MAYYRH NEWS

6/14 @ J & J's Pizza: Swanox, Sudden Oak, Zanzibar Snails, Kwjaz

2011-06-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

Tuesday June 14
Sudden Oak (San Francisco) (lap-guitar & amplified sax duo)
Swanox (San Francisco, Not Not Fun) (hypnotic cavalcade of swirling textures)
Zanzibar Snails (TX TX, Ikuisuus)
Kwjaz (San Francisco)

J & J’s on the Square
118 W. Oak
Denton, TX 76201
8pm
Swanox (San Francisco, Not Not Fun)
“long-form new age ritual electricity before slowly dissolving into a patchwork of mumbly, loner drone-folk and hypnotized dusk hikes through fields of wet ferns.” – description of last year’s “Dawnrunner” cassette on Not Not Fun

swanox at enemy (chicago) june 7th, 2009 from acid marshmallow on Vimeo.

Sudden Oak (San Francisco)
“Sudden Oak slop toxic gunk that hashes tones i

nto a full cranum rinse. A duo, they batter shards of broken guitar through a teargas sax haze. Scrawling maniacally in hot reds that bleed together a shimmering blend, Sudden Oak are harsh, and they burn.” – LA Weekly

sudden oak at enemy (chicago) june 7th, 2009 from acid marshmallow on Vimeo.

Zanzibar Snails (Denton, Ikuisuus)
Drone in, flip out – a long-standing collision of the organic and electric – of late featuring collisions of clarinet, bassoon, violin, Tibetan bowl, modified skateboard, electrical tone generators, shortwave, and other toys. Harsh to sublime, and sidereal pathways in-between. New release “Caveat Emperor” on Finland’s Ikuisuus has been compared to Organum, Nurse With Wound, and Sandoz Lab Technicians.

Kwjaz (San Francisco)
Falling somewhere between outsider instrumental pop and dubbed-out psychedelic ethno-jazz, SF mastermind Peter Berends leads a colorful excursion into the astral unknown. Moments of cool jazz tranquility unexpectedly morph into trip-hop fantasy ballads, long-tone new age bliss suddenly shifts into West African romps, and somehow all these tangents seem impossibly and seamlessly linked. Fans of Hype Williams, Rangers or Ducktails will not want to miss out on this lysergic masterpiece." - Aquarius Records (review of s/t cassette)

HEEE-HAW!

Slow Pump dronefest - 3/15 SXSWtime Austin

2011-03-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

AMBIENT SHOWCASE

ALL DAY EVENT

FREE!!!

united states art authority

2906 fruth street

Austin, TX

SPONSORED BY SWITCHED ON

BIG STAGE
EXPO '70 - Kansas City - 12:00
ZANZIBAR SNAILS -Denton,Tx -11:00
QUIET EVENINGS - LaGrange, Ga -10:00
WHITE CREEPS - Little Rock - 9:00
SUNGOD - Austin - 8:00
THOUSAND FOOT WHALE CLAW - Austin - 7:00
WOODSMAN - Denver - 6:00
NUDE SUNRISE - Chicago - 5:00
AMASA•GANA - Austin - 4:00

FRONT STAGE
KEVIN SHIELDS - Portland - 12:30
CORNELIUS F. VAN STAFRIN III - Chicago -11:30
TOBY ARONSON -Burlington, Vt - 10:30
HUBBLE -New York - 9:30
UNMOOR - Austin - 8:30
SPECULATOR - Los Angeles - 7:30
SILENT LAND TIME MACHINE - Austin - 6:30
MATTHEW DAVID - Los Angeles - 5:30
SMOKEY EMERY - AUSTIN - 4:30

PROJECTIONS BY:
LORI 16MM
AMANDA JOY
KYLE DIXON
TOMMY BOY
SCOTT GELBER

Zanzibar Snails March 4 w/ nmperign + jason lescalleet, Shawn David McMillen

2011-02-22T08:25:00.000-08:00

Mayyrh & Womblife Productions Present:

nmperign + jason lescalleet
w/ Shawn David McMillen, Zanzibar Snails
Friday, March 4
Oak Cliff Cultural Center
223 W. Jefferson Blvd.
Dallas, TX

The Cultural Center is located right next to the historic Texas Theater. Free alcoholic refreshments will be available inside (tips welcome). Limited parking in front, but there's plenty more round back of the building.

Admission: $10 at the door
Show Starts: 7:30

...Thanks to Evita Cortez for her fantastic artwork on the flier!

Nmperign and Jason Lescalleet:
The trio of Nmperign [Greg Kelley and Bhob Rainey] and Jason Lescalleet made its first recorded appearance in 1999 on This is Nmperign's 2nd CD (Twisted Village Records), which was followed immediately by In Which the Silent Partner-Director Is No Longer Able To Make His Point With the Industrial Dreamer (Intransitive Recordings). But it was 2006's double CD Love Me Two Times (Intransitive Recordings), a five-year endeavor encompassing a stunning range of styles, fidelities, and emotions, that solidified this trio's reputation as a genre-crossing juggernaut operating in its own league of contemporary noise, improvisation, and electroacoustic composition. Praise for Love Me Two Times was nearly universal, and it continues to be cited as a benchmark recording in experimental music.

Live performances by Nmperign & Jason Lescalleet are rare but always significant events. Their 2010 performance at Chicago's Neon Marshmallow festival was hailed as "The best of the fest…. left jaws on the floor. Probably in my top 5 favorite performances ever… The triumph of craft and deep listening" (Chris Sienko - Gapers Block). They similarly shook the fillings out of teeth in Glasgow at Instal 06, and in Somerville, MA, at the Brainwashed Festival 2008.

More info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nmperign
http://nmperign.bhobrainey.com/album/love-me-two-times
http://www.intransitiverecordings.com/artists/nmperign/

Shawn David McMillen:
Shawn David McMillen's music burrows deep into dark and disturbed mental corridors. Dashes of dusty blues and flickering acoustics scatter across his music, giving it a somnolent, cloistered sense of time and space. Back in 2006 in the Wire, Jon Dale described McMillen's first solo album, Catfish, as "sharing the peculiar sense of temporal and topographical resonance that exemplifies the soporific, glazed music created by artists from Texas," and that same eerie intimacy pervades his latest release, Dead Friends, which came out last year (excerpt taken from www.austinist.com). McMillen will be accompanied by Austin musicians Josh Ronsen (Gates Ensemble, Frequency Curtain) and Carolyn Cunningham (Woven Bones).

More info:
http://www.myspace.com/shawndavidmcmillen
http://www.tompkinssquare.com/dead-friends.html

Zanzibar Snails:
Denton's Zanzibar Snails is performing as the trio of Michael Chamy, Nevada Hill and Nick Cabrera, hot on the heels of the release of its new album, Caveat Emperor, on Finland's revered Ikuisuus label. Here's an excerpt of a review I wrote for a house show they played last Summer at the Leisure Womb in Ft. Worth: "...just in time for the Zanzibar Snails' trio set, which offered up an undulating soundbath that spiraled through the industrial/drone/noise multiverse with intergalactic grace. Rising tonal tides brush up against distant clarinet, radio crackle and low end guitar groan. Was really struck by Nevada Hill's work on guitar here, alternating between almost doom to more lowercase hum and crackle straight out of the Kevin Drumm handbook, but every member (including Michael Chamy and Nick Cabrera) brings something compelling to the table. Hope they recorded it. Hope they release it."

More info:
http://www.myspace.com/zanzibarsnails
http://mayyrh.blogspot.com/

ViTiLiGo review - Ear Conditioned Nightmare

2011-02-15T17:27:00.000-08:00

Forgot to share this review of Zanzibar's Tape Drift release ViTiLiGo from the Ear-Conditioned Nightmare blog:

Zanzibar Snails - Vitiligo (Tape Drift CD-R)

Got a batch a bit back from these dudes and haven't gotten around to it yet, but Eric sent me one from his own label and I figured I'd at least cover this one before I get around to the others. Gotta mention as well that Eric's got another new batch out (what a pace...) that looks totally KILLER, so that's surely one to scope. Anyhoo.
Zanzibar Snails are a unit from Texas who serve up a strange brew of improv/drone/experimentalism that finds some nice pockets of madness in their realm. Pretty destroyed stuff from the get-go, with spaced out drones writhing beneath kitchen cleanings and shower songs hummed by people living domestically around the corner. Halfway between a field recording and an Emeralds track at first, but soon veering more toward the drone side of the tracks. Odd though, celeste popping in and out, unexpected little details... like a zoned out Caroliner record maybe? Knaw. Not defunct enough. Like a dream played backwards over a nightmare played sideways? Sure. Track two sounds like a bunch of howler monkeys in a whale kingdom thirty-two leagues deep. Strange string strangles and hums abound before the winds pick up and the waters part. Weirdo stuff.
More or less it's this vibe throughout. The strange mixture of drone and off-the-cuff cram-it-down-your-throat mayhem is a nice one that's surprisingly a rarely employed tactic. Keeps things from getting stale/sounding the same all the time, and apparently even keeps it lively enough for the crowd over at J&J's Pizza, where about two thirds of this disc was laid down. Seems like they like their pizza fried in Denton. Good stuff, and beautiful artwork to boot--layer on layer on layer of screen print so it's thick as ox tail. More to come from the act and of course the label as well.

Foxy still loves D & N 2

2011-02-15T07:39:00.000-08:00

Foxy Digitalis thumbs up D & N "2", the full-length debut of the avant-pastoral Nevada Hill and David Lee Price field-trip project. This on the heels of the 9/10 they gave the D & N debut 3-inch:

D & N
D & N 2 CD-r

December 15, 2010
By Tim Gentles

“D & N 2” is most striking at first glance for its packaging. Wrapped in some kind of “mysterious sebaceous animal fleece,” I frankly avoided having anything to do with this disc so as not to have to come into contact with the thick, wet smell of sheep’s (?)wool.
It’s a pity I left the CD and its animal fleece stewing on my shelf for such a long time, though, as this full-length debut of the collaboration between Nevada Hill and David Lee Price, both of Zanzibar Snails, is delightfully, ahem, earthy.
A rustic, outdoorsy vibe prevails throughout the disc. The sound is very dense and multilayered, a quality that presumably owes something to its mixing method, in which after it was recorded and mixed the first time, the mix was cut in half and the two halves were placed on top of each other. As a result the disc is never without a busy moment, but never without a dull one either. This is improvisational stuff very much in the vein of other woodsy experimenters such as No-Neck Blues Band or Sunburned Hand of the Man. A variety of unsettling, fractured sources of percussion come and go, as do mournful and quite beautiful melodica drones and some acoustic guitar. All of which is softly undergirded, a lot of the time literally but definitely spiritually, by the lonely sound of rain falling on a tin roof – perfectly evoking the North Texas landscape where it was recorded.
They got a 9/10 from Foxy Digitalis, and this is very good, so why not.
9/10

Amazing Caves, Age of Disinformation in Sound Projector

2011-02-15T07:25:00.000-08:00

We love the U.K.-published Sound Projector, which really is the best challenging music mag out there, going a step beyond The Wire and its ilk into the true underground.

Happily, the Sound Projector loves us too, evidenced by this, published in the latest, greatest, and highly recommended issue #19 (2011):

Zanzibar Snails
Journey Into Amazing Caves!
USA MAYYRH RECORDS MYH06 CD + DVD (2009)

Zanzibar Snails are the noisy improvising crusaders built around the core duo of Nevada Hill (guitar) and Michael Chamy (oscillators and tone generators), well represented on this "concept" CD + DVD double-pack. The music disk, where they're joined by percussionist David Lee Price and sax player Mike Forbes for one track, presents their distinctive brand of uglified electronic feedback and oscillating spillages recorded in 2006-07, producing slowly swelling sounds that are every bit as craggy as the stalactites they purport to depict. Not since Stockhausen descended into the caves of Jeita in 1969 to give his infamous live concerts has avant-garde noise exhibited such an intimate relationship with the world beneath the ground (excepting of course the famous 1974 LP by Rick Wakeman). It's quite a sprawling listen - the title track alone is 20 minutes long, with a three minute coda following directly afterwards – but it's good to hear the Snails stretching out and giving themselves sufficient leeway to thoroughly explore this imaginary interior space. My initial impression, especially on the opening cut, is that it's Hill's guitar that makes most impact, where his characteristic restraint allows him to punch home every discordant note with the assurance of a skilled riveter. Minimal figures, odd shapes and droney strums slightly enhanced with robust echo and reverb effects are thrown off from his freeboard; his stabs and swipes act like shards of light from the helmets of this spelunking team, occasionally illuminating the wonders of the cave world. As for Chamy, it's his task to create the virtual walls of said cave, and he provides a very convincing simulacrum with his incredibly heavy analogue tones, effectively summoning up not just the sheer weight of the rock pressing down upon us. but a clammy, claustrophobic atmosphere that almost seeps into your very lungs. This is a slow, abstract and relentless journey, and if played in the dark will probably induce very oppressive effects in your mind, causing screams and helpless gasps for air.

'Gilded Stars & Garters' offers us a breath of fresh air above ground for some 6-7 minutes, unless we've simply entered a volcanic grotto where the phosphorescent glow of microbes clustered on the rocks is creating an eerie impression of daylight. The subtly-filtered electronic tones shift up and down, gradually thickening the air, and the performance is darkened further by the snarly uncertain saxophone effects from Mike Forbes. Then it's back to the lower depths once again, with a 23-minute version of the theme, this time with added violence and paranoia - fragments of scrabbly noise, discordant guitar attacks and volcanic electronic bursts that suggest the whole expedition is taking a turn for the worse. Much more variety across this version of the 'Caves' saga (with added "pepth derception", according to the subtitle), which still sustains the grim and bleak mood of this place where danger lurks in every tunnel. You'll emerge from the experience to find you have adopted all the characteristics of a mole: little slitty eyes for seeing in the dark, body structure like a spade, and powerful claws for digging. Dig?

