions. Let me add that Zeni Geva doesn’t seek sensationalism. They don’t dress in special ways, they don’t behave in special ways, and live on stage they even demand solely static white light that lights the whole stage. They want to crush you with the blast of their music and nothing else. “We are not a metal-band” says K.K.Null, when another light-engineer at another concert tries to be clever with his lights.

What is also exceptional and remarkable about Zeni Geva is their sound. They are only three people with rather usual instruments, but they produce an enormous wall of sound, but you can still here all the instruments clearly. Nothing is mushed or hidden behind other sounds, it is all straight in your face until your ears bleed. Do I have to mention, that you should listen to this record really loud? This sound is of course also due to the recording-magic of Steve Albini, who you should know. His relationship with Zeni Geva goes way back years, when he was on tour with them on their first US-tour and then recorded their next records. There are a lot of analogies to Albini’s band Shellac, which you should know as well: three people, same instruments, original approach, technical perfection and, most important, an unique vision of a sound that they want to create.