- Ziúr lands on Ugandan label Hakuna Kulala for her fifth and most punk LP to date, joined by Juliana Huxtable, Iceboy Violet and more.
- Ziúr likes to stay on the fringes. The Berlin-based producer doesn't believe in nationality, and her music leans more towards improvisation, informed by time and place instead of style or genre. She approached her debut album, U Feel Anything?, like "a thought process, rather than having everything already formulated." She said her second LP was "not here to please," and was meant "for the weirdos and the outcasts."
If you had to stick those records in a box, you'd probably label them as experimental IDM. But Eyeroll does its darndest to defy that. It puts a select bunch of artists (whose work Ziúr respects) at the forefront, and they each take their turns to speak, sing and shriek through Ziúr's rough and loosely stitched-together compositions. Instead of IDM, Eyeroll resembles a sort of industrial folk (something I've only seen written once before in the Bandcamp tags of an Eartheater record). I feel for anyone trying to describe this record in less words than I have here—Eyeroll is deliberately difficult, slipping through your fingers just when you think you've grasped it.
It's both unsettled and unsettling, the rhythm sections jerking along without any clear direction or climax. On "Move On," stuttering drums and hesitant bass plucks stop and start like a learner driver's clutch control. The drums on both "Pique" and "Eyeroll" tumble over each other, barely able to stand upright. And when the music's not falling over itself, it cracks at the seams, like on "Cut Cut Quote" where squeaks, creaks and rips of fabric sound like Bruce Banner mutating into the Hulk.
The vocals are as frayed as the music. Overblown brass underlines Abdullah Miniawy's desperate pleas on "Malikan." Iceboy Violet sounds burdened by the deep and jittery percussion around them on "Move On" ("The world ain't fair / You need to hold something," they say). Even the funnier moments are dry and cynical. "When you show up to a party and you think you're going to have a good time, and you have a good time," says House Of Kenzo's Ledef, deadpan, on "Partygoodtime," reminding me of Kurt Cobain's nasal jibes at the audience during Nirvana's MTV Unplugged taping.
There's something resourceful about Eyeroll's rugged edge. The press notes explain that Ziúr "scratched, scraped and gently tapped" a set of rototoms when composing amid worries over how much noise she was making. Elvin Brandhi echoes this creativity with her voice, jumping through extremes in mood and tone in the space of a single song. "The devil has matched it / so I don't trust it / so I avoid it / so I detach / my body from it," she declares, stomping out every penultimate syllable like a petulant child on the outstanding "Nontrivial Differential." It's followed by a volley of light, synthetic drums that Brandhi barks over, making for one of the album's few crescendos. But there are other bright moments towards the end, like the glinting synths on "Hasty Revisionism" or the calm guitar notes on "Lacrymaturity." It's a smooth ending to an album that, at times, feels like you're being chased through a dense jungle, before eventually reaching your destination. Eyeroll is Ziúr's most punk record to date, planting her proudly on the fringes where she's happiest.
Tracklist01. Eyeroll feat. Elvin Brandhi
02. Malikan feat. Abdullah Miniawy
03. Move On feat. Iceboy Violet
04. 99 Favor Taste feat. Juliana Huxtable
05. Nontrivial Differential feat. Elvin Brandhi
06. Partygoodtime feat. Ledef
07. Cut Cut Quote feat. Elvin Brandhi
08. Pique
09. If The City Burns I Will Not Run feat. Abdullah Miniawy & James Ginzburg
10. Hasty Revisionism
11. Lacrymaturity