Zu – “The Way of the Animal Powers”

OK, let’s get the facts out of the way. Zu are an Italian instrumental group from Rome. They formed in 1997. They have a hell of a lot of albums (15, according to Wikipedia) and this one The Way of the Animal Powers was originally released in 2005 on now defunct label Xeng, and is now being released on 180g vinyl by way of Baltimore based record label Public Guilt.

So, now we can move on to the music. In short, it’s WEIRD. Throughout their career, Zu have made a point of collaborating with a variety of musicians – perhaps most notably with Faith No More’s Mike Patton, on their 2009 album Carboniferous. The Way of the Animal Powers sees the band join with cellist Fred Lomberg-Holm, whose avant garde experimental style compliments the album perfectly and pushes it to even weirder limits than it would have been otherwise.

The whining cello bowing in “Shape Shifting” sounds like an angry bee trying to clean a car window. Track 5, “Things Fall Apart”, with its bizarre jazz-fusion saxophone part, would be the perfect soundtrack to a scene in a movie where a butler in an early 20th century aristocratic household in Paris partakes in a crime of passion. Album closer “Every Seagull Knows” seems to aurally illustrate the clunky robot invasion of a quaint seaside town. If peculiar and grotesque imagery is what Zu were going for, they’ve hit the nail right on the head. If you’re confused by these descriptions, good. So am I. What else is there to say? This is not the type of album that can easily be judged by someone else’s word. It’s a record that is just deeply confusing.

The Way of the Animal Powers is not pleasant listening. It’s noisy, uncomfortable, obtuse, outlandish, artistic, improvisational, divergent, prodigious, mathematical, extravagant, frightening, quizzical and pretty much any other adjective that you could think of. Is it awful? Is it pure genius? I’ll be honest with you, I have absolutely no idea.  [ END ]

Track Listing:

01. Tom Araya Is Our Elvis
02. Anatomy Of A Lost Battle
03. Shape Shifting
04. The Aftermath
05. Things Fall Apart
06. The Witch Herbalist Of The Remote Town
07. Farewell To The Species
08. A Fortress Against Shadows
09. Every Seagull Knows

Run Time: 25:53
Release Date: 03.16.2010