Z'EV (1951 to 2017), born Stefan Joel Weisser in Los Angeles, was an American percussionist, text-sound artist and mystic, best known for his catacoustic work, music made from reflected sound. He began recording in the late 1960s in a handful of psychedelic projects and by the end of the 1970s had taken the Z'EV name to explore the spatial poetics of the polyrhythmic clamour he drew from hand-built instruments of scrap metal, plastic and industrial junk, swung and struck in performances of great physical force.
Ramona Ponzini's personal touch is certainly her own particular Japanese chant, together with the use of traditional percussions, bells and cymbals from Japan. Z'EV has been enchanted by all those elements (listening to Praxinoscope), asking to Ramona for this cooperation. This is the result of this "long-distance encounter". ANKOKU is a Japanese word which means "deep darkness". For this debut Ramona's voice and percussions has been registered by My Cat is an Alien in their mysterious studio, …
This stunning 12' brings together two long-time San Francisco friends and legends of the Industrial music scene, both active since the late 70s! Boyd Rice is well-known for his project NON and for his collaborations with Death In June, Rose McDowall, Coil and Tony Wakeford to name but a few. Z'EV is a prolific composer and conceptual artist, who utilises metal percussion and electronics to create mystical rhythmajik - and who is also known for his collaborations with hard-hitters such as Stephen…
One continuous track split into 11 parts. Acoustic-digital presentation recorded Colchester Arts Centre 17.10.2006. Final mix by Z'ev London 01.2008. Mastered at Piethopraxis, Köln 04.2008. Neither Z'ev or pita need any introduction in these circles. These two heavyweights of experimental music have been associates for two decades. Their creative collaboration came about after a meeting in 2004, which led to a monthly file exchange program in 2005. Instead of releasing results immediately it was…
'Since 1989, the Portugal avant garde ensemble osso Exótico have created a stunning body of work. Current members are André Maranha, David Maranha and Patricia Machás, but besides the recordings, very little historical information can be found about the group. Rather, the music speaks for itself. Percussionist Z'EV, who has spent the better part of 40 years finding ways to coax sound out of material, and then creating a mystic cacaphony out of it, also uses sound as communication. Together, this…
Released in conjunction with a concert on the 11. November 2006 at the Lagerhaus Bremen the CD feat. exclusive tracks by Industrial Music legend Z'EV and New York based percussionist and multi media artist David Linton who has worked with among others Lee Ranaldo, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Diamanda Galas, Christian Marclay and Elliot Sharp. Each artist is featured with a solo track plus a remix of the other artist.
Released in conjunction with a live concert on the 2. October 2005 in the“Lagerhaus' Bremen”. The 2x7inch feat. four exclusive tracks for this project. Z'EV provides another intense mix of material which partly originates from a live recording from the “Atonal Festival” in Berlin back in 1983. Side B feat. John Duncan with a strange static sound-noise piece, whereas both Aidan Baker on Side C and Fear Falls Burning (a new project by Vidna Obmana) on Side D give fine examples of their slowly buil…
In 1967 Z'EV took a tape music class at the UCLA night school. The leader of the course was Joseph Byrd who was the founder and theoretician of the first electronic rock band: the united states of america. So while it's almost 40 years now that he has been involved in the production of electro-acoustic music, Headphone Musics marks the first release of a product exclusively featuring this form of music. All of the source material is drawn from the collection of cassette tapes Z'EV has amassed ov…
Since almost forty years z'ev belongs to the absolute fore front of experimental music. Playing percussive music he gained a lot of attention, but in more recent years he returned to working with electronic tape manipulation. One aspect is working with other people, such as Francisco Lopez or Kasper Toeplitz. On 'Forwaard' he uses field recordings made by Frans de Waard (hence the title), which are 'recoded' by z'ev into a forty minute, densely layered pattern of musique concrete. Many of the wa…
Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the very first Zev studio album which originally came out on Backlash in 1981, Die Stadt is proud to announce the re-release of Production and Decay of Spacial Relations for the first time on CD. It features the original seven tracks from the vinyl plus six recodings entitled Reproduction and Decay of Spatial Relations made by Zev in May/June 2005. Back in the day, Zev used to bring boxes over from Holland when he would come back to New York City which he woul…
A pioneer of the 'industrial' movement Z'EV has been cultivating his percussive noise for over 20 years. Collaborating with the likes of Glenn Branca, Genesis P.Orridge, KK.Null & Stephen O'Malley to name a few. Started in late 2005, Symphony #2 was composed in London using source material drawn from his live performance in October 1990 at the Wang Concert Hall, Amsterdam. Completed January 2006 in LA, Elementalities is a text+s ound docutment and comes housed with a 12 page booklet.
RESTOCKED Since 1989, the Portugal avant garde ensemble osso Exótico have created a stunning body of work. Current members are André Maranha, David Maranha and Patricia Machás, but besides the recordings, very little historical information can be found about the group. Rather, the music speaks for itself. Percussionist Z'EV, who has spent the better part of 40 years finding ways to coax sound out of material, and then creating a mystic cacaphony out of it, also uses sound as communication. Toget…
Following their maxi CD »Tinnitus Vu« on Touch in 2004 »Tocsin« is the first full lenght album produced together by these two renowned sound artists. Whereas »Tinnitus VU« was mostly the result of Z'ev reworking material by Jackman, »Tocsin« is the result of the artists agreeing to meet and work together in the studio. They created and recorded sounds from a piano (which can be found at RMS Studios London) and a stainless steel instrument (built by Z'ev circa 1989), over the course of several ho…
American performance/noise/percussion artist Z'ev, Japanese composer/performer K.K. Null, and field-recording artist Chris Watson (formerly of Cabaret Voltaire and the Hafler Trio) conjoin in a first collaboration for Touch. The idea for this recording, generated by Z'ev, has three elements: 1) to use the structure of the Noh Theatre cycle as the basis for the composition; 2) to consider the initial sound development in terms of developing "characters" which would then interact with one another …