You know, every so often there comes a record that you listen to a minute-or-so of, stop playback and say: “This is crazy.” Some records just carry that effect, that weight. For whatever reason there’s an element in the music, or the atmosphere, the ambience that just feels heady and powerful. This is the case with Milan-based Eternal Zio, a sonically confusing and engaging quartet drawing influences from punk, jazz, psychedelia and most certainly traditional folk music. As an initial comparison, I found myself thinking back to a collection of folk recordings (here and here) I’m rather fond of from Sardinia, following the traditional musics of the region. Something about these recordings, hidden behind all the dissonant craziness and abstract improvisation feels primal, native and quite hypnotic.
Beginning with a slick (but minimal) bass-line and a cloud of wailing drones, the first of six improvised and untitled pieces drops the listener in the deep-end as wordless vocals channel some ancient spirit. Distant organ and bells give the piece a hymnal feeling, but nothing like the dreary dishwater nonsense the Catholic version of this song-form has popularised today. The track, as with many others on the record, has a similar feel to the works of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra as strings slide in and out of tune with an overwhelming sense of awe and grandeur.
Moving on, the group explores dissonance further as flutes squeak and screech, as if performed by children on their first day at music school. The jazzy rhythm section seems reminiscent of yet another Canadian instrumental group: Do Make Say Think, which ties nicely with the school theme given the circumstance of that group’s formation, development and namesake.
The group follow from this with an excellent, hypnotic highland piece that would easily soundtrack an open, hilly terrain as two armies meet for battle. One thing to be said about the recordings is that even amidst the most inaccessible tracks, solid rhythm and melody can be found somewhere and a combination of the alienating and familiar is always met in the middle: for this reason fans of the most recent Swans record ‘The Seer’ should make great effort to listen to the EP.
The strongest point of this record comes with the closing improvisation: a manic, rhythmic group chant and dance, that sounds like something you’d hear bellowing around a campfire; the piece is tribal, hysterical and totally enjoyable. The combination of primal percussion and what seems to be a Casio keyboard is unheard of and delicious, whilst the chaotic strings screech and scratch wildly with passion. The group appear unified, as a tribe during a wild celebratory evening dancing around in circles and chanting into the air: it’s uplifting and infectious and makes it quite clear that this is not music for recording, but to witness and participate in as a performance and an experience.
This recording is not something that can be easily discussed, as it refuses to follow the norms of a record. It is also not something that holds any standard form or structure as we know today and could only be compared to a field recording of a tribe in the outbacks of Africa, or Australia somewhere where modern culture hasn’t forced its way into all the cracks to sell Coca Cola on billboards yet.
The improvisation and refusal to name the pieces makes it even more difficult to discuss and suggests that really, it’s Eternal Zio passing us a piece of themselves, like a memory or a sample, to remember them by when we hear their name next.
The collection feels like a snapshot during a documentary, or a brief overnight stay, rather than a focussed piece… but that’s not the impression I feel they’re trying to give. This isn’t a meticulously planned opus where every motion is visited and revisited, their music isn’t intended to be consumed like that. This is a true and accurate representation of them, as a community, and as an invitation to others to join their “tribute to the gods”.
Eternal Zio is available NOW from Boring Machines / Black Sweat Records.
Posted by Jake Murray.
