“Zaum have been making a name as one of the most original and exciting free-music projects in the world. On the strength of their fourth album, it’s a richly deserved reputation.” JAZZWISE
Website
Spotify
Biography
UK improv outfit Zaum are one of the most original and exciting free-music projects in the world. A Zaum performance is always in flux, always trading warmly ‘organic’ sounds against tonalities that are not so much dissonant or alien as uncanny, in the strict and original sense. It is profoundly humane music that communicates at a very deep level.
A is for Ox is regrettably the last album from Zaum featuring the group’s founder member Steve Harris, who sadly died in January 2008. It is a culmination of performances by Zaum over a two-year period which Steve was particularly keen to make available and endorses Zaum at the pinnacle of improvised music. Live At Brighton, a bonus CD, features the last full performance by Steve Harris and Zaum in October 2007 and is a fitting tribute not only to the man but also his passion for the group he launched.
Zaum was initially put together by Steve in the autumn of 2002 to record their first album, the group, which was always intended to involve a shifting number of personnel working together in a variety of musical settings, has continued to flourish and develop.
The ensemble takes its name from the Futurist notion of a new guttural language that might approximate the hard discontinuities of (post)modern life. The group’s music does not follow a hard-line “non-idiomatic” course, but explores new sonorities within and against a recognisable instrumental discourse.
A Zaum performance is always in a flux, always trading warmly “organic” sounds against tonalities that are
not so much dissonant or alien as uncanny, in the strict and original sense. It is profoundly humane music that communicates at a very deep level.
Originally operating with a group of five musicians, incorporating collaborations with other players and artists, the core group has grown to seven and are all drawn from wildly contrasting musical and cultural backgrounds.
Zaum are now joined by Tony Gill. Tony has been playing drums forever, and also spent several years gigging as a flamenco guitarist, accompanying singer Pepe de Cai and dancer Ana Leon. As well as improvised music, Tony has played country and western, jazz, rock’n’roll and rhythm & blues. He played regularly with Mick Beck and Fred Thelonius Baker and gigged with Lol Coxhill and Dick Heckstall-Smith. He is a member of the Safehouse collective in Brighton.
Releases
