Didi Wray was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but has spent much of the last decade living in Mexico, Brazil, and in Santiago, Chile, where she currently resides. Surf music and wild rock ‘n’ roll are coursing through her veins, and if her travels have revealed to her one universal truth about music it’s that the most powerful recordings harness the energy of everyone playing in the room together, feeling the energy, and sharing the moment. It’s the chemistry between players—the strength of the performance itself—that turns so much reverb, rhythm, and tremolo into the stuff of magic heard throughout her second album Misión Tango Surf.
The CD was released by Surf Cookie Records in 2019. Two years later, Augusta, GA’s Missing Fink Records has reissued the CD and pressed the songs onto vinyl with new cover art by Stephen Blickenstaff, who’s best known for creating the artwork for the Cramps’ Bad Music for Bad People LP. Misión Tango Surf harbors 13 cuts of traditional surf sounds and old-school rock ‘n’ roll played with taut authority and nimble dexterity. The album’s opening title cut moves at a measured, psychedelic pace, blending classic kerrang and reverb with Latin flourishes. Songs with titles such as “Amazonic Hully Gully” and “El Sombrero” find balance in subtle restraint weighed against the full-throttle tremolo picking of “Por Una Cabeza,” and “Terremoto Stomp!” When placed side-by-side here, each song carves out a smooth and cohesive body of instrumental jams.
All told, there are nearly 40 musicians and engineers dubbed Liga Americana del Surf coming in and out of the frey. It’s a fellowship featuring a survey of South American and Mexican musicians including members of Brazilian acts the Dead Rocks and the Pulltones; Chilean groups Los Kanibales Surf Combo, Sindicato Tango Surf, and Los Yawares; Peruvian group Los Protones; Estereofónikos from Argentina; and the Tango-Surf Combo from Mexico.
More guests are sprinkled throughout the album as well. “The Godfather of Mexican Surf” himself, Daddy O Grande of Los Straitjackets brings winding grooves to “Blue Tango” and “Cielito Lindo.” Fellow Los Straitjackets guitarist Gregorio El Grande amps up the pace in “Pisco Saico Twist.” Caleb “Sr. Ramírez” Franco of Lost Acapulco brings steel-string heat to the closing number “St. Katharina Twangwest.” Each of these players dutifully serve the unified, oceanic ambiance of Wray’s vision.
With so many players lending a hand, though, the most Herculean feat here is Wray’s ability to rein in such an impressive cavalcade, and focus on creating unfettered, uncluttered music. Misión Tango Surf pushes the heavily-mined waters of surf and rock ‘n’ roll to thrilling and mysterious new places, while bolstering her flair for Latin cadences and melodies, offering a little shoreline beach break for the hodads and the hardcore alike.
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Vision Video’s singer, guitar player, and principal songwriter Dusty Gannon’s story follows a trajectory from listless teenager to Afghanistan War veteran to a firefighter and paramedic on the frontline of an ongoing pandemic. It’s an arc that’s perfectly illustrated by the euphoric pop and melancholy of the group’s latest single, “Static Drone.”
Taken from the group’s forthcoming debut album, Inked In Red (out April 16), “Static Drone” carries an intense release of physical and emotional angst; a real-time experience of grappling with deteriorating mental health while adapting to life and confronting mortality while working at a Metro Atlanta fire department. “I wrote ‘Static Drone’ in the middle of some intense manic episodes where my mental health had completely unraveled,” Gannon says. “There was this peculiar month-long period of time at my fire station when we were dealing with a death almost every shift, and it was mirroring my internal sentiment that I was beginning to feel like everyone was tragically fated to die alone.”
In light of confronting such heavy existentialism, though, “Static Drone” also brings with it a sliver of hope, and an outlet for exorcising these personal demons. “It’s one of my favorite songs to play, because I still feel that dropping panic when we shift to the chorus,” Gannon says. “It’s an intense, but cathartic track for me, and I feel like it truly set the pace for this record.”
In May of 2020, Vision Video’s “In My Side” b/w “Inked In Red” 7-inch stirred up an ethereal post-punk exuberance, underscored by new wave and goth-tinged pop melodies. The lead single, “In My Side,” is a direct descendant of New Order’s “Age of Consent” from the 1983 album Power, Corruption & Lies. On the B-side, “Inked In Red” channels the baroque and romantic pop atmosphere of the Cure’s ‘89 album Disintegration. Singer and keyboard player Emily Fredock, drummer Jason Fusco, and bass player Dan Geller pushed their burgeoning sound to bold and stately places.
