catalogue

ZIUR

EYEROLL (NYEGE NYEGE TAPES)

ZIUR - EYEROLL 159654
format:
1 LP
release:
15.09.2023
label:
NYEGE NYEGE TAPES
genre:
Electro/Funk
item ID:
159654
barcode:
0768558901063
The world has changed, we shouldn't try and pretend otherwise. While we were shut away in isolation our routines shifted, social patterns evolved, and our hopes and dreams were twisted into cobwebs we're still trying to wipe from our fingers.

Ziúr tentatively approached this on her last album Antifate, an ambitious and complex hybrid pop fever dream that looked back to a Medieval escapist fantasy as the scent of revolution seemed to hum in the air.

But when restrictions were eased, she found herself staring down a discombobulated society that had trapped itself in a spiral of microwaved nostalgia and detached, narcotic repetition.

Eyeroll then is Ziúr's musical panacea, a tincture to wake us from our creative slumber and prompt external connection and reflection.

It's a polyphonous hex that demands human interaction, and Ziúr's hand-picked alliance of collaborators - Elvin Brandhi, Abdullah Miniawy, Iceboy Violet, Juliana Huxtable, Ledef, and James Ginzburg - each provide distinct voices that together herald a bewildering sonic epoch.

Ziúr's palette had to evolve to match the scope of the project, but it was pure necessity that informed the album's defining tone.

Recording mostly at night, Ziúr was conscious of the noise she was making so developed a unique way to record organic percussion.

Using a set of rototoms - low profile tunable drums - she scratched, scraped and gently tapped the skins to build up the undulating and unstable rhythmic backdrop for each track.

It's the first sound we hear on the opener 'Eyeroll', rattling like lost marbles against Elvin Brandhi's primal croaks and screams.

And when Brandhi's twisted articulations form words, Ziúr matches the energy with chaotic thuds and serrated blasts of saturated electronics.

"I roll the shittiest cigarette," she squeals like she's about to start a mosh pit at Paris's GRM Studios.

Without pause, Abdullah Miniawy takes over on 'Malikan', building on the promise of material with Simo Cell, Carl Gari and HVAD with corrosive trumpet blasts and charged, politically incendiary Arabic vocals.

Inspired by pre-Islamic poetry and the Qu'ranic chanters he heard growing up in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, he spins labyrinthine stories that cross between the worlds, breaking down physical and spiritual borders simultaneously.

Miniawy's scope is expanded even further on his second collaboration, 'If The City Burns I Will Not Run'.

"If it rains and the city drowns," he utters over gaseous electronics, "I will not run away, but I will be anxious for the heart of one close to me."
 
  • Tracklisting
  • 1.1. EYEROLL (W ELVIN BRANDHI)
  • 1.2. MALIKAN (W ABDULLAH MINIAWY)
  • 1.3. MOVE ON (W ICEBOY VIOLET)
  • 1.4. 99 FAVOR TASTE (W JULIANA HUXTABLE)
  • 1.5. NONTRIVIAL DIFFERENTIAL (W ELVIN BRANDHI)
  • 1.6. PARTYGOODTIME (W LEDEF)
  • 1.7. CUT CUT QOUTE (ELVIN BRANDHI)
  • 1.8. PIQUE
  • 1.9. IF THE CITY BURNS I WILL NOT RUN (W ABDULLAH MINIAWY & JAMES GINZBURG)
  • 1.10. HASTY REVISIONISM
  • 1.11. LACRYMATURITY