Zeni GEva

How To Kill (1987),
Vast Impotenz (1988),
Maximum Money Monster , 6.5/10
Total Castration , 7/10
Nai-Ha , 6/10
All Right You Little Bastards , 5/10
Desire For Agony , 7/10
Freedom Bondage , 5/10
Nai Ha , 5/10
NUll: Terminal Beach, 5/10
NUll: 0.0004 , 5/10
NUll: Gev , 5/10
NUll: Discoteca Plasma , 5/10
10,000 Light Years , 4/10

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I Zeni Geva sono la creatura del chitarrista Kazuyucki Kishino Null, dediti a un rock d'avanguardia (senza basso) tanto cupo quanto dissonante, nella tradizione di Swans e Big Black.

I primi album, How To Kill (Nux, 1987) e Vast Impotenz (Nux, 1988), il successivo Maximum Money Monster (Pathological, 1990 - Cold Spring, 2008), aperto dalla sterminata Slam King (sedici minuti), sono monumenti di suoni scorbutici e armonie snervanti.

Ma il gruppo raggiunge forse la maturita` con Total Castration (Public Bath, 1992). Brani truci come I Want You sono fatti si urla agonizzanti, rintocchi funerei di batteria e vertigini di feedback. Il trio si spinge a due passi dal grindcore con la title-track e indulge nei riff pachidermici di Godflesh, ma non riesce a sopprimere gli istinti selvaggi in sceneggiate tanto orrifiche quanto caotiche come Shoot Me With Your Blood e I Hate You, che toccano livelli insopportabili di tensione.

Dead Sun Rising e` uno dei loro brani piu` celebri

Il minialbum Nai-Ha (NG, 1993) (Skin Graft, 1996), le dodici tracce registrate con Steve Albini su All Right You Little Bastards (NG, 1993), il singolo Disgraceland (Alternative Tentacles), l'album Desire For Agony (Alternative Tentacles, 1993), con le folli Dead Sun e Love Bite, nonche' un paio di imitazioni dei Godflesh (Autopsy Love e Heathen Blood), e il nuovo singolo Autofuck (Skin Graft) non allentano la tensione.

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Null is also involved in Yona-Kit (Skin Graft, 1995), a project with Jim O'Rourke.

One of Null's most impressive outbursts of creativity can be found on Aurora (Sentrax, 1995), a collaboration with James Plotkin: Speeding Across My Hemisphere.

There isn't much on Freedom Bondage (Alternative Tentacles, 1995) that we haven't heard before. With the notable exceptions of Shi No Umi and Ground Zero, the songs are almost a parody of Zeni Geva. Occasionally powerful and frightening, Alienation, Hate Trader, Death Blows and Burn Your Flesh Out careen without a sense of purpose.

The formidable Nai Ha (originally recorded in 1992) appears on Nai Ha (Skin Graft, 1997).

NUll's Terminal Beach (Manifold, 1997), 0.0004 (Vinyl Communications, 1999), Gev (Staalplaat, 2000), Discoteca Plasma (Mindfield, 2000) are sets of (very extreme) guitar noise pieces, like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music over and over again.

Zeni Geva's 10,000 Light Years (Neurot, 2001) sounds almost like a parody of Zeni Geva. The trio knows they have been influential and that countless bands today do Zeni Geva bettern than Zeni Geva. Instead of trying new avenues, they try to compete with their disciples.

Null's Peak Of Nothingness (2001) was another wild rollercoaster ride through the composer's wasteland. Null's limited-edition CD-ROM Datacide In Year Zero (Crucial Blast, 2002) is a solo guitar record.

Interstellar Chemistry (Beta-lactam Ring, 2002) is a collaboration with electronic musician Bill Horist.

Mitsuru Tabata has released the solo album Brainsville (1999) and recorded a collaboration with Guilty Connector (Kohei Nakagawa) Guilty Connector and Tabata (Even Stilte, 2003).

The quality (not the quantity) of KK Null albums kept declining with Erg per Galaxy (Opposite, 2003), the live Astrodynamix (Dom, 2003), Kosmik Engine (Voidstar, 2003), Atomic Disorder (Neurot, 2003), Zentropy (Autofact, 2003) and Astral Loop (Urgence, 2003). Kosmista Noisea (Important, 2006) collects two colossal live improvisations. Null finally changed style on Fertile (Touch, 2007), a project based on field recordings and electronic manipulation.

(Translation by/ Tradotto da xxx)

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What is unique about this music database ZENI GEVA: Total Castration (Public Bath, 2008) 13.98 Two weeks ago, we highlighted the reissue of Zeni Geva's Maximum Money Monster, which was the first cd from this ultra-heavy Japanese noise-rock-prog behemoth. In the process of reviewing Maximum Money Monster, we realized we'd never written up anything about this band's killer 1991 album Total Castration, the Albini- produced follow-up to MMM. It's our favorite ZG album, one that we always try to stock, it just predates the AQ list so it never got its due herein. It hasn't been reissued or anything, but we checked with our supplier and they said they still had about 150 copies of the original pressing still sitting and gathering dust in their warehouse, even though the Public Bath label is long defunct. Quite possibly a lot of the folks who snapped up the MMM reissue after reading about it last list don't actually also have this one either, so we figure it's our civic duty to highlight this old fave as well, while we can still get our hands on 'em! Basically everything we said in the review of MMM applies to Total Castration as well, starting with the litany of crucial bands that ZG must be mentioned alongside: Swans. Godflesh. Big Black. Melvins. Eyehategod. Unsane... i.e. HEAVY (but not necessarily metal) and scary sounds. What else would you expect from an album with a title like Total Castration?! That's also the name of one of the songs, as are these: "Shoot Me With Your Blood", "Bloodsex", "I Hate You", and "Bigman Death". Cheery stuff, eh? Lyrics pretty much consist of these happy concepts being throatily chanted over and over. Oh and there's also "Godflesh", maybe a nod to sonic contemporaries Justin Broadrick and crew. On each of these thunderous songs, the trio of trio of Null (guitar/vo), Tabata (guitar), and Eito (drums/metals) crash, smash, and bash, Null's guttural, nihilistic exclamations backed up by the iron fist of Zeni Geva's heavier than thou noise rockin'. The guitars chug and squall, the drums hammer down relentlessly. Screams and shrieks wail from the pounding shitstorm of metallic distortion that Zeni Geva have crafted into a throbbing, hypnotic riff-fest -- damn good riffs, with stretches of relatively restrained but still scary atmosphere now and then to heighten the impact when they eventually (as they always do) come down heavy. Meanwhile the high end guitar wielded by Tabata often unfurls intricate, catchy licks and squiggly solos over the top of all this mayhem, to make these songs even more brain-invading and body-shaking. And Steve Albini's production is killer, natch. (He would later play guitar with these guys on a live album, All Right, You Little Bastards!, that's now next to impossible to find.) Super, super recommended to anyone into heaviness, metal or otherwise. As crucial as the Melvins' Bullhead, Neurosis' Enemy Of The Sun, Skullflower's IIIrd Gatekeeper, Ruins' Stonehenge, Isis's Oceanic, Corrupted's Paso Inferior, Fudge Tunnel's Hate Songs In E Minor, Boris's Amplifier Worship... In other words, essential. If you missed this back in the early '90s, grab it. (By the way, Allan says the time he saw 'em on their US tour for this album was perhaps the best show he's ever been to.)