The release comes with a DVD called Carbage Goma, a more recent musical performance by the Snails enhanced with wild visual additions from David Lee Price; Seth Sherman brings his acoustic guitar, and there's also a welcome return from Josh McWhirter and his diabolical viola. You won't see much of the band on this mind-murking visual explosion from Price, but you will see plenty of dazzling computer effects, colour-field experiments, and surreal close-ups of ill-fitting objects that produce a memorable psychedelic broth.
ED PINSENT
www.mayyrh.com

Age Of Disinformation
Age Of Disinformation
USA MAYYRH RECORDS MYH08 CD (2009)
Nothing to do with the English art project Disinformation, Age Of Disinformation was a onetime collaboration between six Texan players from similar-minded underground music ventures, The six calling themselves a 'lucid nightmare supergroup'. Michael Chamy, from Zanzibar Snails, is one contributor; the others are Aaron Gonzalez, Mike Maxwell, Jon Teague, Kenny Withrow and Kim Corbet, members of marginal groups around Fort Worth, Denton, and Dallas, all of them playing many electronic instruments, keyboards, percussion and guitar; wherever possible doing so quite intuitively and all at the same time. Voices, both narrated and sampled, also form part of the dense infusion. At the instigation of Gonzalez, these six gathered to play at a certain locale in 2008, and issued with vague and stark performance instructions by the leader, whose aim was to make a subconscious statement about the contemporary problem we all face in society: information-bombardment, and the damage this saturation of data may be causing to our collective spiritual condition. These seven tracks may have been edited down from a much longer continuous session of ambient free-form spiraling and spinning. What results from all the above is a slowly rotating whirlpool of over-filled musical and verbal gibberish, with no clear guidance to the listener about how to navigate around this swamp of vaguely unpleasant fetid noise.There is, I think, some benign intention to improve mankind's lot through this experiment; one hoped-for outcome is "the formation of the eternal Unimind", which may sound a little Mr. Spock, but at least it's more constructive than wallowing in a pessimistic state of anticommunication, or plotting destruction of the world through harsh electronic noise. The intended sensations of confusion, jumblement and disarray are further expressed in the colourful collage sprawl on the front cover, and the curlicued, nigh-unreadable texts on the interior.
Quite compelling.
ED PINSENT
www.mayyrh.com

Caveats

2011-02-02T07:42:00.000-08:00

So, Zanzibar's new "Caveat Emperor" is now featured on the Ikuisuus site (with song samples) .... and we've also posted one track in full here.

And, a PayPal button has been added below in case you don't want to mail order from Scandinavia.

Zanzibar Snails "Caveat Emperor" (Ikuisuus)

2011-01-18T09:09:00.000-08:00

OUT NOW:

Zanzibar Snails
Caveat Emperor CD
(Ikuisuus), IKU027

With “Caveat Emperor,” Denton, Texas’ Zanzibar Snails don't just sound out of place geographically, they come from a whole other primordial mind. Remnants of 80s/90s outer industrial skree collage of Organum/Nurse With Wound are glimpsed, the collapsing spontaneous darkspace of New Zealand's Dead C, and perhaps more importantly Bruce Russell's Corpus Hermeticum label, too. Teeming with more percussives (albeit oblique as fuck) than the ensemble’s previous 5 long players, “Caveat Emperor” was recorded in part at Dallas’ Klearlight by guest percussionist Jay Jernigan (Vas Deferens Organization, Ariel Pink) and co-mastered by Zanzibar’s Michael Chamy and John Stillings of Texas malevolents Steel Hook Prostheses. Pieces like “Godthaab Trust Fund” (its edges gilded with an awful lunar miasma) and lost-afternoon séance “Pregnant With Martyrs” (a paraplegically inverted pagan bloomquist) exist in a headspace that's as populated with the grimy improvised ramblings of early Sandoz Lab Technicians and AMM as the perceivable fabric of the material world itself. Music for escape, mayhaps, but moreso a claustrophobic portal to that shifty place (at turns pallid and lucent) in which we dwell.
A limited CD, whose visually disquieting geothermal spectrals were conjured by Zanzibar’s Nevada Hill, designer and screenprinter. - Lee Jackson

In addition to below PayPal, available locally at Good Records and Recycled Books.
Zanzibar Snails
“Caveat Emperor”

1. Earwig Sonata 1:31
2. Forager 4:55
3. Godthaab Trust Fund 11:51
4.Pregnant With Martyrs 13:24
5. Crimini Headrush 6:58

$10 Postpaid U.S.

Zanzibar Snails is:

Nevada Hill & Michael Chamy
David Lee Price (1-3, 5)
Jay Jernigan (2 & 3)
Sarah Alexander (1)
Stephen Lucas (1)
Austin Fox (4)
Josiah Miller (4)
Kevin Parmer (4)

2, 3 & 5 recorded live room at Klearlight Studios, Dallas, TX in Dec. 2008. 4 recorded July 2009 in Hurst, TX. 1 recorded Feb. 2010 at Trailer Space Records in Austin, TX.

Produced by Michael Chamy. Mastered by J Stillings & Michael Chamy. Images & design by Nevada Hill.

Last Zanzishow of the yearrrr .... and more

2010-11-16T05:38:00.000-08:00

Last show of the year for Zanzibar Snails: an after-hours throwdown at a CD Warehouse in Arlington (famous home of the tx basebawlers) courtesy of the Wasted Words Arts Collective. The bill spotlights Chicago noise maven Arvo Zylo, on his way back from HTX’s fierce Dead Audio fest. Featuring mic'ed aluminum mask, a trumpet, a belt sander, and some sheet metal. Hard to beat.

Also on the bill is the master illusionist Welby as well as Snuff films, a new harsh project from DFdynamo Mickey Spalding (Screamin’ Fetus, Poison Apple).

CD Warehouse
1112 N. Collins
Arlington, Texas 76011
10pm

-------------------

2010: Zanzibar’s upcoming “Caveat Emperor” is due out by year’s end on Finland’s Ikuisuus.

In the meantime, have you downloaded your hot Zanzi ringtone?

2011: Zanzibar-related concrete-troniks Watchers are performing in early January at Good Records along with Steel Hook Prostheses, Depths and others ….

With Drug Mountain no longer an active concern, Zanzibar’s Nevada Hill now plies his no wave predilections these days in Geistheistler, featuring two core members (Justin Lemons and David Saylor) of sadly defunct Denton leviathans Notes From Underground. Looking forward to great things from this trio.

30 Seconds of Time comp + Zanzibar Snails ringtones too!

2010-11-03T05:46:00.000-07:00

That Zanzibar Snails RINGTONE you've always wanted is now a realty thanks to Silber Records' 30 Seconds of Time, a new free, downloadable compilation of 30 second tracks that Zanzibar contributed two tracks to .... the comp also features such worthies as Rollerball, mwvm, Remora and the excellent Fires Were Shot:

.... full album, individual tracks AND ringtones available HERE

The Zanzibar Snails tracks are two pieces of a loose composition we've performed several times and as such are titled:

[2seqx1cup]!

and

[2seqx1cup]!!

Lineup on these tracks:

Michael Chamy, Nevada Hill, Mike Maxwell, Seth Sherman, Josh McWhirter.

Zanzibar Snails@Dallas Festival of Modern Music

2010-10-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

In keeping with our Twister-like "foot in every arena" approach, Zanzibar Snails has been invited to perform at the 2010 Dallas Festival of Modern Music, which is just what it says ... a string of performances by modern composers, some very adventurous, all in a classical setting with the exception of an after-show series at Good Records that we are playing on Saturday, November 6.

Following the early evening 7pm performance at Lakewood United Methodist, (featuring Pierre Boulez’s rarely performed masterwork Le Marteau sans Maître, for soprano, flute, viola, guitar, and percussion), Zanzibar Snails play the after-show at Good Records.

Zanzibar will be performing two very different sets, with the first kicking off at 9:30pm.

With a lineup featuring Sarah Alexander, Stephen Lucas and Nicholas Cabrera, expect a potent dose of the unexpected. Typically atypical.

http://dallasmodernmusic.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49%3Azanzibar-snails&catid=2%3Aperformers&Itemid=9

Show review - Zanzibar 8/21 @Leisure Womb w/ Fat Worm of Error

2010-09-18T16:57:00.000-07:00

Womblife reviewed Zanzibar's August 21 show with Fat Worm of Error at the Liesure Womb in Fort Worth:

Fat Worm of Error / Zanzibar Snails / Depths Live at The Leisure Womb 8/21/10

This gig marks the arrival of yet another new venue for house shows in the North Texas area, this time on the edge of Ft. Worth. It's a big place...comfy. When I arrived to The Womb there was boxed wine and five large pizzas sprawled out across the kitchen. Saw some of me m8s (none of which had made it out for the Puffies two days before -- bad m8s) and stumbled into the performance space/bedroom just in time for the Zanzibar Snails' trio set (arrived too late for duo Depths [actually a quartet -ed]), which offered up an undulating soundbath that spiraled through the industrial/drone/noise multiverse with intergalactic grace. Rising tonal tides brush up against distant clarinet, radio crackle and low end guitar groan. Was really struck by Nevada Hill's work on guitar here, alternating between almost doom to more lowercase hum and crackle straight out of the Kevin Drumm handbook (got the 2LP reissue of his self titled on Thin Wrist? Got mine), but every member (including Michael Chamy and Nick Cabrera) brings something compelling to the table. Hope they recorded it. Hope they release it.

Then it was time for the one, the only...Fat Worm of Error. The Massachusetts art skuzz unit has been thrashing around making a racket for years now, and they seem to have evolved from a more formless experimental approach to full on rawk bombast. Either way, this show was my first proper introduction to their sonic delirium. As they insisted, we got off our duffs and got ready to lobster walk to their post Troutmask Replica squawking. Stand we did and rocked we were for a good hour of intense spindly string bending and lurching rhythms through the broken Dadaist void. I was reminded at different points of Henry Cow, King Crimson, Sonic Youth, Beefheart, The Residents (who I've barely heard at all, but why not, since Fat Worm's singer is prone to donning ridiculous costumes from song to song). All in all, the quintet managed the seemingly impossible task of being fierce, heavy, weird, experimental, ridiculous and non boring to great effect. Even better was hanging out afterwards and watching members of the band and audience break into impromptu musical revelries on the player organ in the middle of the dining room. I actually sort of live for nights like this one. Thanks, Fat Worm and The Gang for making it possible. -- Lee Jackson

Almost Finnish ....

2010-09-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

We're (Zanzibar Snails) putting the finishing touches on our newest, tentatively titled "Caveat Emperor," to be released on the divine Finnish label Ikuisuus before year's end.

The bulk of the tracks were recorded informally on room mikes at Klearlight Studios in Dallas, but also included is one especially notorious summer session from Hurst including guest luminaries from far and wide

like the notorious Austin Fox, Josiah Miller

and much much more .... mastered by one of our favorite audio sculptors, Steel Hook Prostheses' J Stillings

After that .... we have "proper" studio recordings from Klearlight featuring Sarah Alexander and Stephen Lucas, and a cameo from Aaron Gonzalez

that should see the light of day in 2011, along with whatever else we might attempt to unleash upon the unfortunate aural\/spectators of ticandoroga ....

Zanzibar w/ FAT WORM OF ERROR Sat. 8/21

2010-08-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

FAT WORM OF ERROR [Northhampton, Mass. - Load, Resipiscent] - PSYCHEDELIC MESS.

ZANZIBAR SNAILS- FREE-ER THAN JAZZ.

DEPTHS- BLACK FUCKING METAL.

