Zoviet France: Classic or Dud?

MOHNOMISHE, JUST AN ILLUSION, VIENNA, WHAT IS NOT TRUE? and THE DECRIMINALISATION OF COUNTRY MUSIC all blow my mind on a regular basis.

the first 3 rapoon cds are great too although i feel they lost their way a little after that

As for solo stuff, I like some of Mark Spybey's stuff (although I don't know if he really counts as a member...). The Propeller CD (the one with the scrap metal sleeve) and Dead Voices On Air's Shap are great.

where can these be found? all i have is mp3s

Wow, all of these were in print just a few years ago but it seems the CHARRM label that was rereleasing them has disappeared. So I guess its just used for now.

oh and there's a stomping track called "cad goddeu" literally stomping - the rhythm is like sped-up godzilla steps. i don't know what it's from. "eostre"? i don't trust these tags.

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Zoviet+France

I think Collusion is their best album, even though its not a real album. All the tracks are strong, and it covers styles from their whole career. And its still in print.

decriminalisation of country music - c/d?

C

Decriminalisation of country music is fantastic!

I dunno, it's soooo front loaded - nothing approaches the awesome peak of Something Spooked the Horses. It's the only track which really takes on the country music conceit, and I wish they'd carried it forward more. I do like the other tracks but after that dominating slide guitar they all seem kind of hollow.

Decriminalisation of Country Music is pretty damned classic, but I'd agree that it's a bit front-loaded.

Album reminds me of when I lived in Chicago and would walk around in the winter down by the lake.

DoCM is classic classic classic

There is another thread somewhere where I debate a bit with Mark Spybey concerning the merits of post-Storey Zoviet France. I could swear I read some interview ages ago where there was a reference to the band members having made some sort of lifetime pact to never break up or do solo stuff, which obviously didn't last and might be my imagination. I think later ZF work like Digilogue and DoCM and (ESPECIALLY) Mort Aux Vaches are really high quality, if a bit different in focus than the earlier classics. Less "ethnic music made by aliens" type stuff and more drone-bliss is just fine with me.

decriminalisation of country music - c/d?

this was commissioned for the opening of a big arts space in glasgow called the tramway. they then performed an interpretation of it at the opening. it was wonderful.

They will do a live performance again, opening for Lustmord http://incubate.org/2011/artist/72/Zoviet+France

Live performances these days are rare but not unheard of, they played in London earlier this year. I say "they" but aside from Ben I have no idea who is in the line-up these days or even if it's more or less his solo project.

The string of albums from 1987 (A flock of Roations, Loh Land, Assault and Mirage) is one hell of a run. I cannot get enough of that stuff.

don't forget Gesture Signal Threat! Misfits/Loony Tunes always seemed a little less amazing to me though.

going through youtubes of the early albums I hadn't heard (I'd heard Garista, Gris, Oestre) and... this band sure was good

pretty much everything they did after the Hessian/burlap record is essential imo. sucks that all of it is OOP and insanely expensive.

only heard DoCM but a great album.

How the fuck did I miss that Zoviet France has been podcasting. For awhile too!
http://zovietfrance.podbean.com

tremendous show in SF on Saturday. maybe just rationalizing, but sorta glad that I'm not familiar with their recorded output, had no expectations going in. i was surprised by the hi-def sound palette (think I heard a peaceful forest at one point), less surprised by the droning overlay of dooooom.

their record output (the stuff i know anyway) covers a pretty broad sound palette tbf

I was at that show and "tremendous" was not the adjective I would use to describe my experience

shouting @ the ground

what'd you think of it sarahell?

i missed the openers btw, just caught last hour of ZF's set.

I am a pretty big fan, and I thought the set was outstanding. They could put it out without an edit. Doesn't sound like the 80's, but still has that aesthetic of muddying the line between acoustic sounds you can't quite identify and electronics.

Two nord racks, effects, field recording playback, and a table of tiny flutes / harps / noisemakers next to a microphone. Obviously totally improvised, but fantastic pacing with great builds & shifts & turning of corners. Great to get to see which sounds were being mixed, and which generated live, after years of listening to records where you often did not have a clue what was going on.

who's in the z.f. lineup this month

i don't believe that 32 minutes is possible per side with zero issues. Especially with a recording as dynamic as this. I guess we shall see......

2nd box is now sold out, standalone LPs still available

https://www.vod-records.com/SHOP-1-6.htm

dang I am so psyched for the two unreleased albums and More Collusion, and absolutely thrilled that the long track from Bad Alchemy #10 ("Spike") is on there.

OMG thank you sleeve. just ordered JAi and STOTS. xmas comes early!

happy to help!

wow, lotta stuff here for download as well as listening

https://soundcloud.com/zoviet-france

A most useful tip! Pity I missed them in SF by a year...

Wowowow, last week I came closer than ever to shelling out a fortune for Shadow, Thief so I'm so glad I saw this.

awesome, yeah get in here ILM lurkers and fans, these are gonna sell out soon

FYI the 1st "unreleased" album (The End Of Nothing, The Beginning Of Everything) is actually the previously-grey-area "Music For A Spaghetti Western" but it has been retitled and has actual track names now, and more tracks than the original 4.

That is great to hear. Any insights into "Russian Heterodoxical Songs"?

not yet... hoping that isgenuinely unreleased. and to clarify above, what I mean is that the long track (Scene 2) appears to have been broken up into a bunch of individual tracks, there is no extra material but there are more tracks and they have new names.

