Z’EV & JULIEN OTTAVI – Crash & Cross CD (Out Now!)

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Z’EV & JULIEN OTTAVI – Crash & Cross CD (4iB066):

  1. Untitled I (7:36)
  2. Untitled II (11:45)
  3. Untitled III (10:28)
  4. Untitled IV (13:30)
  5. Untitled V (5:18)
  6. Untitled VI (4:33)
  7. Untitled VII (6:55)

– CD in 6-Panel Digipak
– 8-Page Booklet
– Limited Edition 200 Copies
– Barcode: 5 904224 870942

PRICE (Postage Paid): USD18
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In 2009 at Area10 in London, our mutual friend Kasper T. Toeplitz introduced Z’EV (1951 – 2017) with his percussion to me (Julien Ottavi) during a David Tudor’s Rainforest IV performance that I was organising at that time with the support of Apo33.
Even though we had played a couple of gigs before in London and Nantes, the real start of our collaboration was when we toured together in 2011. In 2014, Z’EV came to live in Nantes and we spent time playing music together, mainly working with Orgone Nantes Percussion on a Z’EV piece for percussion. We worked on some recordings mixed live and studio sessions that had been put together over the year after 2015. We used both percussion recordings and live music that were sometimes processed and other times not. We spent a whole year recording bits and pieces that were assembled together during a few months. The idea was to create a release that will cross the different aspects of our collaboration, together, live, recorded, in the same place, sometimes in different places. The aspects of composition were really strong as we worked on each other’s materials through exchanges about the way to mix it and arrangement of the multi-track recordings. Some parts of the live materials were recorded as stereo, and the most interesting parts were cut and assembled. Even today, it is difficult to say which one is live and which one is not. But does it really matter?

Review of Z’EV & JULIEN OTTAVI – Crash & Cross CD (4iB066) by Roger Batty (Musique Machine)

Crash & Cross is a seven-track collaboration that moves between churning ‘n’ grinding noise craft, and more eerie ‘n’ unsettling fare. It brings together two respected experimental sound maker- American percussionist/ sound-artists Z’EV, and French composer/ musician Julien Ottavi who is known for his abstract noise project The Noiser.

The release appears as a CD on Singapore’s 4iB Records. The disc comes presented in a six-panel digipak- on its unfolded front side we get a close-up monochrome picture of an ageing key lock system. And on its unfolded reverse, we find a close-up picture of yellow and grey lichen. With a six-page colour inlay booklet featuring pictures of both projects in live/ coloured smeared picture form. So a nicely presented release, which is Ltd to just 200 copies.

The album takes in seven untitled tracks- these each have runtimes between four and thirteen minutes. In the first half of the disc we move from the sweeping grain-meets-warblingly harsh electronics of “Untitled I”. Through to the sinister drone hoover and loose murky guitar slug ‘n’ sear of “Untitled III”. Onto unease drift and ebb of “Untitled IV” which brings together grey drone bob and low-key tone bay.
In the album’s second half we go from the murkily nocturnal “Untitled V” which pulls together unwell pitch drifts, light textural electro jitters, and waving simmer. Onto the slowly slicing percussive cuts ‘n’ clangs meets unwell electro-dark ambient bubbling of “Untitled VII”.

Sadly, Z’EV passed away in 2017- so it’s always nice to hear unreleased work from him. All in all Crash & Cross is a most worthy collaborative release, which nicely sits in both noise and uneasy ambient camps.

Please direct all enquiries to:

4iB Records
PO Box 206
Singapore 914007
email: gerald@4ibrecords.com
www.4ibrecords.com

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