STARTS AT 9:00PM

BRING DONATIONS FOR THE TOURING BAND

Age of Dis, D & N 2 in Terrascope Online

2010-07-31T17:01:00.000-07:00

The venerable psychonaut waxes about the Mayyrh clan in this month's Terrascopic Rumbles, penned by some combination of Ian Fraser, Steve Palmer and Stefan Eck:

"Maybe the most weird and original cover, if not ever at least for a very long time: The easy part is the vellum sleeve with screen-printed text on. But then, the CDr is wrapped in “mysterious sebaceous animal fleece”. Phew! What about the band, the music and sounds? Well, it’s D & N with their debut full-length release “2” (or D & N 2’s self titled album, how could I know?). D & N is not our old friends Damon and Naomi but a collaboration between Nevada Hill and David Lee Price, both from North Texas improve/drone collective Zanzibar Snails. When I’ve emotionally recovered from opening the cover, I could concentrate on the music and it’s sounds. The vellum sleeve’s explanation of the technical procedures of the CD (improvisations during two days etc, then all cut into two pieces placed over each other on varying volumes) has been read and understood. But, still, the music and sounds? Well, it’s improvisations of the kind we use to hear from Vibracatheral Orchestra, Pelt, The A Band and such, that means it’s good and interesting with a lot of stuff happening all the time. And the two members of D & N of course sounds like a bigger band with the treatment of the recordings. List of instruments used: 2 acoustic guitars, melodica, modified Yamaha keyboard, modified drum machine, contact microphone, looping pedal, modified musical elephant keyboard, field recordings, 2 x 4 beards (and here I’m a bit disappointed the coverage of the CD wasn’t human hair instead of animals furs), ice chest, something tubes, rock house…… One 39 minutes piece sliced into nine parts of various characters. www.mayyrh.com"

"Age of Disinformation is a sort of super group gathered together by surrealist impresario Aaron Gonzalez consisting of members from Zanzibar Snails, Tidbits, Yells of Eels and a lot other. At midnight May 23, 2008, they entered the stage at an event. The only instructions given were “an improvisation on the current state of psychological and spiritual breakdown as it relates to viral ecosystem of economies of information”. Yeah, that’s rock ‘n’ roll! The ensemble set away on an improvisation trying to sound wise visualise the instruction and I must say they succeed a lot. Not to say I would have understood the instruction if it was I who should play, but the ensemble present a 47 minutes set of psychedelic sound sculptures, ambient, drones, musique concrete, etc – music free in spirit and in mind where the players interact in the best way and succeed with the most difficult art of being an improviser: The Art Of Listening To Each Other and out of that contribute with some good playing. The piece is split into seven on the disc even though it actually is just one single piece. The character of the tracks varies from harsh moments to silent patterns of electronics and buzzes where small talking voices breaks through like from radio waves. The competence and the experience of the players make this piece of cake really tasty. The album is self titled and limited to 200 copies. As always with Mayyrh Records the cover is beautiful and great. Here it’s designed by Nevada Hill. www.mayyrh.com"

Age of Disinformation reunites for NMASS festival in Austin, TX

2010-06-13T13:08:00.000-07:00

Age of Disinformation is reuniting for its second show ever on Friday, June 18, as part of the 3-day whirlwind NMASS festival, curated by Austin's Church of the friendly Ghost.

Age of Disinformation lineup: Aaron Gonzalez, Mike Maxwell, Kenny Withrow, Kim Corbett, Michael Chamy, and Mark Church (taking the place of Jon Teague this time)

members of: Yells at Eels, Tidbits, Zanzibar Snails, New Bohemians, SUBkommander, the Watchers, Akkolyte, Welby, etc etc

Here's the lineup for our evening/venue:

SVT MAIN STAGE:
7pm Polydactyl Hemingway: (Alex Coke Sax/Flute; Tom Benton - Bass; Bryan Breaux - Drums; Tim Doyle - Guitars)
8pm AGE OF DISINFORMATION (Dallas/Ft.Worth) http://www.mayyrh.com/
9pm SANDY EWEN & YET (Houston) http://www.myspace.com/sandyewenmsyet
10pm OMAR TAMEZ & TATSUYA NAKATANI http://www.hhproduction.org/TATSUYA_NAKATANI_WORKS.html
11pm MFM collective ( Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Lancaster ) http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=99032906794

FULL LINEUP HERE:
http://nmassfest.org/

Womblife on Age of Disinformation, D & N, Zanzibar's "ViTiLiGo"

2010-05-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

Excellent & interestingly-penned reviews from the ever-prescient Womblife blog.....

On Age of Disinformation (Mayyrh):
"These mutating oscillations, surges and crackling tones make me think of the frothing pools of analog electronics glimpsed on those early Cluster and Tangerine Dream records, along with hints of harsher noise, radio sounds and early industrial grime worked into the mix. The results are a dark, enveloping mind swirl that ebbs and flows with primordial currents every step of the way. Perfect for rewiring the synapses for a more celestial perception of the absolute. Welcome to the new dark age, my friends."

On D & N2 (Mayyrh):
".... a fractured web of odd found sounds, broken guitars, harmonicas and the like which together sound more raw and abrasive than the excellent debut 3" CD-R and lands them in the same jagged terrain found on Richard Youngs and Simon Wickham-Smith's mythical Lake (which basically sounds like Jandek gone prog)."

On Zanzibar Snails "ViTiLigo" (Tape Drift):
"Boundaries, barriers, matter itself is obliterated within their dark currents. These five tracks offer the expected scrape and scrawl dementia designed to fuck with minds and obliterate egos, and they're pretty spooky at times. In fact, the end results are some of the most cathartic raw noise excursions I've heard from the 'Snails to date .... as the ensemble alternates between cryptic Dadaist noise intervals and full on brain bleeding sonic mayhem"

Thanks to Lee Jackson for the kind & suitably oblique words

More Age of Disinformation reviews + reunion???

2010-05-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

Rumors of an Age of Disinformation reunion at the New Media Art & Sound Summit (N.M.A.S.S.) in Austin this summer ....

Here are a couple of new reviews:

… FROM THE ASHES (the Phoenix Project Collective zine)
AGE OF DISINFORMATION
(Mayyrh)
Aaron Gonzalez of Oak Cliff is a busy fella. When he's not playing blinding grindcore thrash in the duo Akkolyte with his drununer-brother Stefan, he's exploring the frontiers of free-jazz skronk with Stefan and their trumpeter-father Dennis in Yells At Eels, or touring the U.S. and Europe with Portuguese guitarist Luis Lopes' Humanization 4tet (which also includes Stefan and saxophonist Rodrigo Amado). But that's not all. Under the rubric Inner Realms Outer Realms, he's released recordings (YAB's Geografia being the first) and promoted shows (rustic avant-gardist Eugene Chadbourne at theLounge on Elm St. last December, yo). In collaboration with Michael Chamy of Zanzibar SnailslMayyrh Records/DallasObserver fame, Aaron brought the forward-thinking No Idea festival of improvisation to the Metro-mess, managing to draw a decent crowd in Fort Worth on St. Patrick's Day, no less - even after a last-minute venue change. Now he's released Age ofDisinformation -- a live recording from a May 2008 performance at the Bathhouse Cultural Center by an all-star lineup of ambient improvisers - on Chamy's Mayyrh label, known for releasing challenging sounds in gorgeous packaging, often featuring artwork by Chamy's Zanzibar bandmate Nevada Hill. (In this case, it's a colorful mixed-media piece by Aaron on the outside, signature topsy-turvy lettering by Nevada on the inside.) Besides Aaron and Chamy, the participants include Mike Maxwell of SUBkommander/Aphonic Curtains on electronics; Jon Teague-whose current band The Great Tyrant has distilled the heavy-jazzy-prog psychodrama of his previous unit Yeti to its vital essence - on modular synths rather than his usual drums; and two members of the group Tidbits, multi-instrumentalist Kim Corbet and guitarist Kenny Withrow (who was a New Bohemian back in Deep Ellum's heyday).The music on Age of Disinformation has a lot of antecedents: Sun Ra's majestic space-scapes, Gyorgi Ligeti's music from the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack, Ummagumma-era Pink Floyd's interstellar sprawl. Basically, it evokes the sound of traffic at a very busy space station in some distant galaxy, replete with throbbing electronic pulses, phantom radio transmissions, wildly oscillating feedback, and random static. It's a haunting, nebulous sonic bath, with moments of surprising lyricism and new details that reveal themselves with each listen. Heard at volume, the intensity can be overwhelming at times, but not in a threatening, assaultive way. Immerse yourself in it, and you might just glimpse infinity - or something damn near like it.
Cop from Mayyrh at http://mayyrh.blogspot.com/or ask Aaron for one.
-Ken Shimamoto

FOXY DIGITALIS

This ended up being more of a critique on the premise behind the improvisation. If you’re into literary critique or being amused people who take things overly seriously you might dig this.

This project was assembled by Aaron Gonzalez, from the Dallas underground noise scene. He led this group of six musicians in a conceptual improvisation and named it Age of Disinformation. This is said to be a “lucid nightmare supergroup”. They played a live performance at midnight on may 23rd 2008. This seems to be of importance because they emphasize on this in the liner notes and press release. Blame it on the abundance of information they provide (or the lack of it), but I really don't see how this relates to the music...But I'm sure this was a great show. And I probably would have liked to be there. There's only one downside to this, I doubt it was necessary to release it on cd. Furthermore, to promote it. It's released in a limited edition of 200 cdr, and a smaller print could have made a good souvenir for the player's and the people attending the show. And we wouldn't be here talking about it.

The concept behind the show, and I'm not sure about the meaning of all this, was: “an improvisation on the current state of psychological and spiritual breakdown as it relates to viral ecosystems of economies of information”. Euh... Great exercise in conceptual improvisation, but is it suppose to make the music more interesting? All the players involved int his come from the same scene, so they probably share a similar philosophy on life and music. But from an outsider point of view, it appears a bit too pompous. Also when I read a press release as pretentious as this, I'm not sure where this is getting to : “...a 45-minute cloud of transmogrifying cadmium clouds with mercury lining..” Say what?!

It's actually a cloud of keyboards, electronics/samples, radio transmissions, blurred vocals, trombone and electric guitars. For a live recording the sound is pretty decent though; you can hear the dynamics between the players and there's depth in the overall sound (good job on the mix). The music is not that bad and there's some interesting moments. But most of it appears as some sketched ideas that are not totally exploited. For example, I liked when the drum programming comes in at some point. But every time it comes in, the person playing it is really not sure if he should be doing that; it's hesitant, amateur, and not really as exciting as it could have been. Same thing when the trombone and the electric guitar breaks the uniformity; great melodic lines that could have brought this recording somewhere else, but it fails to do so. It's a cloud alright, a cloud of messy distorted sounds and good ideas not coming to term. And like a rain cloud, too much of the same color: gray.

And I guess the whole concept turned me off. The idea that our society is living a time of spiritual crisis is getting worn out. It needs to be thought out differently and acted upon in new ways. Proposing disinformation as the way of evolution ( as proposed by Age of Disinformation) is just the other side of the same coin. Disinformation is information. Computers paved a new world and we're getting thrown in without being aware of what's going on. And like information, music is also more accessible. If we don't want to get caught in the crap, we need to teach critical thinking. 5/10 -- Frédérick Galbrun (3 March, 2010)

Videos from sxsw Austin time ....

2010-05-03T07:45:00.000-07:00

Zanzibar Snails prey on the unsuspecting espresso-sippers at Cherrywood Coffee House in Austin, TX on March 18, 2010 during SXSW.

Lineup: Nevada Hill, Michael Chamy, David Lee Price, Nick Cabrera.

This is one of two SXSW-time performances, both at coffee shops to very confused patrons

NO SILENCE NO SLEEP

2010-02-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

DONT MISS THE NOISE BREAKFAST!

Amazing Caves! -- perfectly Foxy

2010-01-29T07:57:00.000-08:00

Foxy Digitalis gives Journey Into Amazing Caves! a perfect score

Thanks for listening, Andrew Livingston

-------------------

North Texas duo of Nevada Hill and Michael Chamy (along with many friends) bring out the warm fuzzies of drone with this release. Heavy on oscillators, filled with dynamic movement and still creeping along with the pace of their namesake, Zanzibar Snails put a smile on a pair of ears that would have rather not heard another drone record, thank you.

Four tracks in just under an hour, two behemoths and two short breaths of glacial rock. I am a simple man and this record hits the touchstones of albums that I enjoy. Enough length to tracks to not overwhelm the listener, an influence that is easy to spot without the performance being mired down in pure copy, featuring my instruments of choice (oscillators and shortwave radio), flexible membership and great delivery.

The accompanying DVD, “Carbage Goma” was produced by part time member David Lee Price and uses the audio from a Zanzibar Snails performance. Although it’s heavy on filters and jumps around the visual element does not really overwhelm. It maintains engagement, does not induce seizures (well, only a little bit) and makes the almost 30 minutes soar by. This is stellar and I hope to see and hear more from them.
10/10 -- Andrew Murdock Livingston (26 January, 2010)

Zanzibar Snails "Vitiligo"

2010-01-28T07:40:00.000-08:00

out now on Tape drift:

Zanzibar Snails
Vitiligo CDr
(Tape Drift) TD24
"March 09 recordings from this phenomenal and mysterious Texas group with the ability to hypnotize listeners and create a swirling vortex of magical sound. Occupying some nether territory between collective improv, grainy atmosphere building, and structured chaos, Zanzibar Snails follow in the tradition of the great Texas psych dreamers in their quest for exploration. Vitiligo is the disease that turns the black man white (the most famous case being the macabre Michael Jackson), and the word accentuates the close relationship between darkness and light, luminescence and void, order and entropy. The first Zanzibar full-length to feature vocalist/sound sculptress Sarah Alexander. Amazing silkscreened gatefold sleeves (designed and screened by Nevada Hill) in stamped vellum envelopes." - Tape Drift

1. Clock Strikes Zen
2. Entreatise
3. Vainly Clutching (at Feng Shui)
4. Pickapeppa
5. Crème of Sum Yung Zen

Nevada Hill – violin, oscillator; Michael Chamy – oscillators, generators, synth, vocals; Sarah Alexander – vocals, electronics, bells & whistles (tracks 1-4); Sinevil – prepared guitar, speaker manipulations, ortef rendering, throat slitting (tracks 1-4); David Lee Price – vocals, percussion, electronics, melodica (track 5); Seth Sherman – acoustic guitar (track 5)
Trcks 1-4 recorded 3/16/2009 at J&J’s Pizza in Denton, Texas. Track 5 recorded 3/20/2009 at the Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin, Texas. Produced by Michael Chamy. Images & design by Nevada Hill.

$7 postpaid

New Year's recap .....

2010-01-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

It was bone-chillingly cold night under a gazebo by the lake ... mind-alteringly cold which hurt the turnout naturally, but made it sort of an out-of-body experience for those who were there .... spectators included random passers-by, families huddled under blankets, and apparently even the mayor of Austin. Thanks to Austin's Church of the Friendly Ghost and Aaron Mace for the invite. We'll be back in a-town on Feb. 6 at Trailer Space Records with ST 37, Future Blondes, and Book of Shadows. Very impressed with Cornelius f. Van Stafrin III, a bearded fellow in a Jedi robe who opened the night with a effective organic drone that included a harmonium, tibetan bowls and other odd playthings...