Soon after, a cover of British post-punk outfit Ski Patrol’s 1979 anti-war anthem “Agent Orange” followed, capturing Gannon’s most vexed performance yet—made poignant by rich sonic flourishes courtesy of producer Tom Ashton (The March Violets, Clan of Xymox).
“Static Drone” raises the bar on all fronts. The song pops with shimmering confidence, energy, and a dramatic vocal attack that borders on the sublime while ascending to an ecstatic state of a macabre inward journey, further cementing the group’s place as the most exciting dance-rock act to sprout from Athens’ storied musical landscape in quite some time.
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“Fight Those Invisible Ninjas!” Produced and directed by Watch Out For Snakes.
Over the last two years, Watch Out For Snakes mastermind Matt Baum has played a transformative role in fostering Atlanta’s chipwave, chiptune, and synthwave music scene—electronic music that combines elements of video game sounds, Italo Disco, post-punk, acid house, and new wave songwriting. Since releasing his frenetic debut album UPGRADE in 2018, followed by Scars in 2019, the Florida-born electronic music producer, who has lived in Atlanta since 2006, has kept the art of high-energy live performance chief among his priorities. As standing quarantine orders lumber toward the one-year mark, Baum has channeled his efforts into creating his first video for a new song titled “Fight Those Invisible Ninjas.”
Baum took a few minutes to talk about the song, his experiences growing up amid the hardcore scene on Florida’s Space Coast, and bringing attitude and energy to electronic music.
Chad Radford: “Fight Those Invisible Ninjas” gives nods to soundtracks for games like “Ninja Gaiden” and the “Megaman X” series—it’s driving enough for the dance floor, and benefits from modern synth tones, yet it’s nostalgic enough to draw some seriously nerdy references.
Matt Baum: Totally! I draw influence from a lot of different sources, largely retro games from the Nintendo and Super Nintendo era, ‘70s/’80s outfits like Sparks, Depeche Mode, and ELO, synth-y composers like Tangerine Dream and Vangelis, and the energy of hardcore/punk bands like Minor Threat, Refused, Comeback Kid, and Underoath. I’d say 90% of my instrumentation is synthesized from NES chip tones, everything but my drums and pads, but I tend to arrange with a hardcore/punk sensibility because I want to throw down when I perform live. It’s always been about bringing as much attitude as I can to the electronic scene, because that’s the energy I respond to when I’m a fan in the crowd.
How did growing up on Florida’s Space Coast affect your relationship with music?
My introduction to any music scene was going to local hardcore shows in the late ‘90s/early 2000s. I spent a lot of time in community centers like the Melbourne Jaycees. We were all young and dumb with too much energy so all of those shows were a blast. Everyone would get super into dancing and throwing down—we were all super supportive of each other too because the scene was so small. I have a lot of nostalgia for that scene because there was a certain simplicity and authenticity to it. Everyone just wanted to make music that was fun and there weren’t a lot of gatekeepers. There was a single promoter down there called Little Reggies Productions that handled all of the hardcore, punk, and emo acts and they were super fair about how they booked acts, which fostered a lot of love across the scene. Everything I do now–live performance-wise—is trying to recapture the magic of those early days and show everyone a good time.
Did you play guitar before you switched to keytar?
I grew up playing classical piano, but never really enjoyed playing music until I discovered that you could transcribe and play tunes that actually meant something to you. The first song I ever transcribed and played was the main theme for “Final Fantasy VI” on Super Nintendo. That was when I was in 4th grade and it was an epiphany for me, but it wasn’t until 2003 that I started performing at actual shows. I joined a melodic hardcore band in my Florida hometown of Indialantic, called Audrey. They wanted a synth player so I started writing with them. A few months in, I got jealous of the guitarists being able to throw down and engage with the crowd at floor shows so I bought a keytar off eBay and never looked back. I used that same keytar through Audrey, the first Atlanta band I was in, The Drownout (2007-2009), and on up to WOFS. I can’t not be mobile when I’m playing and I don’t like putting up a barrier of synths between myself and the crowd because the only reason I play is to directly feel that reciprocal energy between myself and the crowd.
