[engl] “Honesty is special,” sing ZEN on their debut album ‘I onda je sve pocelo’. Since day one, the Croatian feminist LGBTQ+ post-rock/indie/dream pop Amazons have been creating music that relies on sincerity, vulnerability and authenticity. To celebrate the band’s 10th anniversary as well as the 7th anniversary of their first release, with the support of Moonlee Records, Unrecords and Vox Project, ZEN have pressed their debut full-length on the most authentic of music formats – vinyl. ‘I onda je sve pocelo’ immediately caught the attention of both regional critics and music aficionados. “One of the most enjoyable, if not best albums of the year,” wrote TPortal. Or as they put it at With Love, the Underground, “Eva, Sara and Ivona really do their own thing.” ZEN’s multi-layered musical expression, combining filigree guitar licks, spacey synth parts and ethereal shoegaze vocals, sometimes feels like looking at water ripples on the lake’s surface. Othertimes, when distortion gets thicker and the drums start to roar, it is like being washed away by a tsunami. The album’s dreamy and heart-warming vibe, a mix between melancholy, longing and hope, is encapsulated in the evocative title ‘Suma, macka, Gospoa i prozor’ (Forest, cat, Lady and window), a psychedelic ode to nature, animals and sensitive human beings. It is minimalist experimental pop for fans of Tortoise, Stereolab, Warpaint and the likes. Since 2013, ZEN have released their sophomore album ‘Jantar’ (2015), joined the Moonlee Records family and soon followed with the superb ‘Sunc?ani ljudi’ (2017). In the last few years, they played countless shows all across Europe, gaining support from respected music buffs like Anthony Fantano (The Needle Drop) and Kevin Cole (KEXP) and becoming one of the most sought after alternative guitar bands from the Balkan region.

[engl] 'Suncani ljudi' (english: 'Sunny people') comes as the gist of all Zen's releases with some moderate upgrades. It sounds like a manifest of their passion for meticulously intertwined genre tropes – from hypnotic repetitions of post rock to atmospheric guitar layering in the vein of shoegaze, all characterized by a genuine openness to experimentation and infused with a heartfelt vocal delivery typical of 90s alt rock. The girls have conserved the psychedelic and dreamy nature of their musical expression, which resembles the output of bands as Warpaint, Vinyl Williams, Lush or Pinkshinyultrablast. The record's sonic character with its texturally lush guitar arrangements and vocal harmonies coquettes with the golden age of guitar music and shoe-gazing, notably with epochal releases like 'Loveless' (My Bloody Valentine) or 'Souvlaki' (Slowdive). As you may assume by looking at the cover, tracks are permeated by an air of sweet melancholy that evokes images of natural motifs associated with fluctuation, oscillation and flotation. Images of summits, breaking waves and currents… images of the island of Bra?, the Promised Land mentioned in the overture 'A gdje su staze?'. 'Sun?ani ljudi' is like a sonic mirror-image of a long trip on the D8, the picturesque route that runs 640 km along Croatia's Adriatic coastline, evoking awe of the sublime and reminding us of humanity’s insignificance in respect to the Universe.

[engl] Visiting the vaults of Zoikle’s Zeller Keller in early 2019 we dug up all demos and memos from between late 2010 and mid 2013… 2-track 4-track unfinished yet-to-be track what the hack whatever-track you name it we had it and added some vocals no locals and cello hello stringy thingy non-mimes sometimes and mixed and remixed a dozen plus two… here’s looking at you for this is the stuff that’s enough there is plenty oh yes there will be in two thousand and twenty.” Yes indeed, ZOIKLE is back, with a full album. Their first. And basically their second release since their first blast of existence in the period 2010-2013. Well, that was then, right? This is now… In 2011 Dutch singer/lyricist G.W. Sok (co-founder of The Ex in 1979 and their singer during the next 30 years), formed a band with guitarist Lukas Simonis (Dull Schicksal, Coolhaven) called ZOIKLE, they released their Illusies 1+2 7” in November the same year. Sok and Simonis were joined by Nina Hitz (cello) and Cor Hoogerdijk (drums), and worked on a whole bunch of songs in the two years thereafter, while doing the occasional gig. Zoikle came to a halt when Sok went to Paris for a few months in 2013: when he got back Simonis and Hitz were covered in a fresh doses of diapers, while Hoogerdijk got himself entangled in a ukelele overdrive. End of story. Not. Sok continued his musical life working with a whole slur of bands. Cannibales & Vahinés (F), King Champion Sounds (NL), Action Beat (UK), Oiseaux-Tempête (F), to name a few. Simonis played in Coolhaven, worked at Worm Rotterdam, created musical podcasts, and organed some serious series of events and concerts all over the place. Back to 2020. Simonis and Sok have revived ZOIKLE, work on new material, and will start playing live again soon. In the meantime, Tractor Notown, in collaboration with Red Wig, proudly presents their brand new, very first, self-titled vinyl album (with download-code).

[engl] It’s such a pleasant association for me that I was willing to allow ÖPNV a little ska-punk if they wanted, but this Berlin post-punk group clearly have no interest in any form of skanking. Theirs is a very sour and ostentatious form of robotic post-punk, delightfully free from guitars or any sort of traditional rock behavior. Rather, Deutsch Funk Revolte is equal parts disturbed and disturbing, minimal and unhinged, very much in the tradition of Nervous Gender, Kosmonautentraum, Palais Schaumburg and Cabaret Voltaire. Most songs are comprised of thuddy drumming, dubby bass, electronic bleeps/squelches and vocals acting as a disaffected tour guide to the proceedings. Pretty classic conceit, but it’s a style I personally relish, especially when performed with as much artful grit as ÖPNV display here. They’re willing to try interesting things with the form (unusual bass-lines, playful dub properties and so on) without feeling either too musical or polished. If they’re not already friends with Lavender Hex, a similarly (if further out-there) experimental dub-minded post-punk group from Berlin, they out to consider sending a congenial DM and making that connection. - Yellow Green Red

[engl] Primitive bass/drum/keys proto-darkwave that sounds (and is) undeniably German. Everything here is cold; even the forceful tracks like “Trabantenstadt,” with its sharp, barked vocals, sound drunk and trepidatious. Throw a Cosey-caliber damaged trumpet into “Rasthof” to top off an excellent offering that demands more listens and deeper exploration. - MRR