Vid and pics:

New reviews

2009-12-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

On the Sound Projector website, (Mayyrh's favorite annual/semi-annual UK magazine of the arcane and obscure) editor Ed Pinsent noted in their "New Arrivals" section the trio of recent Mayyrh records releases, including Zanzibar's double CD // DVD "Journey Into Amazing Caves!":

....................

From Texas, the Mayyrh Records label has been busy and produced three more limited-edition releases since we last checked in, all of them packed in nice colourful screen-printed or Xeroxed card wallets inside permatrace envelopes. Zanzibar Snails are the noisy improvising crusaders built around the core duo of Nevada Hill and Michael Chamy, well represented on a new set called Journey Into Amazing Caves! (MYH06) This offers a CD of their uglified electronic and oscillating spillages recorded in 2006-07, producing slowly swelling sounds that are every bit as craggy as the stalactites they purport to depict. The release comes with a DVD called Carbage Goma, a more recent musical performance by the Snails enhanced with wild visual additions from David Lee Price (who also joins the band here); there’s also a welcome return from Josh McWhirter and his diabolical viola. You won’t see much of the band on this mind-murking visual explosion from Price, but you will see plenty of dazzling computer effects, colour-field experiments, and surreal close-ups of ill-fitting objects that produce a memorable psychedelic broth. Also from the label, Age Of Disinformation (MYH08), a collaboration between six Texan players from similar-minded underground venturers, calling themselves a ‘lucid nightmare supergroup’. Playing lots of electronic instruments, keyboards, percussion and guitar, their aim was to make some sort of subconscious statement about the contemporary problem we all face of information-bombardment, and the possible damage this may be causing to our collective spiritual condition. How ambitious…what results is a slowly rotating whirlpool of over-filled musical and verbal gibberish, with no clear guidance to the listener about how to navigate around this swamp of vaguely unpleasant fetid noise. Very compelling! Also out: D&N 2 (MYH07), a collaborative effort between Hill and Price, not yet spun as I can’t bring myself to get past the strange hirsute contents of the envelope.

ALSO in the Sound Projector magazine, issue #18 (ZE'V cover), a full review of Zanzibar Snails’ Phantom Limb release “Vanadium Dream” (only a handful of these still in circulation):

Zanzibar Snails
Vanadium Dream
USA PHANTOM LIMB RECORDINGS
ARM 025 CDR

Zanzibar Snails are from Texas, but like Hearts Of Palm are another on-the-edge improvising and performing combo who are carving out their own private niche in the rock of culture's enclaved cliffs and mountains. I have characterised them before in the improvising section of the magazine, but on this record at least they are emerging as uncategorisable brand of slow, grunged-up organic ensemble playing. The quartet here includes Michael Chamy with his electronic tone generators, Nevada Hill with his guitar, Mike Maxwell on electronics and shortwave radio, and Seth Sherman on guitar and percussion.
I've enjoyed the cataclysmic mayhem that slowly rolled out of their last release (it seemed to be the soundtrack to a road accident played in slow motion), but Vanadium Dream is a much more stark and considered basket of woodchips. Recorded in one cold afternoon's session, it feels like a continuous performance divided into three
long titled segments; on the first one 'Om Isotope', establishing the stern mood, the quartet just seem to be staring at each other with the beady eyes of snakes and lizards, in a constant stare-down battle. The concentration on this task is so intense that the four young men are no longer at full liberty to play their instruments; in particular the guitars have been severely constricted, only issuing an occasional strangulated note at great personal cost to the players. Throughout, humming and buzzing electronic sounds create a strong atmosphere of seething hate. Only the bravest listener should enter this snake-pit of negative reverse-current improvisation.
Segment two, the title track, features brushed percussion and bowed cymbals, deepening the overall sound of the day's work such that it now feels like swimming in an ocean of molten copper. The wine-dark seas of Hector had nothing on this. One of the guitarists now makes bold to set up a constant low murmuring through a cold, antiseptic stroking of his lower strings, causing these tightly-wound eels to' complain like angered bees.
Harmonic overtones fill the air but still do nothing to soften the concrete jaws of these four Texan toughsters as they sink deeper into their lethargic sulk. By the time of segment three, 'In V, the minimal guitar playing has evolved to the point where the upper strings are permitted to emit listless whimpers and whines, much like the pitiful cries of small soft animals. Over 37 minutes, this is a document of a remarkably disciplined performance, amongst players to whom 'minimalism' is a lot more than just a buzzword they can glibly add to their press releases -- for Zanzibar Snails, it's a test of their endurance skills and a method by which they can successfully restrict any inherent excesses in their playing. This combo have certainly come a long way since the tentative beginnings of their first CDR Introdewcing in 2006,
ED PINSENT 26/07/2009
www.mayyrh.com
www.myspace.com/zanzibarsnails

And, in the latest fort Worth Weekly, Ken Shimamoto reviewed Age of Disinformation thusly:

Age of Disinformation
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
By Ken Shimamoto

Since coaxing their trumpeter-father Dennis Gonzalez out of musical retirement a decade ago and forming Yells at Eels, brothers Aaron (bass) and Stefan Gonzalez (drums) have been performing ever more impressively. (YAE's full creative brilliance has finally been captured on disc, on Ayler Records' The Great Bydgoszcz Concert, released earlier this year.)
The brothers continue to play assaultive grindcore as the duo Akkolyte. The connection between genres is explained in the title of an early YAE tune: "Free Jazz is Thrash, Asshole."
Aaron has also ventured into more cerebral realms. Besides helping to bring the No Idea Festival of avant-garde improvisation to Lola's Stockyards last spring, he convened Age of Disinformation - a sort of Metromess underground supergroup - for a one-time performance at Dallas' Bathhouse Cultural Center in May 2008. With Aaron on growling vocals and conducting, the band included a couple of Zanzibar Snails (Michael Chamy and Mike Maxwell), The Great Tyrant's Jon Teague on modular synths instead of his usual drums, and two members of Dallas' Tidbits (multi-instrumentalist Kim Corbet and ex-New Bohemians guitarist Kenny Withrow).
You won't hear a discernable melody on Age of Disinformation's debut eponymous album, nor is there a pulse you can dance to (except in your mind). The sounds extemporized by the sextet run the gamut from ethereal to industrial. While the program notes call the single album-long piece "an improvisation on the current state of psychological and spiritual breakdown as it relates to viral ecosystems of economics of information," that's really just hazy boho jive. These are some spacy jams, equally influenced by Sun Ra's saturnalia and the more kosmiche aspects of Krautrock. Not for the faint-hearted, but if you immerse yourself in this sonic bath, you may emerge psychically rejuvenated. Cop via www.mayyrh.com.

...aaaaannnnnnd last but certainly not least, our favorite Portuguese blog, OSAMAsecretLOVERS reviewed D & N 2

Here it is in Portuguese then through an Internet translation engine:

PORTUGUESE:

Nevada Hill (dos Zanzibar Snails) e David Lee Price juntaram-se para fazer um disco experimental baseado em gravações improvisadas e posteriormente trabalhadas em estúdio. O trabalho é feito de sons íntimos e fantasmagóricos, como a chuva no Texas (o que tem ajudado neste Verão prolongado), algum ruído branco controlado para não atrofiar (como acontece com os Zanzibar, diga-se) e alguns barulhos de mecanismos simples (ou serão instrumentos?). No fundo parece mesmo que uns músicos friques invadiram uma quinta de instrumentos em punho e puseram-se a experimentar que sons é que poderiam sair dali. Talvez por isso que a embalagem do CD-R seja um simples saco com a ficha técnica serigrafada e dentro do saco para além do disco apareça lã de ovelha encharcada em óleo. É curioso que muitas vezes as embalagens e imagens dos discos transmitem o que está para se ouvir, é mesmo curioso...

"TRANSLATION ENGINE" ENGLISH:

Nevada Hill (of the Zanzibar Snails) and David Lee Price had been joined to make an established experimental record in improvised writings and later worked in studio. The work is made of close and fantasmagóricos sounds, as rain in the Texas (what it has helped in this drawn out Summer), some controlled white noise not to atrophy (as it happens with the Zanzibar, it says) and some barulhos of simple mechanisms (or they will be instruments). In the deep one he seems same that musicians friques had invaded fifth of instruments in fist and had set to try it that sounds is that they could leave from there. Perhaps therefore that the packing of the CD-R is a simple bag with the fiche serigrafada technique and inside of the bag stops beyond the record appears wool of sheep marshy in oil. He is curious that many times the packings and images of records transmit what it is to hear, are exactly curious…

Christmas song on Silber comp // New Year's Austin

2009-12-15T09:11:00.000-08:00

Zanzibar Snails have contributed a new original Christmas song to Silber records' fine annual free Christmas album series. This year's installment is titled White Silber: A Cold Slow Xmas, (featuring Moral Crayfish, Small Life Form, and Silber standouts Aarcktica and Remora) and is available for free download.

The Zanzibar track is titled "Quartermass," featuring Sarah Alexander on vocals, dulcimer and bells, and somebody has described it as kind of like Christmas eve at Stonehenge.

It's also available for download on our MySpace .

Zanzibar has also been asked to participate in Austin’s annual First Night civic New Year’s Eve celebration. Austin experimental arts organization Church of the Friendly ghost has asked the band to perform on the COFG stage on Ladybird Lake (formerly Town Lake) in the eye of the New Year’s Eve storm. Zanzibar takes the stage around 11pm, following Ghost of Falco (Portland, OR), and Austin’s Geoff Reacher and Cornelius F. Van Stafrin III

Also, the new Zanzibar Snails full-length release on New York’s Tape Drift, titled “Vitiligo,” will be out in late January.

"Vitiligo" is the disease than turns the black man white, and accentuates the close relationship between darkness and light, luminescence and void, order and entropy

Recorded in March of 2009. Featuring vocals by Sarah Alexander. and dizzying screen-printed packaging by Nevada Hill.

Also, a few new reviews of the recent Mayyrh records releases by Zanzibar Snails, D & N (Zanzibar’s Nevada Hill & David lee price) and Age of Disinformation (Aaron Gonzalez’ nightmare supergroup) will be posted soon. All releases now available in the UK though Ikuisuus and in the U.S. through Time-Lag, in addition to www.mayyrh.com and locally in Dallas, Denton and Austin.

Also, recently published is a very nice review of Zanzibar Snails’ “Vanadium Dream” (Phantom Limb recordings) is in the new Sound Projector, the UK’s finest document of the wyyrd & experimental underground from around the globe.

Mayyrh on Ikuisuus & Time-Lag

2009-12-01T07:06:00.001-08:00

All Mayyrh titles, including the almost out-of-print Zanzibar Snails releases "Brown Dwarf" and "KRAKKATOWIAK" as well as Zanzibar's "Vanadium Dream" (Phantom Limb) are now available on the mail order side of the excellent Finnish label Ikuisuus.

The new trio of Mayyrh releases will also be available shortly at Time-Lag distro.

Dallas Improv Lottery

2009-11-01T18:59:00.000-08:00

On September 26, 2009, the first installment of the DFW rock lottery (last year's Zanzibar-organized event in Denton notwithstanding) took place at the Phoenix Project in Dallas, organized by Aaron Gonzalez (Akkolyte, Yells at Eels, Age of Disinformation). 17 musicians showed up ready to play (mostly by invite), and 4 groupings were drawn, one at a time, mere minutes before the sets were to happen.

The results made for a memorable and exciting evening. Below are the groupings, including Zanzibar Snails Michael Chamy and Nevada Hill, regular contributor Sarah Alexander, and part-time contributors Mike Maxwell and Mark Church (also of the Watchers)

The music is available for download here.

Ensemble 1
Mark Church-electronics, toys, samples
Aaron Gonzalez-bass, vocals
Stephen Lucas-keyboard
Kenny Withrow-guitar, electronics

Ensemble 2
Sarah Alexander-vocals, percussion, electronics
Richard Blake-bass guitar
Kim Corbet-vocals, keyboards, electronics, percussion
Brandon Young-drums, percussion, electronics

Ensemble 3
Gerard Bendiks-drums, percussion
Nevada Hill-violin, electronics
Mike Maxwell-electronics, harmonica, vocals
Lewis Sutton-tenor sax

Ensemble 4
Phil Brewer-trumpet
Nick Cabrera-clarinet, percussion, electronics
Michael Chamy-keyboards, electronics
Stefan Gonzalez-drums
Jim Lenhart-soprano and tenor sax

D & N 2

2009-10-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

D & N 2 is the full length debut from the collaboration between Nevada Hill and David Lee Price of North Texas improv/drone collective Zanzibar Snails that continues to define and redefine the concept of Home. The follow-up to the well-received (9/10 from Foxy Digitalis) D & N 3-inch from 2007 on Mayyrh that was recorded (natch) at each members’ home.

As for the D & N 2CDr, the process of recording an album outside in the middle of Nowhere, Texas is described by the screen-printed text on the vellum sleeve (below)

Keywords for D & N 2 include “pitter-patter”, “somber cricket-infested paens,” “juvenile racketeering,” “tin roof rustic,” and “beh!”
As for the presence of the mysterious sebaceous animal fleece surrounding the disc, Price says only the following:
“It was so dark that I could only see the small area illuminated by my flashlight. Through the darkness I could feel the presence of the sheep, and the anger with him.”
9 tracks, 39 minutes. Ltd. Ed. 100, screen printed by Nevada Hill

$8 postpaid U.S.

