GILGONGO RECORDS

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ZS - "Arms" LP (GGGR-011).
500 on opaque white, CD version released on Planaria Records.

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ZS.
Simultaneously complex and minimal, avant-gardepost-jazz compositionists, ZS new full length "Arms" offers nearly 50 minutes of insane new studio recordings. "Brooklyn quartet Zs play the real hard, real minimal, real painstakingly worked-out rock etudes that kids with beards and concentrated stares prick up their ears for. However, the real news is, this stuff actually does rock, though perhaps not as ragingly as bands to who they're likely to be compared (Orthrelm, Don Caballero, Flying Luttenbachers). It helps that I first heard Zs live: four guys (drums, guitar, guitar+keyboard, saxophone) seated facing each other, sheet music and stand-lights illuminating some very focused faces, and playing stuff that pounded a lot more than you might think given the monkish air of the room". - Dominique Leone / pitchforkmedia.com. Vinyl version of the new full length studio recording, an initial run of 500 on opaque white. CD version available from Planaria Records. MP3: ZS - "B Is For Burning".

select reviews:

Pitchfork:
Without paying close attention, it's easy to assume Brooklyn avant-chamber crew Zs spends Arms opener "B Is for Burning" playing the waiting game: Two saxes and a lone guitar peel through six minutes of revisionist phrasing, while lines double back over themselves, making only the tinniest alterations at each pass, merely filling two fixed points with errant squirts and wild squibs. Depending on taste, the defiant strains of "Burning" either hang in the air like a big ball of exhilaration or a knot of frustration. Complicating matters (for those on the fence, at least) is the tauntingly spare drumming of Ian Antonio, who supports the staccato playing with only the most reserved sort of aggression, letting a feigned backbeat or an oddly-placed tom flutter suggest an entire dimension to the song that only half-exists. Sure, for a few blissful seconds, Zs are a rock band. But anyone aching for 60 minutes of that stuff, or hoping to find out where those backbeats and tom flutters might, you know, go, oughta look elsewhere. After all, Zs offer no illusions of conventional rockness. They stare through reams and reams of sheet music when they play live, and, taken as a whole, Arms is a lot more ephedrine Earle Brown or Mark Feldman than, say, Mick Barr or Don Cab.

Remember: This is the kind of band that takes the buckshot vocal melody of "Nobody Wants to be Had" and commands its instruments to follow, tit for tat. In choral music, unison voicing spreads a single melody wide, creating a singular, massive voice. Here, Zs use unison to achieve the opposite effect, hammering identical (or rigidly contrapuntal) melodies out on strings, reeds, and skins, all delivered with a fervor that splinters and sharpens the phrases into razor-y points. Tracks like the 11-minute "I Can't Concentrate" aren't one massive voice-- they're a scary-sharp mouth of fangs.

But, counterintuitively, it's when the band reins things in that its at its most compelling. In the last minute of "Concentrate", Zs-as-rock-band hit their stride when the collection of stair-step sax passes suddenly turn into a squealing, skronking Luttenbacher jam, complemented by the album's only conventional drum beat. Then Antonio's rolling tom figures extend Charlie Looker's guitar part underneath the hissing brass, and usher in the record's quietly rewarding homestretch. There, the bubbling brass micro-rhythms of "Except When You Don't Because Sometimes You Won't" resemble the lassoed moments of Storm and Stress, before uneventfully disappearing into the wind chimes of "Z Is for Zone". It's this smartly placed reserve, a beautifully smooth valley after a harsh peek, that makes a decent case for Arms. -Robbie Mackey, January 25, 2008

