2015 has spawned a much-needed resurgence of noise and “weird” rock; releases from Cherubs, No Spill Blood, Metz, Destruction Unit, Spectres, Deaf Wish, Sightings, Hot Nerds, Mansion, So Stressed, Toupee, etc. have all wiped their snot on the underside of all of the snoozy, old-school, hardcore throwbacks and the never ending onslaught of indie-shoegaze that we’ve been viciously skull fucked with this year. The newest picked booger to be wiped on these spent genres is the new Zulus LP, II. Zulus are ex-members of Battleship, The Homosexuals, Aa, and Rice, if that gives you any idea of what this mongrel may look like.
Slightly grittier than their previous self-titled album (which also rules), II is a gas-huffed, 9-song sleigh ride through a scrapyard that ends facedown in a landfill. The majority of the tracks hover around the 2-minute mark and are minimal in format, but what Zulus can pack into those couple of minutes is what makes this album so great. The songs often begin by slogging along, carving out a murky groove before exploding into a frenzied, Scanners-esque head explosion. Reminds me of the feel and structure of Lake of Dracula’s self-titled full length, but more driving and intrusive. Zulus definitely have a distinct stink, but to describe them best, imagine a 3-eyed, drooling mutant version of the A-Frames, VSS, and Battleship. The vocals are villainous and sopping in reverb, the guitars are dirty and gnarled atop blown out drums; in the midst of this, there are occasional swirls of feedback and noise that pierce through the music making II even more gloriously unappetizing.
The majority of II is pretty upbeat and noisy and fits nicely amongst the other releases I mentioned above. If you are in the mood for some reckless, energetic and clever noise rock, then Zulus’ II is a wise choice. Check out the tracks “Gemini,” “Revolver III,” “Chemicals,” and “Deep Into the River,” which are my favorites on the album. II will definitely be on my top 10 for the year.
Rating: 5.50 out of 6 Doves Prince’s Minnetonka Tea Time was interrupted when he overheard Zulus’ II and thought for a split second that it may almost be as good as one of his own. After splashing his cup of tea into his ankle masseuse’s face, he went downstairs into his studio and wrote the best mind-melting neo-funk-jazz-fusion box set known to man.
Interview with Zulus
B.G.M.:How did Zulus come together?
Aleksander Prechtl: Daniel and I have been playing together in various bands since 2003, starting with a “post-hardcore” band out of Oakland, CA called BATTLESHIP. After BATTLESHIP broke up Daniel moved to New York and I ended up there about year later.
Daniel Martens: When Aleks finally said that he was moving to New York I remember thinking that we really needed to start a new project. It was imperative…So I told him I would fly to Los Angeles to pick up my car and we would drive across the country playing shows along the way to pay for gas. My hope was that it would be the start of this new band, along the lines of Zulus, but we couldn’t get it together in time… We ended up just backing Brian Glaze, a singer/songwriter friend who is like a musical savant. We had one practice and then drove straight to our first show in Kansas!
ALEKSANDER: In New York we started playing together again in a few projects most notably in another post-hardcore type band called PRSMS. In between PRSMS practices we started, just for the hell of it, trying to write pop songs together as a duo.
DANIEL: While we were bouncing around in different projects, I spent awhile trying to come up with a specific guitar sound that would be unique to us, but it wasn’t until we started jamming as a two piece where I was sort of forced to play both guitar and bass parts simultaneously. I needed to fill out the sonic space so I just de-tuned the thing and plugged into a guitar and bass cab and turned it up as loud as we could handle. Once I figured that part out, I think I was just trying to write Ramone’s and Gories’ songs, which is really funny to me when I go back and listen to the first record. I just wanted to write hooks!
ALEKSANDER: At some point, DEATH BY AUDIO (a legendary but now defunct DIY Brooklyn venue) needed a last minute opener for a show and we were like, “well we have five songs. Let’s do it.” And Zulus was born.
Since the duo days the band has gone through various phases of different lineups both live and on recordings. Basically people have joined the band and then come in and out of it as their schedules and geography allows. We’ve been very lucky that many very talented musicians have been interested in doing the band with us. Someday we’ll do a show with all 10 members of the band.
I know I did a bang-up job of explaining your style, but how would you guys describe the pure moods and sounds of Zulus?
ALEKSANDER: Well the ongoing joke is that we’re a pop band because initially we started as. But I sometimes say we’re Post-Garage.
DANIEL: Hehehe…I think the term probably got coined from just trying to write garage-y tunes and failing….Ha!
What are the themes and influences on II?
DANIEL: Aleks and I actually share the same birthday and we are both Geminis, which maybe has become a theme of the band since the first record…So II is part of that, perhaps as much a reference to discography count as it is to duality and mirroring. There are probably lots of silly ways to look at it.
Will you be touring on this record?