X-mas in Zanzibar?

2009-10-22T16:16:00.001-07:00

We have again been asked to contribute (we did in 2006 also) to the annual or near-annual free-for-download compilation of Christmas songs by the excellent Silber Records (Alan Sparkhawk, Aarktica, Remora, Lycia, etc).

We're currently at work on a 3-way remote collaboration started by the lovely Sarah Alexander, whose track for voice, dulcimer and sleigh bells may point the way to the most angelic Zanzibar track ever

stay tuned ....

In the meantime, putting the finishing touches on making the new D & N 2 available for online purchase.

Both D & N 2 as well as Aaron Gonzalez's Age of Disinformation are now available at Recycled Records in Denton, and AOD is also available at Good in Dallas.

AGE OF DISINFORMATION

2009-09-18T10:57:00.000-07:00

Age of Disinformation
Age of Disinformation
(Mayyrh) MYH08

Age of Disinformation is a lucid nightmare supergroup featuring members of Dallas/Denton/Ft. Worth area ensembles Great Tyrant, Zanzibar Snails, Yells at Eels, Tidbits, SUBkommander & Aphonic Curtains. At midnight on May 23, 2008, surrealist impresario Aaron Gonzalez assembled a 6-piece ambient group called Age of Disinformation, billing the event in advance as “an improvisation on the current state of psychological and spiritual breakdown as it relates to viral ecosystems of economies of information.”
Those were the only instructions the incoming players received. The end result: a 47-minute cloud of transmogrifying cadmium clouds with mercury lining, mutated voices meshing with dark electronic scree tempered by beautifying moments of translucent cognition, paving the way for the formation of the eternal Unimind. The way to evolution is .... disinformation?

7 tracks, 47 minutes. Limited edition 200 CDr, featuring design by Nevada Hill based on a collage by Aaron Gonzalez
Recorded by Dennis Gonzalez; Mixed by Aaron & Dennis Gonzalez. Post-production by Michael Chamy.

The Players:
Aaron Gonzalez [Yells at Eels; Akkolyte; Aphonic Curtains] (vocals)
Mike Maxwell [SUBkommander; Aphonic Curtains; the Watchers] (electronics)
Michael Chamy [Zanzibar Snails; the Watchers] (oscillators, shortwave, electronics)
Jon Teague [The Great Tyrant; Yeti] (analog patch synth)
Kim Corbet [Tidbits] (keyboards, percussion, vocals, trombone)
Kenny Withrow [Tidbits; New Bohemians] (guitar, ebow)

$8 postpaid

Audio clips at Mayyrh on MySpace

Video excerpt by Dennis Gonzalez:

New clips

2009-09-06T20:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of new YouTube clips from a show we played in Austin, TX in March

Some of the audio will appear on our new release, Vitiligo, on Tape Drift

The lineup is Michael Chamy, Nevada Hill, David Lee Price and Seth Sherman

The projections you see are from the great Denton-to-Austin transplant Paul Baker

Fall releases ....

2009-08-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

COMING IN SEPTEMBER

Two more from Mayyrh Records:

D & N
D & N2
Full length debut from the collaboration between Zanzibar's Nevada Hill and David Price
"all music & sounds on this CD were recorded by Nevada Hill and David Price on a compound in Junction, Texas over 2 days in the 2nd week of July 2008. Once back home, the recordings were then put onto cassette tapes and digital files and mixed together using 2 modified tape players, 2 iPods, and an 8-channel mixer. The final mix was then cut in half, and the 2 halves were placed on top of each other at varying volumes. The final composition was then broken into 9 parts based on sections defined during the recording and mixing process.
instruments: 2 acoustic guitars, melodica, modified Yamaha keyboard, modified drum machine, contact microphone, looping pedal, modified musical elephant keyboard, field recordings, 2x4 boards, ice chest, metal tubes, rock house"

Age of Disinformation
Age of Disinformation
Nightmare supergroup featuring members of Great Tyrant, Zanzibar Snails, Yells at Eels, Tidbits, SUBkommander & Aphonic Curtains. At midnight on May 23, 2008, surrealist impresario Aaron Gonzalez assembled a 6-piece ambient group called Age of Disinformation. The results: a 45-minute cloud of transmogrifying cadmium clouds with mercury lining, mutated voices meshing with dark electronic scree tempered by moments of translucent cognition, paving the way for the formation of the eternal Unimind. The way to evolution is .... disinformation?

And a new Zanzibar Snails release on Albany, NY's Tape Drift label

Zanzibar Snails
"Vitiligo"
"Vitiligo" is the disease than turns the black man white, and accentuates the close relationship between darkness and light, luminescence and void, order and entropy
Recorded in March of 2009. Featuring vocals by Sarah Alexander.

local love

2009-06-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

Zanzibar Snails got nominated for best Experimental/Avant-Garde act in both the Dallas Observer and the Fort Worth Weekly this year.

We won't win being that we are the only experimental and arguably only avant-garde act on either list - oxymoronically - but feel free to vote

FW Weekly voting (ends Sunday June 28)

Dallas Observer voting (ends Tuesday, July 21)

We also got invited to play the Observer's Awards Showcase, which occurs at different venues on Lower Greenville iin Dallas on Saturday, July 18

Also, we recently got profiled in The Fort Worth Weekly's cover story on experimental music by Ken Shimamoto about the resurgent wave of stuff hitting Tarrant County, including the rebirth of the nonprofit Metrognome Collective, the recent No Idea Festival that happened in the middle of the cowpoke stockyards, Herb Levy's avant-classical productions, the always unheralded Terry Horn, and the Wasted Words Arlington house shows.

Caves video clip added

2009-04-30T08:11:00.001-07:00

See the below post!

JOURNEY INTO AMAZING CAVES!

2009-04-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

Journey Into Amazing Caves! CD + DVD
2009, Mayyrh Records MYH06

Two discs, one audio, one video montage by David Lee Price with a separate Zanzibar soundtrack. LIMITED EDITION of 100 in a vellum sleeve, screen printed by Nevada Hill

AUDIO:
1. Journey Into Amazing Caves! 20:10
2. Journey Into Amazing Caves (epilogue) 2:57
3. Gilded Stars & Garters 6:43
4. Journey Into Amazing Caves (Pepth Derception) 23:14

Recorded in Hurst, Denton & Austin, TX 2006-2007
Produced by Michael Chamy

An ebbing series of hypnotic fjords that whisper, banter & barter, commingle, converge & break apart, pile up and explode.
Michael Chamy & Nevada Hill w/ guest spots from Chicago-based saxophonist Mike Forbes, and Austin's David Lee Price, who re-imagines the epic opener in flashback form.

“At first it kinda reminded me of Xenakis’ electronic stuff or Conrad’s darker synth stuff, but then it went into this avant guitar drone jam like if Earth and AMM had a baby ….” – our friend Tiago

VIDEO:
Carbage Goma
A visual transmission by David Lee Price
Soundtrack by Zanzibar Snails recorded live in Denton, TX on 9/29/2007
26:50

Please hit the HQ button on this; it comes across a lot more clearly

A hallucinatory montage by David Lee Price titled “Carbage Goma,” with Zanzibar Snails producing the soundtrack. The audio is taken from a live performance by a five-piece lineup feat. Price, Seth Sherman & Josh McWhirter ... a chanting, clattering cry for help giving narrative to Price’s shifty, swirling ode to the primeval takeover of a technocratic society by a battalion of mutated Hervay Villachaize clones & his pet cadre of mutant wombat larva sporting oversized women’s sunglasses.

Audio 4 tracks, 53 minutes
DVD 26 minutes-plus

$10 postpaid U.S.

Zanzibar's March Madness

2009-03-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

Friday, March 13 @ The Fra House in Denton
Zanzibar Snails featuring the return of Mike Forbes, the free saxophonist & longstanding Zanzibar collaborator. Mike & fellow Denton expat Andrew Young are on tour from Chicago, fresh off recording with Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers) and will be playing with the night’s other improvised act, a free ensemble featuring Aaron & Stefan Gonzalez alongside he Forbes/Young/Billington trio known independently as Tiger Hatchery. Zanzibar feat. Forbes and special guest drummer Adam (Orange Coax) as well as Nevada on electric violin. Also playing is the ever-rumbling Drink to Victory. 2127 Oak St., Denton. We will/should have copies of our new cd/dvd double Journey into Amazing Caves! (Mayyrh) and will have them on us all week. Sample on the myspace.

Saturday, March 14 @ The Salvage Vanguard Theatre in Austin
Yeast By Sweet Beast with The Watchers (Snails’ Michael Chamy & Mike Maxwell + Mark Church) as well as Yells at Eels, St 37, Future Blondes, Balaclavas, The Great Tyrant, Tiger Hatchery, Book of Shadows, Concrete Violin and many more …. projections on both stages. Watchers on 2nd stage at 12:45am.

Monday, March 16 @ J & J’s Pizza in Denton
Zanzibar Snails with Not Not Fun bands Pocahaunted , Robedoor , and Magic Lantern , traveling on their way to SXSW, as well as NYC’s warped Totally Dad . Actually the lineup is projected to be NNF party supergroup Vibes featuring members of all three, plus Magic Lantern and Robedoor. Early show, 8pm.

Friday, March 20 @ The Salvage Vanguard Theatre in Austin
Zanzibar Snails at a 2-day daypartyfest featuring Maserati, My Education, Venison Whirled, Tambersauro, Fires Were Shot and many more, projections by Paul Baker. Zanzibar Snails at 2:45pm. Projected Zanzibar lineup lineup includes Austinites Seth Sherman and David Lee Price.

Sunday, March 22@1314 Austin St., Denton
unnamed Zanzibar collaboration with enchanting SF psyche droners Barn Owl and Batfuckcrazy. Early show, 6pm.

Saturday, March 28 @ The Cavern in Dallas
The Watchers with Sarah Ruth, Many Birthdays (Austin) and Jack With One Eye. The Watchers at 11pm.

No Idea Festival pics & reviews

2009-03-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

Lee Jackson's Womblife posted an insightful review of the Fort Worth night of the No Idea Festival on Feb. 24, complete with short video clips (posted below)

Ken Shimamoto's Stash Dauber blog also reviewed the fest

Chad Withers' Denton Deluxe site has posted some great photos from the fest.

Annette Krebs: schooled in collage

Mike Maxwell, Annette Krebs, Tara Wood & Sarah Alexander: deep listening

Jason Kahn w/ Zanzibar Snails' Nevada Hill & Michael Chamy: buzzkill

Tatsuya Nakatani w/ Yells at Eels: dash-rip-skrock

NO IDEA FESTIVAL: North Texas Edition

2009-02-13T07:10:00.000-08:00

Zanzibar Snails have been invited to not only take part in but also help curate the first-ever DFW edition of the No Idea Festival of improvised music. This will be occurring February 24 at Lola’s Saloon in Fort Worth …. More below!

No Idea Festival 2009 in Fort Worth
Tuesday, February 24th
@ Lola's Saloon
2736 West 6th Street
Fort Worth, Texas 76107
Doors @ 8
(817) 877-0666; $10

Annette Krebs (guitar, electronics - Berlin)
with
Mike Maxwell (electronics, kalimba)
Sarah Alexander (vocals, electronics)

Jason Kahn (percussion, electronics - Zurich)
with
Chris Cogburn (percussion - Austin)
Zanzibar Snails' Michael Chamy + Nevada Hill (drones)

Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion - Pennsylvania)
with
Dennis Gonzalez (trumpet)
Stefan Gonzalez (percussion)
Aaron Gonzalez (bass)

Festival Info:

The No Idea Festival was initiated in June of 2003 by percussionist Chris Cogburn to bring together the creative music communities of Austin and Houston, Texas. The success of the festival and the connections made between artists in the two cities helped the festival grow in subsequent years - expanding to include artists from around the world and include hosting cities from around Texas.
Now in its sixth year, the No Idea Festival continues to showcase a handful of Texas' premiere creative musicians in collaboration with improvisers from around the U.S., Europe, Japan, Mexico and Canada. Regarded as "one of the finest creative improvised music festivals in the world" (Paris Transatlantic) NIF aspires to connect creative musicians, providing the space and time where creative relationships can flourish, leading towards new areas and approaches in the music.
This year's festival is broader in scope than last, with diverse threads of interest connecting each night. From solos to large groups, known groups to ad-hoc combinations, each night will explore a variety of approaches and situations - each expressing a unique and exciting form of improvisation.
February 24th is the first night of this year's No Idea Festival, which will be continued in Austin, San Antonio, Houston and New Orleans.
This is also the first year that North Texas has been privileged to host No Idea
http://www.noideafestival.com/

FOCUS ON:

Annette Krebs
guitar, mixing board, tapes, objects, computer, de-/composition
(berlin)

On the 24th, Annette Krebs will play a short solo piece followed by an improvised collaboration with Mike Maxwell and Sarah Alexander.

http://www.myspace.com/sberk1

Annette Krebs studied music and concert guitar in Frankfurt/Main, and has lived in Berlin since 1993. She has worked intensively in the crossover area between improvisation and composition, exploring the possibilities of the prepared guitar with regard to sound, structure, noise, the mixing of materials, and space. Various preparation methods are used to produce noises and sounds, which are then enlarged through the use of sometimes high levels of amplification. The sound of the amplification and mixingboards, additional tapes, radios and objects are used as musical material. She works also in the field of electroacoustic composition, de- and reconstructing selected sound- and noisematerial. Fragments of noises, of words and sentences are used to remind, to suggest on certain meanings, fusing with the sounds to a surreal, abstract soundscape.