Left Off the Dial:
When it comes to modern jazz punk explosions, I often tag the Flying Luttenbachers as the end-alls, a kind of litmus test for all other bands trying to converge under the wings of the form. ZS comes awfully close, indulging the blurred parameters of “post-jazz, brutal prog” like kids stumbling towards a place where bands like Neurosis seem quant and homely. “B is for Burning” comes across with controlled, manicured chaos as the band seems to swallow repetition and expansion simultaneously, each redundant ring trying to fork outward towards a greater whole. It’s dizzying, and a test, to listen to, though the fragmented, disjointed, and equally limber “Woodworking” feels like a man aiming a saw blade in slo-motion, assaulted by Cubism shards and ducking and contorting. “Nobody Wants to be Had” moves forward with the same crushing tempo, like a shimmering hi-voltage wall of aluminum suddenly splintering into darting, pingponging, orchestra-rock mathematics, where each vocal line seems to be swimming in Dada/concrete poem potentials. “Balk” finally has some kind of subtle Latin jazz underpinnings, though woven into a skittering, evasive series. “Except When You Don’t Because Sometimes You Want” also has such subliminal rhythmical moments, stuck in-between sparse minimalism string doodling and rubbing that feels like a tribal troupe being fidgety and low key on a subway platform. This is likely to appeal to the deconstruction side of the music fence, though it’s approach is not all mannered and aloof, but a kind of invitation to explore the little things that make the difference in the soundwave.

Dusted:
In a now legendary November broadcast of his Sirius radio show, Howard Stern played a few tracks off of a copy of Zs’ Arms that the band had sent to him. Expectedly, he and his peanut gallery spent a solid chunk of airtime offering their opinions, irreverently abusing the underground art scene in the process. This provoked reverberations throughout the internet, as a few savants of all-sounds-cerebral went en guard against Stern and Co.’s apparent blaspheming of the musical fringe.

New Yorker New Music critic Alex Ross, whose blog links to clips from the show, takes brief (and, alright, justified) umbrage at the show’s unsurprisingly brash contention that John Cage’ 4’33” is “horseshit.” He then references Stern’s (later abandoned) plan to show up at the Knitting Factory before a Zs show and perform with his cohorts as a faux-avant ensemble. With an air of chivalry toward the unjustly maligned Zs, Ross assures his readers that Stern’s plan to clown the avant-garde will fail, as the “downtown crowd will give him a warm Rite of Spring welcome,” and show Howard Stern precisely what everyone thinks of the cut of his jib (or something). Ross was implying was that, had Stern taken the stage, a riot – the unbeatable high – would have ensued.

But even had Howard Stern made good on his promise, no bloodthirsty riots in defense of the avant-garde would have been necessary. Ross, in his well-intentioned (if only partially informed) defense of Zs, managed to miss a few important elements of what’s great about Arms, elements that were revealed by the militantly low-brow antics of the Howard Stern show.

In an interview with Time Out New York, Zs member Sam Hilmer is keyed into this; discussing how blown away he is at the semi-surreal experience of having instigated a conversation about John Cage on the Howard Stern show. What’s more exciting than having brought up Cage, though, is that Arms inspired on the show an impromptu exploration of a list of theoretical questions about what constitutes “music” and why we listen to it, not to mention the kind of gut reactions you might not even expect from die-hard fans of experimental music. If the false dichotomy between “high” and “low” culture is one that Zs flaunts alongside plenty of other DIY avant-gardists, it was entirely disassembled on the Howard Stern show.

In the broadcast, as the first awkward skronks of “Woodworking” play, Howard’s first response is to say, “It’s mood music… if you’re in a mental home,” unintentionally providing a tagline so catchy and evocative the band should have it screened onto their merchandise. As Stern and Co. listen through the song, their reaction to its spacious, cartoon-ish jerkiness, the seemingly random horn honks and percussive thumps, is first to hesitate perplexedly, then break out into laughter – sincere laughter, as if they can’t quite believe what they’re hearing. Despite not being aficionados of “difficult” music, the cast of the Howard Stern show manage to give pretty dead-on, evocative descriptions of “Woodworking,” appropriately delivered with the show’s characteristic assholishness. They remark that the track makes them feel like they’re waiting to see if something happens, and that it sounds like Bugs Bunny tip-toeing in a cartoon, which is exactly the aesthetic impact it’s meant to have. “Do they write this stuff down? Can this be repeated? How do you tell when something’s ‘good’?” These were the questions Stern’s cast was asking – ones entirely germane to the most high-minded discussions of musical experimentation.