On a side note, I bought a Telecaster with the intent of teaching myself guitar in 2010, but I didn’t get very far. I still want to spend time learning at some stage. Because I respect the hell out of multi-instrumentalists. I do know how to play oboe (three years in middle school), but I don’t know that there’s much call for oboe in popular music at the moment!
What inspired you to pursue this style of music?
I stumbled across chiptune and synthwave as genres without knowing that there were established genres for either. I’ve always enjoyed messing with minimal synth tones, which I mainly got from more contemporary groups like We Are Wolves, Metronomy, and Bloc Party. But this project mostly began as me thinking, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if someone wrote an ‘80s movie soundtrack concept album but had all the instrumentation sound like video game music?” The only reason I was even going down an instrumental avenue is because my previous project with my former bassist had fallen through and I was tired of trying to get a vocal tone in that project that I was happy with. It was only once I had a few tracks written that I discovered SURVIVE through The Guest soundtrack and then College through the Drive soundtrack. Those two groups really opened up my eyes that there was a demand for structurally simple, but pure musical ideas.
Watch Out For Snakes! Photo by Geoffrey Smith
How do you pull off your high-energy shows as a one-man act?
I had my first full album written almost a year before my first live performance primarily because I deliberated for so long about the best way to perform the music live. Originally, I experimented with a looper pedal because I loved what artists like Howie Day have done, building the whole song live, but the songs I’d written at that stage were too layered and had too many song parts for that to be practical. I also wanted to find a way of incorporating the actual Nintendo into what I was doing, but at the time, the only chiptune artists that were using actual consoles in a live setting were using them more as sequencers, not as instruments and I wanted listeners to connect with what I was doing on stage at any given second. I’ve seen some disappointing synth and chip shows where the artist either just hit play and stood around or was walled up behind so much hardware that you couldn’t tell what they were doing. I didn’t want that for me. So I found a way of compromising where I play backing tracks with the lead parts of each song section pulled out so that I can perform those parts live with the keytar and the softsynth Nintendo emulator I use, Plogue chipsounds.
My entire stage show was designed based on experiences in previous bands to be as easy to set up, tear down, and perform as possible so that I can just focus on the performance itself. I’ve had my share of embarrassing technical glitches with hardware, etc. right before a set and knew I didn’t want to deal with that in WOFS. Proud to say that I’ve only experienced one technical glitch in any of my live WOFS performances and it was something that got worked out during sound check thankfully.
As far as being solo goes, the biggest challenge comes more from travel, trying to figure out how to fly and safely transport all of my equipment from A to B. As an individual, this was probably one of the largest problems I faced, but I figured out a system involving some solid road cases and bungee cords that’s done pretty well for me. I’ve still experienced some unfortunate damage due to TSA checks though, but mostly minor stuff.
Is the song’s title, “Fight Those Invisible Ninjas.” about dealing with personal demons, or is it simply a “Ninja Gaiden” reference?
“Fight Those Invisible Ninjas” is actually a tongue-in-cheek homage to my hardcore days. There are certain mosh calls we’d use as hardcore musicians in the early 2000s to get the crowd to start throwing elbows, kicking, and basically just getting a good pit going. One of those mosh calls “Fight those invisible ninjas!” was one that musicians used half-jokingly because of how ridiculous it was and it eventually became a meme within the hardcore scene, but it perfectly captured this great energy that I always felt at those shows. I want to do what I can to bring more of that attitude and energy to the synth world especially, because I feel like synth artists tend to prioritize polish and aesthetic over grit and rawness.
You hit on some of the subtext of the track though, which was an intentional double-meaning in the title—battling personal demons, which in my case revolve around personal health and self-esteem issues. But each listener can re-interpret those demons to their own personal experience.
Part of your dynamic is channeling personal experiences into songs. How do you approach this?
When I start writing a song, it always starts with a combination of an emotion I’m feeling in that moment as well as some musical technique I want to explore. Musical expression is a form of therapy for me, which is why my songs span a variety of different tempos and musical moods. I’m not that different from most musicians. To this point, what’s inspired me to write has been an amalgam of different traumas and celebrations I’ve experienced over the course of my life: losing family, getting divorced, going through heart surgery, new relationships and friendships … If I find myself focusing on one of these things to the point where it’s overwhelming, that’s when I feel the urge to sit down and write.