Collaborations with:
Chris Abrahams, Alessandro Bosetti, Burkhard Beins, Sandra Becker, Lucio Capece, Rhodri Davies, Jim Denley, Axel Dorner, Robin Hayward, Sven-Ake Johansson, Christoph Kurzmann, Sachiko M, Kaffe Matthews, Toshimaru Nakamura, Andrea Neumann, Bhob Rainey, Michael Renkel, Ana Maria Rodriguez, Keith Rowe (AMM), Ignatz Schick, Burkhard Stangl, Taku Sugimoto, Luca Venitucci, Marc Wastell, Otomo Yoshihide, ...

Version 2:
Guitarist Annette Krebs is a key member of a young group of Berlin musicians who emerged in the late 20th century with a new, radical, and influential musical aesthetic. This group of artists, sometimes called the Reductionist school, mix composition and improvisation to form a music for which silence is as potent as sound. Dynamics are important, and part of the aesthetic involves extremely quiet gestures that draw the listener in, focusing the ear on subtle detail. Juxtaposition is a key component, as the expected and the unexpected are deftly employed elements of composition. Krebs, a master of musical texture, may seem more like a sculptor than a guitar player. A classically trained performer, Krebs has radically reinvented the guitar to suit her music.
She lays the guitar—an amplified one—flat on a table and precisely carves out sonic shapes and colors from a variety of objects applied to the instrument. The result is fascinating. A window between action and sound is made clear. Process and composition are revealed. Through amplification, microscopic sound is enlarged, as with a magnifying glass, to become the material for music-making.

Find more videos like this on NetNewMusic

Video by Mona Breede
Sound by Annette Krebs

http://www.japanimprov.com/profiles/akrebs/

FOCUS ON:

Jason Kahn
percussion, analog synthesizer, computer(zürich)

On Tuesday Feb. 24th, Jason Kahn will play a duo piece with Austin percussionist Chris Cogburn, followed by an improvised collaboration with Zanzibar Snails’ Michael Chamy (electronics) and Nevada Hill (electric violin, electronics). This will be the second of the evening’s three sets of music.
http://jasonkahn.net/

Jason Kahn's work includes sound installation, performance and composition. He was born in New York in 1960, grew up in Los Angeles and relocated to Europe in 1990. He currently lives in Zürich.
He has given concerts and exhibited sound installations throughout Europe, North and South America, Japan, Mexico, Korea, Israel, Turkey, Russia, Lebanon, Egypt, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia.
He performs both solo and together with musicians like Dieb13, Steinbrüchel, Kim Cascone, John Hudak, Steve Roden, Günter Müller, Kevin Drumm and Toshimaru Nakamura, using percussion, analog synthesizer or computer in different combinations.

He composes for electronics, acoustic instruments and environmental recordings. For larger groups of directed improvisation he has devised a system of graphical scores. Kahn creates his sound installations for specific spaces. The focus of these primarily non-visual works lies in the perception of a space through sound.
In 1997 Kahn founded the independent label Cut, producing to date twenty-five CD's, both of Kahn's own work and other artists.

“Kahn's work bears some similarity with the late music of Morton Feldman. What Feldman and Kahn often manage to do is suggest that what you’re hearing when you’re listening to their compositions is a continuum: moment without time.”
- Brian Marley, The Wire

Jason Kahn with drummer Jon Mueller Sept. 30 in Charlottesville, VA

expanded bio
Jason Kahn began as a drummer in Los Angeles-based alternative rock and avant-rock bands in the mid-’80s. When he relocated to Berlin in 1990, he turned resolutely toward free improvisation and later to the micro-sound scene, incorporating electronics to his percussion work. He spent the 1990s between Germany and Japan, playing in Arnold Dreyblatt’s Orchestra of Excited Strings; with Toshimaru Nakamura as the duo Repeat; and collaborating on-stage and on record with improvisers like Günter Müller, Dieb13, Otomo Yoshihide, Evan Parker, Sainkho Namchylak, and Taku Sugimoto.
Born in New York City in 1960, Kahn grew up in Los Angeles, surrounded by the Californian music of the ’60s. Punk rock in the mid-’70s gave him the impetus to become a musician. After college studies in African history and music, he went to the University of London for a year and began to play drums. Back in L.A., he studied with session drummer Billy Moore.His interests included jazz and improvisation (hearing Ed Blackwell drum on Eric Dolphy’s album Live at the Five Spot was a revelation), but for a long time he played with rock bands.
The most important was the Universal Congress Of (featuring Saccharine Trust’s Joe Baiza), with whom he recorded three albums for SST and toured extensively in the U.S. and Europe. It is after such a tour, in February 1990, that he decided to quit and move to East Berlin, to experience the exhilaration of the city shortly after the end of the Communist regime. There he hooked up with the free improv crowd, performing with Dietmar Diesner, Johannes Bauer, and Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, while absorbing the burgeoning techno scene.
A friend put him in contact with Dreyblatt, and for five years Kahn participated in the activities of the Orchestra of Excited Strings. Meanwhile, he radically transformed his approach to drums, taking lessons in Arabic and Iranian music, and most importantly stripping down his technique to rediscover the sonic properties of his instrument. The results of his search began to be detectable in the recordings of Cut, his duo with guitarist Birger Löhl; but they really surfaced starting with Temporary Contemporary, the second album by his other duo Repeat, with Toshimaru Nakamura.
Started in 1997, this project attracted a little more attention, thanks to Nakamura’s unusual use of a “no-input mixing board.” In 1996, Kahn started the small independent label Cut, on which he released albums by Repeat and a string of solo recordings (Drums and Metals and Analogues, 1999; Plurabelle, 2001). By 2001, he had also begun to present sound installations and to perform as a solo laptop computer artist. He also curated Sonique Series, a series of experimental music concerts in Zürich, Switzerland.

Watch THE WATCHERS

2009-02-05T07:20:00.000-08:00

The Watchers are a new live electronics/looping/mus. concrete project by Zanzibar Snails Michael Chamy and Mike Maxwell (SUBkommander/s.d.s.) and Mark Church (Good Records, Flat Tire)

Check them out here.

The Watchers have shows coming up:

- March 5 in Dallas at The Lounge w/ Mi Ami (Quarterstick) & Thank You (Thrill Jockey)

- March 14 in Austin at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre as part of Yeast by Sweet Beast with Yells at Eels, ST 37, the Great Tyrant, Future Blondes, and many more.

Expect to see recordings by The Watchers surface on Mayyrh, hopefully by year’s end.

Vanadium Dream / Brown Dwarf on year-end lists

2009-01-28T09:33:00.000-08:00

Foxy Digitalis’ Eric Hardiman has selected Brown Dwarf as his Best CD-R of 2008:

“A genre boundary crossing release that has a great sense of narrative, timing, and texture. Guitars, viola, electronics, and percussion melted together with great focus. This one got many many listens here, and I’m excited to hear more from them.”

Thanks Eric!

.. ..

Also, Dallas’ own Lee Jackson, in his stellar blog Womblife, has placed Vanadium Dream as his #6 release of 2008, alongside other heavyweight top-10ers as the Dead C, Warmer Milks, Earth, and Robedoor. Also, the Snails-related project D & N (Nevada Hill and David Lee Price) landed on Lee’s list as well, their s/t 3-inch coming in at #18. Lee also placed the Zanzibar live action at the Melodica fest in February as his number five live set of the year.

Says Lee, summing up not only Vanadium Dream and D & N but also Brown Dwarf, as well as some words of the recent live debut of The Watchers (featuring Snails Michael Chamy and Mike Maxwell):

Zanzibar Snails Brown Dwarf / D & N D & N (both Mayyrh Records) CD-R & 3" CD-R / Zanzibar Snails Vanadium Dream (Phantom Limb) CD-R - '08 must be the year of the snail in some exotic land somewhere, maybe Tanzania or Morrocco... or even the USA. It's clearly the year of Dallas improvised drone cracklers Zanzibar Snails (no longer employing the 'the'), with three quality CD-Rs hitting the racks, each showcasing a different facet of their hands-on revolving ensemble approach. Brown Dwarf preserves a live set that was performed as an opening act sharing the stage with Rahdunes, ST-37 and Suishou No Fune. This this was basically the show of 2007 as far as I'm concerned, though I didn't actually arrive at the venue till right after the Snails' set. So I was pleasantly surprised to find electronics guru/Snails member Michael Chamy's claims of spontaneous aural perfection not too terribly exaggerated when I finally threw Brown Dwarf into the changer: 35 mins of minimal bass hum separated into five segments that build from a bottomless one note subharmonic trudge to full nuclear devastation before it's over....

D & N is the duo of Nevada Hill and David Price, whose initial recordings eventually flowered into Zanzibar Snails [ed- not exactly but ....]. This self titled 20 min 3" CD was recorded in a postal exchange that resulted in 8 short tracks of hallucinogenic aural transport. These pieces have a more compositional quality than any ZS related release I've heard so far but come off as no less spontaneous or challenging via shifting tonal landscapes that suggest Spacemen 3 one moment, minimal composition the next, music concrete the next, etc. It's never less than completely consuming and richly detailed, plus one of my favorite ephemeral type spins in '08. Recorded live at home, Vanadium Dream compounds some of the heaviest cosmic elements with three extended workouts that continue the more serene moods of Brown Dwarf while upping the difficulty a few notches to conjure some truly challenging celestial voids.
This is the first Snails session to involve contributions from Mike Maxwell of SUBkommander/s.d.s., proving a solid fit with the Snails philosophy of less is more as the quartet combines oblique string vibrations, breathing electronic textures and pulsing bass hums into deeply transportive, continuous drone chasms. Not for the faint of heart, but not too harsh either. These three releases ultimately come closest to the fractured improve noise of classic NZ combos like Flies Inside the Sun and Surface of the Earth than any previous ZS releases.....

* ZS related live action note: Caught a trio set last Thursday of Chamy, Maxwell and Mark Church (current merch guru at Good Records, formerly of Bay Area weird rockers Flat Tire), performing as 'Snails offshoot The Watchers, a power electronics trio that conjures an almost devotional quality at times instead of the more trad ambient/electronic skree textures.
'Least that's the vibe I got when I arrived to a room saturating distorted Buddhist chant accompanying the alchemist scene from The Holy Mountain, which was being projected on the wall at the front of the store. Like walking into a dream. It was Church's birthday too. Good cupcakes, good tunes, good friends...yum. Next was the post industrial/apocalypse folk of Awen, a trio that brings that classic late '80s World Serpent sound (think Current 93, Death in June, Non) to the DFW area with conviction. Takes balls to make this kind of doom folk racket round these parts, but ultimately I gotta respect these folks' for the quality of their performance (Stone Breath gone militant?) over their stage presence which invoked images of Boyd Rice and fascist salutes. Still I think I can dig where they're coming from.....

Foxy Digitalis, Sound Projector on BROWN DWARF

2008-12-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

Both the mighty Foxy Digitalis (9 out of 10) and the U.K.'s annual archeological inventory of the arcane underground, The Sound Projector, weighed in recently on Zanzibar Snails' BROWN DWARF, and it would be hard-pressed to imagine a more rave review from either publication ....

THE SOUND PROJECTOR
Issue 17 2008-09
Zanzibar Snails
Brown Dwarf
USA MAYYRH MYH05 CDr (2008)
The second thing I’ve heard from this obscure Texan improvising ensemble, but it is mightily impressive and to my mind far better than the sluggish Introdewcing … Michael Chamy plays oscillators and tone generators, Nevada Hill wields a nasty electric guitar, Seth Sherman contributes acoustic guitars, plus they have their own secret weapon – Josh McWhirter with his viola and tape loops. Brown Dwarf comprises five separate ‘suites,’ which in fact join seamlessly together to form a huge, ugly lump of brilliant dense and slow-forming noise as it rolls forward towards a doom-laden ending. Each separate sonic element shines forth in the carefully-controlled morass of racket, whether it be the distorted tape-loops of speaking voices beaming in from Planet Jupiter, the crisp steel-stringed strums of a muscular acoustic guitar, the agonized and stuttering howls of Hill’s electric guitar, or the ferocious black chunks of negative energy summoned from Chamy’s devilish electronic set-up . For some reason, McWhirter’s viola work stands out to me, because even if his playing technique is not particularly distinguished, he has unique tone, varying from depressed resignation one moment to waspish outbursts of bitterness the next. This mercurial tendency contributes much to the queasy, upsetting mood of Brown Dwarf, making it a record fit for listening when you’re suffering from a long bout of influenza and yet you find you’re still not experiencing enough delirious fits of sheet soaking dreams, and want to induce more such episodes. Added to this, the grim performance is carefully planned to build up the intensity to absolute fever pitch, in a very slow and deliberate way; by the time of the blinding fourth segment, strong men are blanching, women have been brought to their knees, and the emergency services are on their way. Luckily you have 8 minutes left to recover, as the final section calms things down to an acceptable post-catastrophic state and you can helplessly watch fires being extinguished, walking wounded staggering over scorched earth, and uniformed officials doing nothing of any use to control the situation. Throughout this aftershock state, the musicians continue to brood, scowl, and pour oil on troubled waters, hinting in the last few minutes of further atrocities to come. Great! Limited release in a hand-made silkscreened cover, copy of which I suggest you seek out with all speed.
ED PINSENT 20/07/2008
www.mayyrh.com