Then, in a move decidedly Duchampian (though not identified by Alex Ross as such), Stern and his cast decided to put together their own ensemble, calling into question what distinguishes composer-ship from just blowing into an instrument; an idea as Dadaist as it is demotic.

Arms, for all the discussion it sparked about experimental music on Stern’s show, is hardly impenetrable. That’s part of the reason why it could be discussed; out-there as it seems to the unprepared ear, it offers a way in. Baring little resemblance to aggressive noise or its relatives that pepper the punk landscape (No Wave, and other genres characterized by blaring grit,) Arms’ closest historical antecedents can be found in the Rock in Opposition movement of the late-’70s.

Bands like Aksak Maboul shared members with major acts of the early-’70s Canterbury Scene, and did Canterbury a notch or two better in terms of experimentalism. If Soft Machine and its descendants (Gong, Caravan, Hatfield and the North, etc.) pioneered psychedelic rock that incorporated prog complexity while maintaining infectious melody, prominent RIO bands experimented with the idea of what could even constitute melody in rock music. In doing so, they employed a range of avant-compositional, world, and free-jazz elements; either pulling avant-gardism down from the academic heights, or elevating pop music (in the absolute loosest sense of the term) to its most cerebral extreme.

This kind of experimentation in search of new melodic understandings is precisely what Zs do with Arms. “B is for Burning” starts out with a staccato horn-heavy roll that sounds like it’s been clipped out of another song and looped. The repetition doesn’t end, making for three minutes of Steve Reich-and-Roll waiting for a crescendo that never arrives. “Nobody Wants to Be Had” churns with the same broken-record reiteration, but about half way in, explodes into a Faustian (band, not epic poem) fury of monotone vocals, mimicking the previous part in an onslaught of frenetically delivered syllables.

Even at the points when Arms is at its most aggressive, herky-jerky and erratic, it’s never noisy. When it’s mellow, in tracks like “Balk,” it sounds almost like the leitmotif of a classically arranged children’s story, bringing to mind a track on Aksak Maboul’s Onze Danses Pour Combattre La Migraine. The lullaby-like “Z is for Zone” finishes out the disc quietly, using the same looping technique found in the disc’s more forceful tracks to create an entirely different atmosphere, repeating its titular mantra over twinkling chimes.

It says something about the unique impact of Zs, that the band has been the focus of discussion by both the New Yorker music critic and the Howard Stern show. Populist in outlook while lofty in its approach, Zs are the perfect kind of band to receive the range of reactions they did from both. In an age where it’s incredibly rare for a piece of music to actually shock anyone without being aurally crippling or having a scatological gimmick, Arms has proven able to evoke visceral reactions with only vigorous experimentalism. With absolutely no concern for what’s high-art or low-art, Arms is as artful, evocative and addictive as its stratospheric prog-progenitors, and depicts a band that promises to have a lasting impact on the difficult side of DIY music, or the DIY side of “difficult” music, which may very well be growing closer to being the same thing. - By Matthew A. Stern

Tiny Mix-Tapes:
I’ve often felt that the ‘minimalist’ movement, typically associated with the trio of Reich, Riley, and Glass, has had a profound effect on modern music. In many ways, the early minimalist form paralleled the outward simplicity of rock ’n’ roll, which it burgeoned beside in the ’60s. Both genres stripped the last remaining flourishes of Romantic music and the complex atonal theories of the early 20th century into something more basic: a pulse. Once that musical center was established, a rebirth of sorts, the movements exploded outwards, rapidly shedding most early preconceptions about what rock or minimalism could be. But the rhythm, or the pure tone, usually remained the center of gravity, providing a natural connection between seemingly disparate styles, between the notions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. Perhaps because of the minimalist expansion, in all its facets, that distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ has become harder to discern with each passing year. I find the echoes of Steve Reich unmistakable in everyone from King Crimson to Sufjan Stevens, from Can to Jim O’Rourke, and certainly in a myriad of ‘post rock’ outfits. Repetition, drone, pulse, short themes and variation: the new common musical language is constantly expanding and being taken over in the context of small ensembles, or rock bands.