I end up shaping these feelings through different song structures or instrument synthesis though, which is where the technical experimentation comes into play.
Initially, I suspected the name, “Watch Out For Snakes,” was a reference to old-school Pitfall for Atari, but it’s a MST3K reference.
I didn’t run across MST3K until I hit high school, but when I did, I went all in on it. “Watch out for snakes,” initially a one-off joke in their Eegah episode became a frequent callback through the entire series that just stuck with me. So when I knew that I wanted to start an attitude-driven chiptune project that kept things light-hearted and goofy, and began brainstorming project names, Watch Out For Snakes was something fun that I kept gravitating back to that no one else seemed to be using musically. I used to have great Google Search results too until a few years ago when the MST3K guys did a reunion “Watch Out For Snakes Tour.” Ah well.
Do you face a different set of standards, or is it difficult to be taken seriously?
The biggest challenge I face is booking shows, especially locally, as a “chipwave” artist. I’ve had a lot of great opportunities out on the road playing huge fests like MAGFest and BitGen Gamer Fest, both in Baltimore, Outrun the Sun Fest in LA, Neon Rose in Portland, OR, and NEON Fest in Providence, which got cancelled last year due to quarantine measures. I feel like I’m an act that wins people over in a live setting because of my energy. But it’s been a hard sell to get booked as support, especially here in Atlanta, for larger synth and video game acts because I ride a fine line between the two groups. Most of the time that can work to my advantage, because I have fan appeal across multiple genres, but a lot of promoters that haven’t seen my act sometimes find me too chippy for synth shows and too synthy for video game shows. I’m positive though that eventually everyone will come around!
There’s a lot of local synth and chip talent in the Atlanta area that doesn’t get the exposure it deserves because some promoters just don’t know what to do with us. That’s one of the reasons I started putting together an artist collective prior to COVID (in partnership with Drunken Unicorn and Outrun Brewery) called Terminus Retrowave, with the goal of providing more opportunities for touring chip and synth acts to perform in Atlanta while pairing them with relevant artists in our local community. Atlanta has one of the largest synthwave artist populations in the US, but Atlanta fans don’t know about them because there’s not a central hub/event to bring everyone together. Hopefully, once the COVID dust settles, we can get that going again in earnest, but in the meantime, I’m partnering with local artists to put something on together in a virtual livestream setting.
What’s next for you?
I quit my day job in November 2020 to pursue music full-time for at least a couple of months so I’m going all-in on a few soundtrack commissions for video games and film, exploring a split 7-inch release with a fellow musician, knocking out some remixes for people, and finishing some additional singles that will be out in the coming months. I’m also going to invest a lot more of myself in Terminus Retrowave and hope to get the first virtual livestream on the books by April 2021. Basically, I’m going to continue exploring how to diversify my music career in a way that’s sustainable and that hopefully gives back to the Atlanta music community.
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To celebrate the arrival of their first new album in over five years, Antagonizers ATL are hosting a weekend of soul, reggae, street punk, and oi rock ‘n’ roll sounds. The festivities kick off at the Star Bar on Friday, March 19. DJ Gonzo and The Low Life Sound System fly in from the West Coast to spin an evening of soul and reggae hits and deep cuts. It’s $10 to get in, and a limited number of tickers are available. Doors open at 9 p.m.
Villain, born Carmen Maria Hillestad, is an Oslo, Norway-based former model-turned full-time musician, who caught the world’s attention with the lilting avant-garde pop of her 2017 album, Infinite Avenue. Perlita, named in homage to Villain’s grandmother who lives in Puebla, Mexico, forges a much deeper path of sedate bliss, spherical rhythms, and instrumental beauty. It’s also built around a theme of hibernation and reemergence. Throughout the tape, songs such as “Everything Without Shadow,” “Two Halves Touching,” and “Light In Phases” take shape with a stylishly hushed approach that’s too well-composed to be called experimental music, and too abstract to draw any other concrete pop comparisons. Each number indulges in a deep-listening exploration of electronic drones, textures, and resonance itself as a musical instrument.