FOXY DIGITALIS
Hailing from Denton, Texas, Zanzibar Snails have kept a relatively low profile thus far, yet if this release is any indication, that shouldn’t be the case for long. This is an enigmatic cdr released on the Mayyrh Records label, whose roster represents “incidental, ambient, improvised, and free noise from Texas”. All of the descriptors above apply to this disc, and while alone those tags might signify nothing unusual, the music somehow rises above its classifying tags and takes on a wonderful life of its own. This is the rare album for me that crosses boundaries and at least suggests new ways to look beyond the often narrow confines of psychedelic improvised drone music. A four piece, Zanzibar Snail’s offer up five tracks here, although it’s probably best seen as one larger piece with five movements. The music is continuous, and appears to have been recorded live. The central elements are guitars (both electric and acoustic), viola, shortwave radio, and various loops. It’s Josh McWhirter’s viola and tapes that truly standout here however, providing a patient, searching, and at time plaintive textural scraping to the mix. Nevada Hill’s electric guitar shows relative restraint throughout, serving to anchor things rhythmically with a repeatedly stabbed chord. As things progress there is a natural buildup in intensity through the fourth track, when the sound explodes and peaks. The fifth track brings us back to the calm of the first, lending the whole affair a contemplative air. Shortwave chatter and loops calmly preface one final burst of energy, and the trip is complete. It’s a richly compelling piece of music, suffused with nods to rock, doom, and electro acoustic improvisation, yet ultimately resulting in its own conglomeration of influences. The closest sonic referent might perhaps be a more linear version of A Handful of Dust or any of the other New Zealand acts on the long gone Le Jazz Non compilation. Let’s hope more releases follow soon! 9/10 -- Eric Hardiman (26 November, 2008)

Vanadium Dream out now on Phantom Limb Recordings

2008-11-21T07:49:00.001-08:00

Zanzibar Snails' new Vanadium Dream CDr is out now on L.A.'s Phantom Limb Recordings.
A mindwinter daydream recorded at home during a cold afternoon, Vanadium Dream features Denton, TX improv collective Zanzibar Snails as a quartet, joined by Mike Maxwell (SUBkommander, Aphonic Curtains) on electronics and Seth Sherman on acoustic guitar and percussion, along with core Snails Nevada Hill and Michael Chamy on bowed cymbals, guitars and electronics. Ethereal, meandering, organic, provocative and personable, Vanadium Dream is lucid, warm and crisp despite the high levels of iridium.

Says Phantom Limb Recordings:
"Unexpected sounds from unexpected new friends, the drone of Zanzibar Snails is both familiar and wholly indescribable. Music made by inhuman means, an alchemy of sounds blasted and scorched, "Vanadium Dream" is a thick radioactive depth charge to our oceanic roster of drone and trance sounds. It is an attack on the senses, staged in three sections, a triptych of doom and resurrection. Packaged in a beautiful 5 screen / 9 color silkscreened fold out cover, by Nevada Hill this is a looker to behold and a sounder to listen at..."
Limited edition of 100.

1. Om Isotope 15:16
2. Vanadium Daydream 11:33
3. In V 11:12

Michael Chamy – tone generators, keyboard, shortwave, vocals, woodwind
Nevada Hill - guitars, bowed cymbals, percussion, vocals
Mike Maxwell – electronics, shortwave
Seth Sherman - acoustic guitar, vocals, percussion, woodwind

Recorded in Hurst, TX. Produced by Michael Chamy.
Artwork, design & screen printing by Nevada Hill
Available now from Phantom Limb Recordings

Distribution from Tomentosa
Available at Good Records in Dallas and Recycled Books in Denton.

INSIDE FOLD-OUT

BROWN DWARF, D & N in Terrascope, Animal Psi

2008-11-17T06:51:00.001-08:00

A couple of recent reviews of Zanzibar Snails' BROWN DWARF CDr and the D & N 3 inch:

ANIMAL PSI
October 18, 2008

BROWN DWARF
"a spacey humdrum of oscillating drone and brittle, radioed static. …. “Omega” follows with intensifying volume and frequency, overwhelming the dial with squealing modulations, short-lived, yet soon resumed by the viola over sawing loops..."

D & N
"... straddling the line between Jandek/Out(sider) guitar whittling and the formless drone of countrymen Stars of the Lid. Bleeding through and into another, the bare pulse of the CDr is easy to miss as each three minute piece pushes past like blood pressure."

TERRASCOPE ONLINE
Terrascopic Rumbles August 2008

BROWN DWARF
"'Brown Dwarf' is a thoughtful mix of drone, experimental noise, and electronica. Containing five tracks, the music has a crackle of electricity running through it, mixing acoustic and electric instruments into a highly listenable, yet challenging, whole."

D & N
"... we are treated to drones and scrapings, siren led synths and rambling percussion, all of which add up to a bloody good time."

And blogger supreme Lee Jackson had this to say on Last.fm about a recent Zanzibar live set in late August opening up for pulsating HTX psychsters Indian Jewelry:

"Zanzibar Snails and Indian Jewelry on the same stage at the Lounge on Elm street, more proof that interesting outer sounds are coming back to Deep Ellum again. The originality displayed by both these bands arguably outweighs the quality of their performances, but then there's something about the deep space chasms of the 'Snails' crawling low-end feedback scrawl, emanating from homemade post industrial electronic head machines, oscillators and chugging guitar feedback that washes through the mind like a flood of DMT. The 'Snails do two things with equal intensity: bring the deep minimal drone, and take it all to another level just when you think they've hit the apex of murky feedback strangeness. Precog moment: about halfway through the set: I started to think repeatedly, some drums should come in right here, and sure enough some echoed snare strikes came in the mix. That shit's true BTW."

D & N gets Foxy love

2008-08-13T06:36:00.001-07:00

Foxy Digitalis this week ravely reviewed the D & N 3-inch released on the Zanzibar-produced TX "out" label MAYYRH, a home recording collaboration between Zanzibar Snails Nevada Hill and David Lee Price

"Don't mistake this for just another bedroom drone record. Melodies, songforms, and rhythms have just as much importance here as the whirling drones that weave them together.
9/10"

In a foldout reversible sleeve, artwork also courtesy of Hill and Price …

Available at www. mayyrh. com, at shows, and at Recycled and Strawberry Fields in Denton

A couple of other various opinions:

"This might be one of the most accessible pieces of music released by local noise artists that I've heard, and it would probably make a good introduction to those wary of improvised or experimental music.
" – WeShotJR

"The overall effect is a brief epic of shifting drones and cryptic noisemaking, an eerie trip through the cars of an audio ghost train …" – Dead Angel

RADIO PORTUGAL w/ Nevada interview + Zanzibar music

2008-07-28T17:33:00.000-07:00

An entire Portuguese radio program dedicated to Nevada Hill, his art, and the Zanzibar Snails and our music.

The show is done by publisher/comix collective owner Marcos.

Here is the link to the podcast

Here is blog where the interview w/ Nevada is posted ... in Portuguese. And maybe in English too.

For maximum entertainment use an internet translation engine.

ZANZIBAR IS BIG IN PORTUGAL.

who knew?

Here is the entire interview (in English:)

what's your age?

26.

did you study art?

Printmaking

music?

NO

what's your main influences in comix and music?

Fort Thunder, Winsor McCay, Tommi from Boing Being, Durer, David Lee Price. Music: favorite 6 guitar players of all time Derek Bailey, Arto Lindsey, Jimi Hendrix, The girl from Finally Punk that plays with her thumb, Micheal Morely, Seth Sherman

are you part of any peculiar scene? local? transnational?

Zanzibar Snails are a part of the Denton music scene. We play with all types of musicians and non-musicians that are interested in improvisation and experimenting with sound/performance. The scene we are apart of is mainly local we do not have the money or time to tour which is why we use our cd-r label to distribute our tracks around the world. We would love to be apart of a transnational scene. I love to collaborate with other artist and musicians.

how you connect music and comix?

I have decided that the Aural and visual are just different tangible states of creative energy. A good example of this is water the liquid when frozen it turns to ice and when heated it turns to steam. It is still H2O but it is just changing its state due to environmental conditions. This is the same with my visual work and aural work, they are interconnected.

how important is silkscreen in rock posters? is it a revival from the 60's or it has been a tradition in the US?

Screenprinting is just another method of replicating an image. It is widely used in the U.S. for gigposters because it is cheap (sometimes) and anyone can turn a garage or a apartment room into a screenprinting studio. Also the results can be seen as more valuable then say a Xerox with clip art on it. Most posters that were printed in the 60's are lithos only a few were screenprinted. Screenprinting multicolored gig posters gained popularity in the early 90's in Austin Texas. It has now exploded in popularity all over the U.S., Canada and has been gaining some popularity in the UK. A theory of why the gigposter has been so popular is that when CD's became the mainstream format, the canvas for designer and artists to create an image shrunk from 12" to 5". So artist had to discover another way to get there ideas/images out to the general public. So now it is worse with the iPOD generation but vinyl is making a come back which is exciting.

you're from Texas, right? how "right wing" or "repressive" is that state, do you have any fear when you create (like something could happen to Mike Diana)? on the other hand a lot of "maniacs" came from there, right? 13th Floors, Butthole Surfers, Red Krayola... how you explain so "fucked up creators" from that land?

I was born in Fort Worth and grew up outside of the suburbs. Depending on the town it can be very repressive for creative types that have different views of the arts and life. I can only speak from personal experience that I subconsciously suppress many ideas I have because I feel it is too radical or could be seen as offensive material. I have been trying to abolish these repressive feelings by actually putting some images in my posters that some people may find offensive. I do not do things to purposefully make some one upset. For instance My most recent poster has two male silhouettes that could be seen as giving each other hand jobs. Also my first art exhibition was at a Coffee house in Denton Tx, It was taken down after a week because it made the patrons feel uneasy. There were no out right obscene imagery it was just these line drawings of bean bags and lollipops. When some people saw them the thought it was scrotums and Harry Pussy. I suppress the out right urge to create some images intentionally for fear of attention. The Maniacs of the land are all "heroes of mine some people are fearless when they create and that is an admirable quality in an artist. I think they are created because of social and environmental influences. I think because Texas is so large and can be a harsh land. The scenery is also depressing. This creates an uneasiness in people that are sensitive to these types stimuli. Some people though are content with sitting in front of there big screen TV watching Reality Television while eating a tub of cheese cake filling.

Zanzibar Snails in THE WIRE

2008-07-02T20:18:00.001-07:00

In the June 2008 issue, Size Matters column:

Zanzibar Snails Krakkatowiak MAYYRH 3” CD
From Denton, the past home of Texas’s space rock programme, The Zanzibar Snails have emerged as one of the region’s more interesting units over the past couple of years. They appear as a quartet here, using feedback, sax, electronics and percussion to create an extremely neat kind of racket. The feel is akin to The Dead C jamming with Paul Flaherty, and you’d have to agree, that’s a good goddamn feel.
- Byron Coley, THE WIRE

And it sure is.

ZANZIBAR LIVE IN JULY:

Zanzibar has two Denton shows slated for July, the first a July 19 show at Hailey’s with Austin’s My Education, touring behind their new Bad Vibrations on Strange Attractors Audio House, joined on the bill by newest Silber Records signees, the nomadic hotel, hotel.

The second Zanzibar show is a July 22 jaunt at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios opening for legendary art-metallers Harvey Milk, touring behind a new release on Hydrahead and a renewed interest in their unique brand of unpredictable outsider slo-mo sludge. Also on the bill is Dallas avant-jazz powerhouse Yells at Eels, featuring Dennis, Aaron and Stefan Gonzalez, and wiry Denton faves Kaboom.

July 19@Hailey’s, Denton w/ My Education + hotel, hotel + My Empty Phantom $6 / $8

July 22@Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, Denton, w/ Harvey Milk + Yells at Eels + Kaboom!
$6 / $8

Zanzibar Snails live Vids

2008-06-17T05:56:00.000-07:00

at 1919 Hemphill in Fort Worth, TX on June 7 w/ special guest Ramsey on clarinet

At Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios in Denton, TX on 5/24/08 with an expanded lineup including SUBkommander Mike Maxwell, Sarah Alexander, Josh McWhirter, Nevada Hill, Michael Chamy &special guest Aaron Gonzalez on bass. Check out the train solo at the end!

BROWN DWARF/ D & N reviews

2008-06-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

PINK edition of BROWN DWARF almost sold out, as most of the remaining are Brown as pictured here.

BROWN DWARF and D & N are available in North Texas at Good Records in Dallas and Recycled Records and Strawberry Fields in Denton, and nationally at this very site and through Tomentosa Records.

THE SOUND PROJECTOR
(great UK underground mag and blog)

Zanzibar Snails, noted in issue 16, are back again with a new CD in a hand-made screenprinted digipack. The delirious Brown Dwarf (MAYYRH RECORDS MYH05) features this Texan improvising collective as a four-piece incarnation, including Michael Chamy who works with live electronics and tape loops and also produced the record. Effectively one long piece divided for ease of handling into five named suites, Brown Dwarf delivers a mightily twisted and incredibly dense lump of sonic dough. Given the slightly suffocating atmosphere they brew, it's impressive how some of the key instruments – the sharply-angsted viola of Josh McWhirter for example – manage to float to the surface of this rolling planet of rich electro-acoustic swampery. The Snails' electric guitarist Nevada Hill also appears on the 3-incher D&N (MYH03) with David Lee Price, to forge a collection of eight introspective guitar-scapes that gradually suck you into mesmerising fields of ambiguity. Which isn't a bad psychological sensation for this time of year, but if you want something guaranteed to make you feel decidedly ill (in a good way, I must stress), then it's the Snails CD for you.