But a barrier still exists between the Victorian theaters, the opera houses, and today’s bars and rock clubs, even if the music being hosted at these sets of establishments is constantly reaching across the aisle in a clamorous attempt to converse with the other side. Bands like Zs, as made doubly clear by their press release, are standing somewhere in the middle of the aisle. And they do represent a newer strain of classical minimalism’s marriage to rock, one that favors Reich’s brand of rhythmic repetition performed by a small ensemble of guitar, synth, sax, and drums. The stripped-down lineup is inviting, and transforms music that might seem steely and distant in a larger setting into a more personal, human performance piece. In a world where most bands favor sustained chords and saturated recording styles, it’s nice being able to pinpoint exactly what each player is doing at any given moment. Zs’ sincerity and dedication to pure composition is also immediately recognizable, and elevates them above similar artists who are content to merely flirt with the spiraling aspects of early minimalism. From the first note on Arms, which begins a long strain of rhythmic hits that lasts roughly the entire record, a sort of musical pointilism is established. The drums consist of singular jabs, often syncopated with other instrumental dots that carve out an underlying, implied pulse. It’s that rhythmic insistence married with the complete lack of a traditional drum beat that both supports Zs’ claims to concert hall acceptance and separates them from superficially similar math and prog rock acts.

In fact, the singularity and restraint of Arms are its most endearing aspects, similar to Orthrelm’s minimalist-shredding workout album OV, from 2005. The consistency of method allows for Zs’ basic, nearly live recordings to sound at home, and, despite the relative lack of density, never thin. It’s the sound of four instruments, and the occasional vocal line, delivering continuous rhythmic counterpoint, an early musical technique, but performed and presented here in an unmistakably modern way. The approach is most successful, and most simple, on the track “I Can’t Concentrate,” which lets sets of eighth notes build and breathe for seven minutes before slipping into a fast pulse of close, dissonant harmony. The sudden shot of blatant, repetitive dissonance, even with a limited amount of tones, is enhanced by the relative consonance preceding it. It’s as if Zs took snippets of King Crimson tracks and decided to perform expanded meditations on them. That pervading sense of mediation and repetition allows Arms to exist as an overarching work, but also as a commercially viable record. It opens a fresh path to the past while continuing the modern trend of erasing musical boundaries in the name of rock ’n’ roll. by Keith Kawaii

Pop Matters:
Zs enjoyed a stint of improbable mini-fame last year when a copy of this, their first full-length album, somehow found its way into the hands of radio DJ Howard Stern. Though Stern and his co-presenters were exemplary in their closed-mindedness, not to mention ignorance (Zs were referred to throughout the bizarre, conceited giggle-fest as ‘the Zees’), their bewilderment at the record highlighted something a very real issue: Zs aren’t exactly you’re average band. And though for Stern and his fellow smugs this is a reason for scorn, for most of us this expanding—or indeed dissolving—of the boundaries, this challenging of convention and expectation, is, even if it is not always successful, an admirable thing. And like it or not, challenges are something Zs provide, even for musos, by the bucketful.

Indeed, the difficulties in classifying Zs are apparent even in their own press release, which trumpets that their music has been variously described as “no-wave, post-jazz, brutal-chamber, brutal prog, and post minimalist”. And if, from that, you’ve the faintest idea what they sound like, you’re more intuitive than this scribe. But then it’s unsurprising that an ensemble that see their compositions as chamber music as much as rock would blur the boundaries.