On the B-side, “Agua Azul” builds around Johanna Scheie Orellana floating flute melody, guiding dissonant rhythms, bringing this aural cycle to a fine point.
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Adron has rolled out a new single for coping with COVID-inflicted ennui. “Song About My Computer” is a lovely pop mediation on just how much of daily life is spent navigating a complicated relationship with a silicon-based companion, nemesis, and portal to the world and beyond. As with all good pop songwriting there are layers of meaning at work in the title as well as the hook, “I don’t want to write a song about my computer.”
On the surface, it’s a lighthearted ditty. Give a deeper listen, though, and the glow of melodic catharsis weighs heavily against the existential dread projected in the lyrics: “Maybe we’ll pull through / Maybe we’re all screwed.” Or as Adron says: “The song is a whimsical-pessimist take on pandemic loneliness, and how much I miss being a real-life musician, with some shouts out to LA venues I hope and pray will survive the long lapse.”
Every time I press play on the Youtube video the algorithm toggles away from “Song About My Computer” and follows up with “She Sells Sanctuary” by the Cult. I can’t help but wonder if my computer is taunting me or reciprocating Adon’s sentiments by offering its own message of solace in the nuanced barrage of 1s and 0s reflecting back at me.
Whatever the case may be, the accompanying B-side is a cover of Bruce Hornsby’s 1986 FM cheese hit “The Way It Is.” Adron’s version was originally recorded as a Christmas gift for drummer Colin Agnew (it’s one of his all-time favorite guilty pleasure songs). “The Way It Is” was produced and mixed by Adron in her bedroom in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood, where she’s been cooped up since the beginning of the pandemic. The song features sounds derived from the AdLib Music Synthesizer Card—one of the premier pieces of software for home PCs circa 1986 through the mid ‘90s, and it shows.
“It’s my favorite digital synthesizer,” Adron says. “Obviously, since the pandemic, I’ve been on a bit of a tear, geeking out intensely on early PC game music and the sounds of that era.”
She goes on to say, “Basically, I went pretty far down the road to making an actual chiptune version of ‘The Way It Is,’ but decided to ditch authenticity—as far as what you can truly call chiptune—and sing on it and do effects processing and whatnot, because I was having too much fun.”
Back to “Song About My Computer …” This latest number was mostly recorded in her bedroom as well, all but the drums which Agnew recorded in his Adair Park home in Southwest Atlanta, where he also mixed the song. It also features a touch of the AdLib sound palette, albeit more subtly worked in.
This latest round of songs is a one-off release. Although Adron has recently finished recording a new album. When it arrives remains to be seen.
In the meantime, keep an eye/ear out here for what she likes to call the “evil twin” of “Song About My Computer”—a version of the song that’s arranged entirely using sounds derived from the late ’80s Yamaha PSS-170 toy keyboard. “This is a very dear and beloved sound palette for me,” Adron says. “I have this bizarre obsession lately with remaking a bunch of my songs using all PSS-170 samples.”
Head over to Adron’s Patreon page to check out an ongoing series of scores for imaginary video games she’s been putting together over the last year, and more offerings.
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Z’ev performing at Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery, May 16, 2007. Photo by Chad Radford
Stark black-and-white photographs of a man with intense focus, hammering at plastic containers, metallic tubes, and hunks of repurposed weapons of war. His head and face clean-shaven, and a cigarette dangling from his lower lip as he kneels—muscles locked—pounding metal rods and mallets on mangled bits of titanium and steel. This vision of percussionist and sound artist Z’ev (born Stefan Joel Weisser) was broadcast from the Bay Area to middle America and beyond in the pages of the Industrial Culture Handbook, published by punk and underground culture journal RE/Search in 1983.
RE/Search placed Z’ev alongside industrial music’s early pioneers Throbbing Gristle, NON, Cabaret Voltaire, and more. But as each of these other acts explored the dark aspects of society in the wake of the industrial revolution with subversive cunning, Z’ev communed with the mystical elements of the natural world. The sounds he created tuned into the deeper resonances of a planet hurtling through space, spinning in alignment with the unseen contours of the universe.
Industrial Culture Handbook
Association with industrial music was never disconcerting for him. “It was just a bunch of people coming from an art background, moving into a proto-punk kind of thing,” Z’ev explained over the phone during an interview in 2007. “My relationship with industrial music had to do with the instruments I was using. They were products of high technological industrialization.”
