Zero Times Everything Sonic Cinema Review by Gary Hill
This is very adventurous music. I'm sure it's not the kind of thing that's well-suited for everyone. I really like it a lot, though. When it comes to the progressive label for this, that's obvious. Perhaps this is often less "rock," but clearly it fits. I would put this somewhere in the neighborhood of the Rock In Opposition movement, but that is only so accurate of a categorization. The truth is, if you like adventurous music, you have to give this a chance. I bet you've never heard anything quite like it.
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2017 Volume 2 at lulu.com/strangesound.
Track by Track Review
And Now This...
Noisy fuzz laden sounds create a dense and uncomfortable atmosphere to make up this introductory piece.
Events In A Field This comes in very mellow and very pretty and grows gradually. It's sedate and a bit dark. It's slow moving and gradually growing. In fact, the changes are almost glacial, but this does eventually work out towards a driving beat and some almost noisy textures before it ends.
LED Mellow electronics open this, feeling like Vangelis meets Tangerine Dream. Then a cool guitar groove is added to the mix, reminding me a bit of a metallic King Crimson. There are some exceptional shifts to this piece. It really rocks more than either of the previous cuts did.
Accident There is an echoey, distant, movie sample at the start of this. The cut gradually comes up from there with some similarly echoey textures creating an atmospheric backdrop. We get another movie sample, and then some noisier, industrial kind of sound comes across for a time. This remains textural and slow moving, but it's also experimental and rather trippy. The last sound bite gets repeated at times. At close to 11 minutes in length, this piece is epic in size. It works through quite a bit of change, too. It's just that none of that change happens quickly. This is atmospheric, but moments approach noisy. It's trippy, and I suppose "space music" would refer well to a lot of it.
Natron 40 I love the unusual electronic vibe of this. It is machine like in a lot of ways. It's also so cool. It's less than two minutes long.
Ghost There is a rather ethereal element to this. Yet there is a sense of something magical. It has energy and a transient form. It gets bit louder and even a little noisy as it works toward its close.
Kapital This starts with the familiar sort of atmospherics, but works out to much more rocking stuff as it moves forward. This has some spoken, processed vocals. It also has some really powerful keyboard textures. This is more "song-like" than the rest. It's one of the longer cuts of the set, weighing in at almost nine minutes of length. This seems to be a criticism of the capitalist system.
Vox Populi This piece is the epic of the set, landing at a little over 13 minutes of length. It's epic in terms of scope, too. Parts of this have a real traditional progressive rock vibe to it, with a lot more energy and rock than some of the rest of the disc. There is a portion of the titular character in a drop back to crowd noise at a protest. The protest elements also return later in the piece, but as part of the musical structure. There is also some seriously space rock driven stuff. There are noisy bits of atmosphere, too. This is creative and adventurous. It's also one of the strongest pieces here.
Schizoid This is a very strange cover of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man." There is a young girl reading the lyrics to the song. Musically this works between textural atmospheric stuff and crazed, extremely noisy music. As odd as this is, it's very creative and unusual. I like it a lot. I will say that without the lyrics being read (and the title), one would never equate this tune with the original. It's completely different otherwise.
(The Cathedral of All Saints) Coming in electronic and quite pretty, this feels very gentle and classical in contrast to the craziness of the last cut. This piece does grow to a bit noisier stuff, but overall it's one of the more cohesive and staid compositions here.