One thing Arms leaves you in no doubt of is its creators’ musicianship. The album is seven tracks in all, though spanning nearly 50 minutes, is perfectly, intricately arranged. Complicated and cerebral, largely it trades in extremes. Zs are loud, Zs are quiet; they tread little of the ground in between. Likewise, Arms is mostly jetplane fast, the guitar-playing blistering—but when it’s not, it is minimal and hushed. Mid-tempo plodding this ain’t. This precociousness is vital, for Arms could so easily come across as pretentious and affected. “B is for Burning” could be five minutes of the same riff for the casual, background listener, but then its myriad, infinitesimal, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them intricacies aren’t really made for casual listening. To be sure, you suspect Zs are four people for whom music is anything but casual. Every moment of Arms is too poised, too pinpoint precise to be anything but an exposition of musical profundity.

That said, it is perhaps the least restrained moment of the album that is also its highlight. Dropping straight into a punishingly heavy, mountainous riff, “Nobody Wants to Be Had” drives itself to breaking point, before abruptly subsiding to a sinister vocal break. When the riff takes hold again it is with renewed, vengeful vigor, an assault that is again met with menacing vocal riposte. Where other bands might choose to wind down, Zs accelerate further, until labyrinthine guitar and sax intertwine so much that termination is the only way out of the tangle.

The succeeding “Balk”, however, is the antithesis of this chaos, a much-needed respite from the unruly destruction of the preceding cuts. Zs at their most reserved, “Balk“‘s guitars makes tentative steps throughout its six minutes, interspersed with stuttering saxophone, before a jazzy, composed disintegration at its end. It is the first time we see this side of the band, a more relaxed, tranquil side even, that also rears its head on the latter two offerings of Arms. It is difficult to even reconcile the Zs that make ear-melting noise on “I Can’t Concentrate” with the Zs that floats bells and woodwind in your direction on “Except When You Don’t Because Sometimes You Won’t”.

In the end, it is perhaps the latter that is more satisfying, on record, at least. Zs rely heavily on repetition, and the effects of this are twofold. The first is that, as on “Nobody Wants to Be Had”, the eventual release is cranked up to maximum by the preceding tension. But the second, like on cuts such as “I Can’t Concentrate”, can be one of frustration. The repeated false starts of the latter track, for instance, or the discordant aural collapses of “Woodworking”, would be rewarding and effective if they amounted to anything, but as it is “I Can’t Concentrate“‘s math-rock complexities (although surely a transfixing prospect live) are unable to justify the eleven-minute duration, while “Woodworking” ultimately fizzles out.

A challenging listen then, all things considered, but a rewarding one, at times, too. The sheer intricacy of the record ensures that intrigue is ensured at the very least, and while occasionally Arms strays into impenetrably oblique territory, the primitive minimalism of “B is for Burning” and the explosive “Nobody Wants to Be Had” are captivating. What’s more, the more reserved tail end of the album makes for unprecedented pleasurable, unabrasive listening. It’s by no means for everyone’s palate, and if you’re after a quick fix in particular, look away now, but those with a pre-disposition for intricately arranged, minimalist exploration will most likely find this record a treat. by Chris Baynes

Scene Point Blank:
I was lucky enough to see Zs live on tour with The Locust, and I must first mention how badly my ears hurt during their set. I felt for a moment that I might fall apart right where I was standing. But upon the conclusion of their set I realized that this was more than just something that made my ears shatter. My first hint was introduced simply by the way they set up. All facing each other in a square with sheet music in front of them. This was not any ordinary band. There was more to this than just explosive noise, there was talent.

Zs takes post minimalism to a new level. They explore an immense range of musical approaches. Each approach speaks for itself in saying, “We know how to play, and play well.” Ranging from rock, to jazz, to noise and back to rock again, Zs has a unique way of grasping the listener. Where to some their post-minimalist approach may come off as annoying, it tends to balance itself in an amazing manner. While listening, it is almost amazing to consider that they are holding themselves together. The songs range from well constructed, to random outbursts barely holding melody. Yet still, it creates a compound of immense musicianship. Explosions of energy are tangled within every song, yet their sound ranges from epic journeys to almost chaotic doomsday messages, particularly in “No Body Wants to be Had Balk.” This unique sound allows them to communicate in a wide range of environments. It is not hard to imagine Zs in an orchestra hall, while at the same time seeing them in a basement or loft; mainly because their song verity is so wide. They can be soft for one song, and totally ear damaging on the next.