DALLAS OBSERVER

By Jesse Hughey
Published: May 29, 2008
"Experimental" is a frequently misapplied term when it comes to music. But when it comes to Zanzibar Snails—the brainchild of former Dallas Observer freelancer Michael Chamy on shortwave, oscillators and generators and guitarist Nevada Hill—there's hardly a more fitting word. Their performances are improvised, combining elements as earthy and familiar as viola and acoustic guitar with otherworldly sounds like screeching electronics and disembodied voices picked up on a shortwave.

Brown Dwarf is a live recording of a performance at Hailey's in Denton, although you'd never know it, as there's absolutely no crowd noise as Chamy and Hill are aided by Seth Sherman on acoustic guitar and Josh McWhirter on viola and tapes. It's a single composition of tuneless viola, short-wave transmissions, buzzing electronics and a single guitar chord hypnotically strummed for what seems like forever.

It drones on for 34 minutes, divided into five tracks. Ambient soundscapes consisting solely of white noise and the occasional guitar note stretch on for minutes at a time. But just as you get comfortable, the calm is broken by a jarring outburst of distressed electronics or frantic viola abuse. Alternately distressing and soothing, Brown Dwarf is an immersive and perversely enjoyable experience.

DALLAS OBSERVER DC9 BLOG May 29

With bonus BROWN DWARF MP3 download and video from a recent live show at Rubber Gloves in Denton.

THE ONE TRUE DEAD ANGEL

Zanzibar Snails -- BROWN DWARF [Mayyrh Records]

Denton, TX sure is a hotbed of psych-lovin' weirdness; Zanzibar Snails are the latest to drink the tainted water and start hallucinating. Recorded live in October, 2007, the five tracks here are all merely divisions in one long performance (approximately 35 minutes) featuring Josh McWhirler on viola and tapes, Michael Chamy on shortwave, loops, and generators, Seth Sherman (ex-Early Lines) on acoustic guitar, and Nevada Hill on electric guitar. Essentially ambient music peppered with a growing plethora of disembodied voices, strange electronic frippery, and other near-random effluvia, the disc starts off with low-key humming and droning and gradually -- so slowly that by the time you realize something new is happening, it dawns on you that it's been happening for a while now -- the ambient fog fills up with repetitive, dreamlike noises like sleepy voices chanting vague nonsense over and over, along with peculiar sounds and steady but minimal guitar strumming that after a while hardly even sounds like guitar anymore, and the infusion of sounds continues, with the sonic landscape growing steadily more dense and cluttered while somehow remaining light and airy sounding. The increasinly loud guitar clang does move the piece out of ambient territory after a while, along with the avalanche of sounds, but then everything but the guitars and a background hum dies away, and toward the end the sound is dominated mainly by low-level amp hum, plunking acoustic guitar, and incredibly slow guitar strumming. Eventually viola and other noises (shortwave, perhaps?) rise up as well, and the density of sound builds up again, but the sound never grows as quite as powerfully dense or wildly agitated as before, until the disc finally fades out in a whirl of audio chatter. Mesmerizing in a strange and alien way, like listening to hippies in the park after drinking acid-spiked punch. Bonus points for the cool handmade digipack sleeve in the cool earth-tone colors.

Nevada Hill / David Price -- D & N 3" cdr [Mayyrh Records]

This 3-inch cdr contains five "N" tracks recorded from Nevada Hill's home in the D/FW area and three "D" tracks recorded from Price's home in Austin; in addition, additional instrumentation and tinkering took place after the fact by both artists, resulting in a homebrew recording that is both a split release and a remote collaboration. Nevada Hill provides guitar, oscillator, thuds, and room tapes; David Lee Price provides percussion, synths, and field recordings. The eight tracks are sequenced in mixed order on the disc, in a manner that makes it feel like one long piece divided into eight discrete sections, with a sound palette that grows wider and weirder as the disc progresses. The overall effect is a brief epic of shifting drones and cryptic noisemaking, an eerie trip through the cars of an audio ghost train -- similar, in fact, to the Zanzibar Snails (of which Hill is a member) disc reviewed elsewhere in this issue, only more sparse and possibly even creepier. The dialogue taking place between these musicians is a mysterious and jumbled one, a sound whose ambience is frequently overtaken by the random nature of field recordings. It's strange stuff, yes, but alluring in a haunted and disjointed sort of way.

Mayyrh Records

Vanadium Dream out this summer ... future releases too!

2008-05-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

Due to a more adventurous artwork gameplan, featuring a fold-out poster, the Zanzibar Vanadium Dream release on Phantom Limb Recordings has been pushed back to June or July. It'll be worth the wait.

In other ZanziNews, the Snails will be performing at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios in Denton on Saturday May 24 as part of the Denton Deluxe 2-night fest curated by the divine Strawberry Fields video and record store responsible for the Denton Deluxe compilations. We're also excited about a pre-show recording session featuring players from the likes of Shiny Around the Edges, Dokodemodoa, and Dust Congress.

There is also a MAYYRH release due in the Fall, this one an inner-ear CD/DVD combo dronescape tentatively titled Journey Into Amazing Caves! featuring a visual cornucopia into the mind's spleen by Zanzibar's Southern Division art director, David Lee Price.

New Snails' album on Phantom Limb Recordings

2008-03-31T06:25:00.000-07:00

By May 1 or thereabouts, the latest Zanzibar Snails odddyseee will drop on Phantom Limb Recordings, a top-notch CD-aRt endeavor run by Grant Capes and the folks in L.A.'s woozy mellow tripsters (VxPxC). The album will be called Vanadium Dream, a three-track CDr at just under 40 minutes, featuring the more airy, organic hash-dream side of the band, joined this time by SUBkommander Mike Maxwell on electronics, along with Seth Sherman, Nevada Hill (busy with bowed cymbals & percussion this time) and myself (Michael Chamy).

Also, rumor has it Nevada will be taking a West Texas jaunt later this spring to record a follow-up to the D & N 3-inch, last year's surprisingly bright & friendly (not to mention well-received) collaboration with David Lee Price, CEO of the Snails' Austin division.

Next Zanzibar Live Action: Friday April 19 at Hailey's, a "UFO Fest" held on the date of the notorious Aurora, TX UFO crash well over a century ago. We'll be joined on this occasion by the always unpredictable Violent Squid, Silk Stocking, Mad Scientists, and more.

Zanzibar's SXSW

2008-03-31T06:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everybody who came out to the Chain Drive in Austin for Strategies of Beauty v. 2.0, the annual showcase of North Texas creative musics, this year held in Austin during SXSW for the second straight year. Special traveling guests this time around included magnificent drone sculptor/guitarist from Toronto Aidan Baker (of Nadja - pic above), and the Future Blondes, a sprawling 24th-century aggro stream-of-consciousness dance party led by Domokos of A_PINK_CLOUD and joined by Jana Hunter, members of Indian Jewelry, and Austin’s Aurora Plastics company. We were disappointed that Bay Area avant-metal left curves Wildildlife had to cancel, but were more than happy to experience nomadic Austinites Headdress and their sun-baked hallucinogenic desert psyche folk, one-man confessional postpunk clinic Daniel Francis Doyle, as well as always-solid performances from NorTex standouts Shiny Around the Edges, Mom, Florene, Emil Abraham Rapstine, and Dust Congress, stripped down to a two-piece with vibes, which may very well have been the day’s highlight.

As for the Snails, I’ll leave it up to esteemed blogger/journalist Lee Jackson, from his meaty Womblife blog:

“Next personal Dallas faves The Zanzibar Snails tear through a 30 min set of blistering deep space sonic murk that just keeps growing more intense and insane with each passing minute. The molten lava flow makes me feel as if I've been directly teleported into the heart of a red giant, time slowing to a crawl as my flesh starts to melt, and POOF, no more. Nothing. This is the end...only not really. Like an electromagnetic pulse, the Snails' shreiking electro clatter saps my camera of its remaining juice. I'm unable to document this highly visceral sonic experience. Apparently they blew a fuse so the whole groaning mass just cut out instantly. No resolution, no fade out. Nothing. The events are almost preternatural from my close vantage point.”

BROWN DWARF CDr out Now

2008-02-28T06:53:00.000-08:00

$7 ppd. U.S.

A power drone odyssey featuring the strings of Josh McWhirter gone Conrad, wrapped around staticky innerspace implosions, ebbs & flows of decay and release, meditative balms and disorienting headfuck. Peppered with disembodied voices, haywire electronics, and introspective cadences. Five tracks, 35 minutes.

1. Brown Dwarf (Iota) 6:48

2. Brown Dwarf (Lengua) 6:50

3. Brown Dwarf (Coma) 5:10

4. Brown Dwarf (Omega) 7:15

5. Brown Dwarf (Parabola) 8:22

Josh McWhirter - viola, tapes

Michael Chamy - shortwave, loops, generators

Seth Sherman - acoustic guitar

Nevada Hill - electric guitar

Recorded in Denton, TX at Hailey's 10.7.07. Produced by Michael Chamy.

Deluxe digipack by Nevada Hill & David L. Price.

Available online now, at Strawberry Fields in Denton starting March 1, 2008, and at Recycled Records in Denton and Good Records in Dallas soon thereafter.

Zanzibar at Melodica Fest 2008

2008-02-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

May I direct your attention to the Melodica Fest in general, and specifically to the Zanzibar Snails performance at 8pm on Saturday, as part of WeShotJR stage at the Amsterdam Bar, site of Dallas’ finest patio and pints for the epicuriously inclined. !No BYOB!

Zanzibar will be joined by our favorite itinerant Snail and traveling Melodica player, David L. Price. Not only is Dave a traveling Melodica player, but he is also a traveling melodica player. Ever heard a melodica? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodica .... if so, probably not like this.

We will also be unveiling copies of our new long player BROWN DWARF, a power drone odyssey featuring the strings of Josh McWhirter going all conrad, wrapped around staticky incursions that delve dangerously deep within the innerspace, to the point of explosion and decay, danger and delay.

Also, Zanzibar we will be joined once again by Mike M. the SUBkommander, who has his own special treat planned for his performance with the SUBkommander Gamelan Orchestra blowout on Friday at 8pm at Avenue Arts. Michael C. from Zanzibar will take part, as well as special guests Rob Filth (Aphonic Curtains) and the Yells at Eels electric inversion klezmer ensemble.

ye shall not pass thro' this nicht unscathed.

12/31/07 News

2008-01-31T05:27:00.000-08:00

12/31/07

Zanzibar has a boatload of new show announcements for 2008 ….

First up we'll be playing at the Cavern in Dallas on Wed, January 16 with Six Organs of Admittance and Dust Congress. Tix are $10 advance. Joining us for this show will be the notorious SUBkommander, Mike Maxwell.

Then a show at the F6 Gallery in Arlington on Saturday, January 26 as part of a multimedia showcase titled "That's Not Art." .

We've also been invited to play part of the Melodica Fest Block Party at Expo Park (somewhere in the hood, Sloppyworld being the center of the event) on Fri or Sat, Feb. 22 or 23. Fest headliners include Sonic Boom/Spectrum, Silver Apples, Light Bright Highway, Sub Oslo and many more.

And finally (for now) we're playing Austin again during SXSW on Saturday, March 15 as part of this year's installment of the Strategies of Beauty fest at the Chain Drive. Confirmations so far include Shiny Around the Edges and Benko with many more to be named.

By then we hope to soon have two new full-length or long EP releases for your ears, one epic power drone piece titled BROWN DWARF featuring Josh McWhirter on viola, and one ethereal/organic odyssey titled VANADIUM DREAM, featuring SUBkommander Mike on live electronics. Both are tentatively scheduled for release on MAYYRH Records in March.

12/3/07 News

2008-01-31T05:09:00.000-08:00

12/03/2007

OUT NOW

Zanzibar Snails KRAKKATOWIAK 3-inch EP

MYH04. 3-inch CD. 17-minute studio recording featuring David Price on percussion, handmade design by Nevada Hill and David Price. $6 postpaid. For more info, click on the album cover on the front page.

Also available at fine Dallas/Denton retailers Good Records, Recycled Records, and Strawberry Fields, as well as (soon, we understand) Portland, ME’s excellent Time-Lag Records .

The Snails were also featured on the recent Silber Records comp Silber Sounds of Halloween, available for free download . The track is titled “spectres gaping maw,” and was recorded live at the House of Tinnitus in August

LIVE ACTIONS

After a recent rash of live actions that found the Snails supporting the immortal Silver Apples, psyche warriors Suishou no Fune and ST37 and Rahdunes, Appalachian noise merchants Mugu Guymen and Social Junk, and local Dallas/Denton sensations Dust Congress and Nouns Group, the Snails are breaking, while sifting through hours of recordings with an eye towards assembling our first full-length for 2008. Stay tuned.

RECENT REVIEWS

Reviews of Introdewcing …. The Zanzibar Snails and iDi*amin’s “B.C.E.” are found in Mats Gustafsson’s excellent The Broken Face. Also, DFW blog kings We Shot J.R. reviewed the D & N 3-inch this summer - scroll down to July 5.

We’d also like to direct your attention to the new PaperStain Records site, home of MAYYRH brother bands Notes From Underground, Modern History Duet, Douche, Shiny Around the Edges, and more … hopefully sometime in 08 we’ll be contributing a piece for PaperStain’s 7-inch series.