[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.