Their sound is bass less, adding another significant challenge. Many bands have approached the no bass task; however, Zs takes it into a new level. Bass is no longer necessary.

As you might have guessed, Zs may not be for everyone, but it is certainly meant for any musician to hear. Arms is an incredible display of musician ship, and a incredible taste of the direction music is getting its mucky hands into. Where once power chords were the main focus of good music, now the technically is more than just showing off. It's an art yet to be explored by the masses.

Arms is one of the most unique and under appreciated albums of the year. If you are blessed with the chance to see them live or pick up their album, do it. It will be an experience of a lifetime, and one to never be forgotten.

Prog Archives / Chris Henne:
The maxi-minimalists?

Zs is a band that was formed in 2000 in New York, in the heart of the brutal chamber scene. However, one would challenge themselves day and night trying to name a genre that fits the style these guys play. One listen to this album and you will say they play one style, then listen to it again and you will say a different one. There is just no way to peg one single genre onto this album. It's too ugly and raw for jazz music, too complicated for minimalist music however too simple to be called avant-garde.

Arms is the first full-length studio album from this band, following up on two successful EP's and predating a live release, both recorded last year in 2007. If you are reading this review because you are looking for something that resembles music, I warn you to turn back now. Zs is not a band that plays music, Zs is a band that records art. Vocals are used sparingly, but they create a deep impact on the album, especially the chanting in Except When You Don't Because You Wont. Combined with the beating percussions, this piece could almost put you in a trance-like state. Also the vocals on I Can't Concentrate really sky-rocket the song itself and the album to a whole new level.

From the opening saxophone explosion of B Is For Burning, to the last shake of the tambourine on Z Is For The Zone, there is no let up on this album. Although sometimes the music may quiet down or shift itself, the thrills keep coming back. One mistake I do think that Zs might have made in their debut is the length of the album. They do a great job playing their repetitive, trance inducing music throughout the duration of the album, but towards the end the listener will tend to settle back into their seat rather than still be on the edge. Music like this needs to be full-out for a certain length and then stop without rest.

All in all, a very strong debut and one of the best in 2007. Work on those endings and the next Zs studio album will most likely be a winner!

Prog Archives / Ruben Dario:
Calling this cerebral is an understatement.

Earlier this year, around summer, when I was discovering highly convoluted and elaborate music, I stumbled upon a band that was simply named “Zs”. I remember reading an article about a little musical movement called “brutal prog” where bands like Upsilon Acrux, The Flying Luttenbachers and even Orthrelm are part of, or so the author of the article claims. Zs was the band labeled as “brutal chamber” and being a fan of this kind of music I didn’t hesitated to check them out. The music does remind me of the previously mentioned bands so this is recommended for fans of this kind of music, especially fans of Orthrelm’s Ov.

Zs’ music takes parts of minimalism, chamber music, rock, jazz and mesh it to sound as ugly and dissonant as possible! This leaves no room for emotions so I hope that that isn’t a problem. The music is repetitive and angular with disjointed and awkward sounding melodies wrapped with start / stop dynamics in every single moment of the album. Vocals aren’t present on this album but in one song, “Nobody Wants To Be Had” which is one of the album’s peak moments particularly because of its odd singing and even odder topic. This song in particular is the one that attracted me the most from them since it’s the most easily rewarding song on the album as well as being a good representation of their sound. The only song that can top this one is “I Can’t Concentrate” with its math rock-like song structure and long running time. Balk is an interesting song, it isn’t as engaging as the ones before and after it, but the main melody is almost exactly the same as Faust’s song called “So Far”. This hasn’t been affirmed by the members of Zs and it’s only a little observation of mine so ignore it at will.

Zs’ music is inaccessible and hard to grasp. Newcomers should keep away from this band, but Veterans should check Zs’ as soon as possible. Arms is an elaborate and intriguing album that Avant-garde music fans will highly enjoy. The only problem here is “Z is for Zone” which isn’t up to par with the rest of the material on the album and overstays its welcome, but this is still an enjoyable album.