Z’ev utilized the scraps of industry to draw out both the gargantuan and the meditative qualities of metal, space, and time. He fully embraced the artistic notions of turning swords into plowshares, but most importantly, his performances and compositions honed the power of pure harmonics.
Be it with his earlier “wild style” live performances imbued with an intense physical show of force, or his more aurally-focused compositions that found balance in primitive rhythms and improvisation, Z’ev’s output had more in common with the tonal exploration of composers of massive minimalism such as Tony Conrad and Lustmord, or the techniques of Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening Band, rather than the dirge of groups like Einstürzende Neubauten or Test Dept., who utilize similar instrumentation. “I was never interested in people coming to see a violent thing happen, because it wasn’t violent; it was a powerful thing,” he explained.
Recalling reviews of early performances: One bay area journalist wrote that “he manipulates large, metal objects with the look of a concert pianist.” But in New York, a writer called him “a man who personifies violence in sound and vision,” and later asked “why does this remind me of a guy being jerked around by two vicious Doberman Pinschers?”
The latter review didn’t set well. “He’s probably someone who cowers during a thunderstorm,” Z’ev offered with an understated laugh. “Some people revel in a thunderstorm and others get scared. It’s an elemental thing and people’s relationship to them determines if it’s something scary or something to embrace.”
“Salts Of Heavy Metals”
Early Z’ev recordings such as 1981’s Salts Of Heavy Metals (Infidelity Records) and 1982’s Elemental Music (Subterranean Records) summoned the hypnotic qualities of reverberating metal by guiding the clang and bang of his performance to harness the ghostly acoustic feedback swelling between each mallet strike—the rhythmic aural phenomena created by his homemade instruments interacting with the room itself.
Z’ev spent a lifetime studying music, the nature of sound, and spirituality from around the world, including Kabbalah and esoteric systems, and wrote a book titled Rhythmajik: Practical Uses of Number, Rhythm, and Sound. He also worked with the Fluxus Group, and was active in the Downtown Manhattan music scene of the ‘80s and ‘90s, as well as the West Coast’s avant-garde arts and music community, extending from his time attending the California Institute of the Arts.
“Elemental Music”
In 1980, he shared the stage with British goth-punks Bauhaus on their first headlining tour of the U.K. “We always used to hand pick our special guests and would look for unusual, stimulating, and challenging artists,” Bauhaus’ bass player and vocalist David J offered in an email. “We saw a film of Z’ev doing a performance where he was ‘playing the building,’ and also using his collection of plastic containers to great rhythmic effect. At the time, we were getting more rhythmic as a band so it was very complimentary to have him opening for us. I believe that he is something of a shaman.”
Over the years, Z’ev also collaborated with various composers, including live electronic music innovator Carl Stone, multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp, guitarist Glenn Branca, pianist Charlemagne Palestine, noise artist Merzbow, Genesis P. Orridge of Psychic T.V., Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))), percussionist Jon Mueller, and dozens more.
“HYDratioN”
Like many, Mueller discovered Z’ev after reading about him in RE/Search’s Industrial Culture Handbook. “When I read his article in ’87 or ’88, I remember it striking me as someone really living a different kind of life, and as a drummer, it was inspiring—mostly in that his ideas went far beyond drumming.”
A few years later, Mueller booked Z’ev to play a show in Milwaukee, where the two met. Later, Mueller released the Osso Exótico + Z’EV CD via the Crouton label.
“Years later, I shared another bill with him in Milwaukee, as part of the Milwaukee Noise Fest,” Mueller says. “That was a great night. We had dinner and really got to talk instead of just exchanging emails—his were typically brief. His set with the synthetic drum triggers manipulating the Jimi Hendrix video was a new direction for him, and I admired his dedication to finding ways to create.”
Mueller goes on to say: “My perception after meeting him didn’t change much, except realizing the possibilities that exist. Being young reading about someone, especially someone like Z’ev, you never assume that one day you’d meet them, let alone work with them.”