Are you sure about the above, sleeve? Having now listened to The End... I don't think it's the same as Music from a Spaghetti Western.

not 100%, but there's a sample in the latter that has the title of the former? my box won't be here for a while yet I assume

got my copy of Shadow, Thief of the Sun

yay

although

I don't understand why it's a 3LP with two blank sides, rather than the 2LP it claimed to be ...

Mine is 2LP FWIW.

That's strange that you got a 3LP version. mine is 2LP too.

Yeah it's a 2LP with three sides of music and one blank side.

hoping this shows up on the West Coast in the next week or so

I thought maybe the two single-sided discs would be identical, but no. I'll post pictures of the label art later.

Did you order multiple records? I got two 2LPs but the 4 overall discs were split into 2 packages, one with 1 disc the other with 3. I panicked because I thought I was missing a disc and emailed VOD but figured out they just moving the v records around to cut down the shipping cost.

ohhhh that could be it, yeah

Are you sure about the above, sleeve? Having now listened to The End... I don't think it's the same as Music from a Spaghetti Western.

― joni mitchell jarre (anagram), Thursday, November 5, 2020 4:37 AM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

not 100%, but there's a sample in the latter that has the title of the former? my box won't be here for a while yet I assume

― howls of non-specificity (sleeve), Thursday, November 5, 2020 6:57 AM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was wrong, and it isn't. totally riveted right now on my first listen.

Russian Heterodoxical Songs is astonishing, a worthy addition to the canon right in between JAI and LIM

Listen to Misteltan (Live Winter Solstice 2019) by :zoviet*france: on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/4KEVj

hands in the air ambient

Châsse 3

<3 <3 <3

Most beautiful and integrated package so far, no oddball 7"s or blank sides, just eight gorgeous double albums

I had not actually caught up with 7.10.12 or Tables Are Turning so I am enjoying those a lot

unreleased 2LP "A Long Walk" is good as well

lots and lots of perfectly executed lock grooves this time around

yeah the fact that they had done a Motorhead cover was an interesting discovery.

lol wait what? I missed that somehow

Bomber, it's on the Third Collusion album that mops up various tracks originally released on singles, compilations etc.

Somebody on Discogs has uploaded pictures of this release which have me salivating. Way out of my price range unfortunately but looks magnificent

Bomber, it's on the Third Collusion album that mops up various tracks originally released on singles, compilations etc.

my brain is exploding that they covered it, though listening now on YT and of course they "cover" it as only ZF could.

waiting for this still, but very, very happy that "The Decriminalisation Of Country Music - Themes For Tramway" is finally on vinyl. i was at the live performance they did of it in Glasgow.

i was hoping they would include "Patina Pooling" in this box so i could offload my copy as it is flaking bits of rust all over the place.

xp the albums are being released as individual 2LP standalone as well, 24 euros + shipping via VOD website

Their podcast, "A Duck in a Tree," is worth a listen.

absolutely

lotta cool stuff on their Soundcloud as well

I loved Popular Soviet Songs and Youth Music from 1985, and the 2004 cd edition was fantastic, bound between two round gray felt pieces cut from black market Red Army caps, and held together with a Soviet military pin

lotta cool stuff on their Soundcloud as well

Yes, including a 2018 live recording from Kyiv which they've made available free but are requesting donations for Ukraine disaster relief.

this is blowing my mind still, from the Rapoon thread:

Some of the late 80's - early 90's ZF records were Robin Storey solo with other members just contributing artwork... A Flock of Rotations, Assault and Mirage, Shouting at the Ground, Just an Illusion and Shadow, Thief of the Sun, at the very least.

really? is this confirmed anywhere? so ben ponton only contributed artwork to these???

― stirmonster, Wednesday, March 16, 2022 5:25 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Info was on the now-dead unofficial ZF website which had detailed music/production/artwork credits for the whole discography.

― atonar, Thursday, March 17, 2022 5:40 AM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Found it on archive.org:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120320095815/http://www.the-edge.ws/zoviet/disc.html

― atonar, Thursday, March 17, 2022 5:45 AM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Had also heard this at the time from the person who ran DOVe who released 'Shadow...' - arguments around credit and attribution were largely the cause of the fracturing of the group. In any case you can hear the pretty sharp change in sound from 1992 on.

― atonar, Thursday, March 17, 2022 5:50 AM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

thanks for the link - fascinating!

93's What Is Not True is one of my very favourite ZF releases but it's undeniable that it is a radical change of sound.

― stirmonster, Thursday, March 17, 2022 6:13 AM (five days ago)

Storey talks a bit more about it in this interview:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010218131126/http://www.pretentious.net/Rapoon/articles/tdr.htm

lol what

I will prob never hear these, but it's a cool idea

via their FB:

Our first NFT (non-fungible tape)
By speeding them up by a factor of several hundred and using extreme audio compression, we've discovered that the entirety of our unreleased recordings will fit onto this 3-minute loop cassette. This will be made available as a one-off exclusive release of its own that will be sold in a private auction tomorrow. The cassette will come with details on the the speed factor used and an explanation of how to decompress the audio. Once sold, these recordings will never be made available again.
To register your interest in participating in the auction, please add your name as a comment on this post.

dude, check the date

ahahaha got me