Transform:
New York avant-garde collective Zs – who have categorized themselves hilariously in their press release as "brutal chamber," which made me think of the members of Rachel's wearing loincloths and beating the shit out of each other with stone clubs – are primarily about two things. The first is incredible musicianship. From the immediate lockstep attack of dizzying opener "B is For Burning," it's clear these guys can fucking play, and furthermore that they can damn near read each others' minds. The spiraling, endlessly locking and sparring staccato bursts of saxophone, guitar, and percussion displayed here are nothing if not very, very impressive.

But really, Zs are about making Art, and not so much about making Music. This is made clear on the second track, "Woodworking," which sets the tone for the rest of the album by ruining its momentum with a bunch of random noises and general fucking around. It sounds like the result of 200 people tripping over each other in a room full of instruments. And I'm sure Zs are mightily pleased with the result.

Like I said, this is a seriously talented group of dudes. Unfortunately, as I have often come to find in the world of extreme music (metal, prog, experimental, and otherwise), you can graduate from Berklee and perform calculus on your instrument of choice with flawlessly executed runs of 256th notes in 19/16 time signatures but it does not mean you can write a song to save your god damned life.

So here are Zs. Zs are not about to write songs. They are performance art first and foremost before they are a rock band, and they do not care about making music that is even slightly accessible. They are about experimenting and pleasing only themselves and subverting your expectations at every turn. They are about dangling their untouchable skills in your face with 10-minute walls of mathematic stop-start brain-melting like the aptly titled "I Can't Concentrate," then taking a shit on you by ending the record with 10 more minutes of sleigh bells and tunelessly chanting "z is for zone" until you are ready to shoot yourself in the face.

Can I recommend this? Fuck, I don't know. There are moments on this record that are truly jaw-dropping. It's cerebral and deconstructionist and pretentious and challenging, to say the least, and it will undoubtedly drive you crazy on multiple occasions. And if you are able to finish its 48 grueling minutes in one sitting you, sir or madam, are a better man or woman than I. Personally, I will hold the utmost respect for Zs' musicianship and also never, ever listen to it again. - Lucas Salg

Paper Thin Walls:
Bill Bruford, drummer of holy prog-rock showboats King Crimson, once quipped that his job was “one of the few... in rock ’n’ roll where it’s even remotely possible to play in 17/16 and stay in a decent hotel.” On “Nobody Wants To Be Had,” Brooklyn quartet Zs (a quintet on this recording) treat their minute of 17/16 as a cool-down lap; they probably take tour naps on floors, if they bother with sleep at all. But where most technique hounds sound unfeeling and noodley, and most rock finds character in, well, rocking—emotion ex nihilo—Zs make music like Bach: with phrasing and cadence; like oratory. And like the music of avant-garde composer Christian Wolff, whom Zs have recently opened for, it forgoes volume and dissonance for character. Puns over brute force. Instead of a catch-and-release opener, we get release-and-catch: two gorgeous scythe-like guitar figures run against big, waltzing drums before collecting into a halting Morse code with no warning. At that point, the dance is anyone’s guess. The sputtering engine? Tourettic tickle? The saxophonist pops along in faux-regal style rather than doling out the arbitrary squeals that earn some bands a meaningless “free-jazz,” tag, and by playing in the same rhythm, the quintet manages to seem smaller than they actually are. It’s the sound of an idiot putting out the fire in his cubicle, in all caps. The flat vocal chants outdo Devo for awkwardness; a narrator so panicked and helpless he drops the ability to verb: “BLOOD EVERYWHERE BLOOD EVERYWHERE BLOOD EVERYWHERE.” Control, of course, is still paramount. They play arranged like a chamber group: sitting down, with sheet music. But the metaphor isn’t meant to be a slight. Zs’ brainiac playfulness proves technicality can be in service of something other than the endless na na na na boo boo. - MIKE POWELL