In 2009, Important Records released HYDratioN, a collaboration in which Mueller mailed Z’ev a collection of tracks—drums vibrated with gong and synth recordings, and other small percussion. According to the LPs sleeve, Z’ev “recreated” the source material to an extreme degree. How it was executed, though, remains a mystery. “It’s somewhat unclear what all happened on his end,’” Mueller says. “To me, it sounded different than what I sent him, but he said he ‘basically just mixed it.’”
A now scarce retrospective double CD released in 1991, titled 1968-1990: One Foot In The Grave (Touch), drew renewed interest in Z’ev. Dozens more releases followed, including a 2006 CD for Atlanta’s Blossoming Noise label, titled Symphony #2 – Elementalities.
“Symphony #2 – Elementalities”
But even in the digital era, many of his recordings remain frustratingly difficult to track down. As a result, more people have heard of Z’ev than have experienced his performances.
For his 2007 tour—his first proper trek playing shows across the United States—Z’ev’s inventory of instruments included steel sheets and boxes, titanium tubes, a gong made from a patio table bass, and a section from the tank of an 18-wheeler. Each is played with various mallets and maracas that have been altered with ball bearings.
His favorite metal is Titanium, which he discovered at a Bowing scrap yard in Seattle circa 1982 where he acquired surplus materials salvaged from the cooling system of missile silos from Triton submarines. “When the rocket shoots out of the sub you have to cool the interior of the silo or it would melt the submarine,” he adds with childlike enthusiasm. “Titanium can become white hot and maintain structural integrity. The more heat and pressure that’s used to create a metal, creates energy potential. When you hit titanium it amplifies the sonic energy it puts out.”
That sonic energy still rings out with unmatched power.
Z’ev was born on February 8, 1951. He passed away on December 16, 2017. He sustained injuries including a punctured lung and five broken ribs, after surviving a train derailment in Kansas. He was 66 years old.
These photos were taken when Z’ev performed at Eyedrum Arts & Music Gallery on May 16, 2007. Mr. Natural, Black Meat, and Sikhara also performed.All photos by Chad Radford.
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Every Sunday from 9 a.m. till 2 p.m., Buteco Coffee & Bar in The Beacon hosts an open-air brunch featuring breakfast sandwiches, Brazilian bites, and beverages.
DJ Mike Zarin spins music from 9 a.m. till 2 p.m. 1039 Grant St SE Suite C-10.
ECRYPTUS: (left to right) Allen Keller (Lord Tenebris), Danny Ryann (Dan Solo), Justin Brown (Lord Abraxas), and Mike Michalski (Lord Crypt). Photo by Emily Harris.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, an early incarnation of the group now known as Ecryptus was born as a melodic death metal band hellbent on exploring the blackened depths of the cosmos. It was the early aughts, and the group’s singer and guitar player Mike Michalski took lead of this ragtag band of thrashers who knew from the beginning that they wanted to do more than write what he calls “pretentious love songs to Satan.”
One day, while wandering around the annual sci-fi and fantasy Sodom and Gomorrah that is Dragcon the group came face-to-face with an ancient order of Force-wielding rockabilly punks with a penchant for theatrics—Grand Moff Tarkin. Featuring Atlanta artists and underground impresarios Jim Stacy and Shane Morton, GMT pushed the Star Wars theme to the extreme, with an array of spot-on costumes, props, and a legion of stormtroopers to do their bidding.
In an instant, Ecryptus emerged with an arsenal of wholly new and sinister Star Wars-themed black metal to serve the Dark Side.
“Grand Moff Tarkin did their thing with unapologetic campiness,” Michalski says, “but we wanted to make serious songs and treat the source material how many bands treat Tolkien. So we thought, how can we hint at the Dark Side of Star Wars without getting completely sued?”
In 2008, Ecryptus unleashed the Astral Crusades EP, breathing life into the group’s campaign for Darth metal supremacy with songs such as “Imperial Revenge,” “Abandon All Hope,” and “Execute Order 666.” More than a decade later, the “Rancorous” b/w “Execute Order 666 MMXVIII” 7-inch summons a supernatural whirr of cosmic grind, making their transformation to the Dark Side complete.
“Ecryptus,” according to Star Wars lore, was the name of the cavern deep below the surface of the planet Korriban where the ancient Sith species first encountered the Dark Side of the Force. Most of the songs the group has recorded and played live deal with the more horrific scenarios that are woven throughout the Star Wars canon that people only familiar with the films might have never thought too deeply about: being sentenced to death by Rancor, being frozen in carbonite, enslaving an entire planet of wookies, and so on.