ALEKSANDER: Unfortunately due to scheduling restrictions and Daniel having recently become a father, we won’t be doing extended tours but we have just now started to play out again after over a year long hiatus. Our plan, if you could call it that, is to do a handful of shows a year on the west coast with a new west coast line up and maybe fly out to do some east coast shows with the original NY crew – or combinations of both. Also we’d like to play Europe if we can figure out a way to make it work.
Who is the lovely lady on the album cover and why are there 2 different versions? I prefer the one where she is vomiting horchata but I have the other version.
DANIEL: The two versions are really just a reference to that same duality I mentioned earlier. Yin & Yang…East Coast/West Coast….The artwork concept was actually Aleks’ idea. It looks beautiful.
ALEKSANDER: The layout was my idea but the art was by an amazing artist named Hazel Lee Santino ( hazelleesantino.com ). The two covers are actually a single painting by her called “Procne & Philomela” based on the two sisters from Greek mythology.
The physical cover of the record is the whole painting wrapped around the record – so each sister has her own side. I put the band name on the back cover and left front blank because I thought it was more striking that way. So for digital versions we use alternate versions of both sides just for fun.
Hazel actually starred in a Zulus music video by Ryan Haupt and it was through Ryan that I saw her artwork. We were stoked that she agreed to let us use her art from the record.
Where did you guy’s record and master II? It sounds amazing; it’s blown out and cavernous in all the right ways and makes you guys sound even more menacing.
ALEKSANDER: Thanks! Zulus II was produced and engineered by Ben Greenberg (of the Men, Zs) at two studios in Brooklyn – Strange Weather and Vanity Sound. We had previously worked with Ben before on our first 7” record, Kills Gemini Dead. Ben definitely pushes everything into the red – which we appreciate!
After working with Ben for our first recording, we went to another amazing producer for our first full length, Jeremy Scott. Jeremy actually then joined the band on bass during the process of recording that album. We ended up spending a long time working on that record and so, for II, we went back to Ben just so Jeremy wouldn’t have to use up so much of his studio time on his own band. That didn’t really work since Jeremy still ended up getting involved mixing it since we basically had no set deadline and he could just keep tinkering with it.
I think your description is really apt for what it’s like combining the two recording styles of Ben and Jeremy – Brooklyn’s two best producers!
And also, by the time II was recorded Julian Bennett Holmes had joined the band on drums. The dude is a phenomenal drummer which I think pushed the band and the record forward too.
DANIEL: Having both Jeremy and Julian in the group really helped round out the overall sound of the band, too. The first record we recorded with Jeremy was written with Aleks playing drums and singing so there was almost this simplistic intensity to everything we were doing at that time. I believe we wrote a couple of the songs on that record with Jeremy in preparing for the session, but once Julian came into the fold, it all gelled. Aleks was free to focus on his vocals and really let loose with treating them as another instrument to create noise with. It is funny, when I think of that first record, I think of tom drums. LOTS of tom drums. With this one, I think of Aleks’ vocals. Some of the tracks even have vocal noise solos! We are not really a guitar solo type of band, so this was an interesting compromise.
https://vimeo.com/66466713
Where do you all reside and are there any local or new bands that you would recommend we check out?
DANIEL: Currently, Aleks lives in Oakland and I am in Los Angeles. Julian and Jeremy are still in Brooklyn. There are a ton of bands around Los Angeles at the moment. Aside from the usual suspects, I would suggest checking out WAND, Behaviour, Oil Thief, and C57 BLACK6, who we just played with.
ALEKSANDER: I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I’m kinda outta touch with new bands these days. I’ve been mostly listening to old music and world-type music these days. I’m obsessed with labels like Little Axe Records and music blogs like Ghost Capital.
The video for “Medications” is pretty wild and potentially flashback inducing. Any more music videos in the works?
ALEKSANDER: Thanks! Daniel made that using a bunch of footage that some friends of ours gave him. We definitely plan to have more videos in the future. I just bought some green fabric from a fabric store to use as a green screen. Not sure what the concept will be yet.
DANIEL: Hopefully, we will come up with something!
https://vimeo.com/138649114
Do you guys have any other projects that you are involved in?
ALEKSANDER: Currently I’m playing drums in a band called ROBBERY. Up until recently Daniel was also playing guitar in the band WAND but now I think his only “side-project” is raising his son, Reed.
We’ve also started writing new material together remotely, sending each other tracks back and forth. This is totally a different style of songwriting then how we have been writing over the last 12 years. These new songs may end up being Zulus songs or a perhaps even a new project, or a combination of the two, depending on what they end up like. So far the progress is slower than we’d like but we’ve been happy with what we’ve been coming up with. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we have some more new music to put out in the world.
BATTLESHIP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTLv7Cvvfmo
PRSMS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evx4b4hiOFc
Procne & Philomela painting: http://hazelleewood.tumblr.com/post/12202957001/procne-philomela
ROBBERY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whHZze-kL14