“Rancorous” opens with a mighty roar before a spiraling assault of blast beats and demonic incantations rise over searing guitar leads that burn with the heat of Vader’s red lightsaber. On the flipside, “Execute Order 666 MMXVIII” resurrects what has become Ecryptus’ unofficial anthem with a new recording, celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Astral Crusades’ release. The song chronicles Anakin Skywalker’s perspective of executing Emperor Palpatine’s “Order 66” to slaughter the Jedi. “Making the Emperor say “666” was fun,” Michalski says.
The line up at the time of recording the “Rancorous” single featured Michalski, aka Lord Crypt, performing alongside bass player Lord Tenebris, born Allen Keller of Degradations, drummer Dan Solo, aka Danny Ryann (ex-Gigan), and guitar player Ryan Lamb. Lamb moved to Orlando shortly after the songs for the 7-inch were recorded. Lord Abraxas, aka Justin Brown (ex-Synapse Defect), now plays guitar.
The 7-inch arrived pressed on a multi-hued galaxy of vinyl colors: Cauterized Saber Wound, Mace Windu Purp Surp, Ghrey Rey, Opening Crawl Rotten Banana, Gamorrean Guard Mucus, Sarlacc Puke After Trying To Digest Boba Fett, Luke’s Lame-Ass Saber, and Dagoba Green.
Ecryptus. Photo by Emily Harris.
Live, the group takes the stage sporting sith-corpse paint, robes, armor, Dragoncon-acquired lightsabers, and their friend Scara Slayfield wearing her best “Hutt Slayer” Princess Leia outfit, serving drinks to the stage, and adorning the monitors.
The group recently finished recording material for a new EP that’s due out in the Spring of 2021. More recent Ecryptus songs draw inspiration from the expanded universe—characters from Star Wars comic books, novels, and video games.
The forthcoming EP is tentatively titled Kyram Beskar’gam, and, if you watched the The Mandalorian—and you know you did—you already know the title is Mando’a for “Death Armor/Metal.” The new EP will feature songs with titles such as “Cauterized Saber Wound Massacre,” “Planetary Enslavement,” “Compulsion to Disintegrate,” and “Digested over 1000 Years.”
“With each new release, we give in to our anger,” Michalski says, “and become more the Dark Side’s servant …”
In the words of Darth Vader, “You don’t know the power of the Dark Side!”
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The Howling, The Beyond, Driller Killer, Evil Dead 2, The Legend of Boggy Creek, Slumber Party Massacre, Fright Night, The Fog …
If you were breathing oxygen in the ‘80s, merely mentioning these titles stirs up memories of youthful fascination, elation, and terror while staring at the artwork for these horror classics of the VHS era. “Voyeur,” the second single from Entertainment’s forthcoming Horror parts 1 and 2 EPs, pushes this aesthetic nostalgia to a deeper and darker place within the imagination.
As vocalist Trey Ehart explains, “‘Voyeur’ is probably the most direct reference on the EPs to being bored and young in rural suburbia, and spending time absorbing horror movies and skate tapes from the local VHS rental store.”
“Voyeur” falls on the heels of Entertainment’s previously released single, “Maggot Church,” and taps into a more severe sense of urgency before diving deeper into the rabbit hole of hazy and cinematic ambiance. Tom Ashton of the March Violets unfurls a rich, goth-tinged production, as Ehart’s heavily affected voice drives the song’s unhinged melancholy and dreamlike vibe with lyrics such as: “video stains my eyes,” “dreams returned too late, screams in the gages of youth,” “show me ways of new desire,” and “static shivers so strange.”
“Each lyric glamorizes the impact of being exposed to a life and music outside of mainstream culture with over saturated practical effects, unnecessarily gratuitous glimpses of nudity, and underground soundtracks,” Ehart says.
The song’s constrictive and alluring melodies grow increasingly more pronounced in the Candelabra Cage Match mix, which comes courtesy of Beta Machine’s bass player Matt McJunkins, who also performs with Puscifer, A Perfect Circle, Eagles of Death Metal, Poppy, and more.
Keep an eye out for the video, directed by John Breedlove of Hip To Death to arrive soon.
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