Za!

Las sonrisas nerviosas del público delataban la sospecha de que los ruidos provenientes del lateral derecho del Sonar Hall, eran ellos. Trompeta y baquetas. Papa duPau y Spazzfrica Ehd (ZA!) hacían una entrada gloriosa: por la parte de atrás, nada de salir al escenario como todo el mundo porque ellos no son como todo el mundo. Su creatividad en el directo es desmedida; tanto, como la carga enérgica que desprende cada uno de sus movimientos. Spazzfrica Ehd golpeaba con sus baquetas las vallas de metal que rodean el control de sonido del Hall mientras Papa duPau tocaba la trompeta. Con el público aún boquiabierto, Spazzfrica desaparecía haciendo sonar sus baquetas contra el suelo. Y lo siguiente fue verlos en el escenario, dejándose el sudor en cada guitarreo, en cada golpe de batería. Ruidismo que estremece. Frenazos repentinos que auguraban explosiones noise escandalosas. El directo de ZA! es de lo más estimulante y divertido. Después de “Calonge Terrasa, Kalon-Jah! Tewra-ssah!” llegaron temas de su último trabajo (“Wanananai”) como “Gacela Verde” y “El Calentito”. “Nice from you to be here a la hora de comer”, agradecía Eduard Pou. Así es su directo, cargado de un surrealismo de calidad excepcional. Ruptura de esquemas. Si no, que nos expliquen cómo puede ser que en los últimos minutos de su actuación no tuvieran ningún reparo en demostrar sus escasas dotes bailando break. Me encantaría saber qué dirán de ellos los foráneos presentes en su directo al llegar a sus casas. - Playgroundmag

We know a lot of opinionated people, but we don't know anybody who doesn't like Za! Over the past four years, Papa du Pau and Spazzfrica Ed (best pseudonyms you've ever heard, right?) have been schlepping around Europe playing to every kind of audience imaginable. From metal festivals in Poland, to indie kids on the grounds of a Catalan mansion overlooking the sea, Za! consistently wins over the most pig-headed music nerds with their largely improvisational racket.

Free jazz, noise rock, and afro-beat are three labels you could pull out of your music crit tool kit and slap on the band if you need to. Getting those terms to stick is another matter. As their contemporaries like Battles and Liars mellow, Za! continues to refine the chaos of their live show into amazing seven inches and records. The closest they've got so far was 2011's Megaflow, which triggered a deluge of positive reviews, usually ending in "...but you really need to see them live.”

We filmed them in Vigo, Gallicia, an industrial port city on Spain’s West coast with its own thriving scene, made up of post-punks like Indomitos and Telephones Rouges, and the noisy electro of the Cobras. The crowd was more than welcoming to the band, which is being referred to more and more as the best live band in the Spain. - Vice

Saturday begins slow. Atoms For Peace reset the festival last night, it’s going to take some time to get to that pitch again. Early evening sees Za! (9) try very hard to get things moving again through the mediums of guitar, trumpet and drum kit. Prog rock, free jazz and heavy metal, it’s all in a day’s work for Za! and they draw a sizable crowd because of it. - virtualfestivals.com

Al parecer las peticiones han llegado desde todas partes del globo. ¿Cuál es el secreto del sonido de Za!? Y estos dos jóvenes multintrumentistas, muy diligentes, tratan de resolver en esta nueva entrega de The Furious Sessions el interrogante. El problema es cuando el género que practican es tan complicado como el galimatías con regusto a cerveza que inventan para justificarse. Afortunados aquellos que entiendan de malta y lupúlos mezclados con sus cachivaches.

A los estudios Sol de Sants Studios de Barcelona donde se graban estas sesiones eufóricas traen Gacela Verde, salido de Wanananai (Gandula), publicado el pasado 3 de abril. El álbum reúnes 16 nuevos temas de Papa duPau y Spazzfrica Ehd, bajo la dirección de Santi García, con la ayuda de Marco Morgione en Micromaltes.

En su página de Facebook ofrecen alguna pista más. Suenan a varias cosas, todas a la vez: bajos gruesos y distorsiones pesadas, ritmos ancestrales, free-jazz, noise, psicodelia, cantos de los pastores de Tuva, Monty Python, post-rock de capas y capas, drones, electrónica analógica y demás cacharrería. ¿Han entendido algo? No importa, la combinación es posible. Lo saben los ciudadanos del mundo, en concreto de Estados Unidos, Canadá, Rusia, Brasil, Alemania, Suiza, Italia, Inglaterra, Bélgica, Holanda, Francia, Portugal y España. Y lo han gozado otros grupos, con los que han compartido escenario: Yellow Swans, representantes de la música noise, El Guincho o Delorean, en España, incluso artistas de free jazz como Peter Brötzmann.

Por enésima vez, no busquen un animal teñido de un color extraño. Lo mejor es relajarse y entregarse sin más pretensiones que disfrutar del ruido organizado. La creatividad sin alardes. La experimentación improvisada.
- El País

Saturday, 7th July

At about quarter past nine on Saturday my friends are yet to arrive, so after a pleasant set by Toumani Diabate and assorted collaborators I drift into the Ramon Llull tent to watch local duo ZA!, and it is unlike anything I have ever seen. Onstage there is a long-haired blond man hollering unintelligibly into a microphone, a strange, mechanised voice also making its presence felt. The one at the mic is Papa Dupau (pictured), and closer inspection finds the owner of that other voice to be drummer Spazzfrica EHD. Soon Dupau picks up a battered guitar and the pair get down to their instruments, and the result is something that defies – mocks, even – easy categorisation. The tricksiness of Dirty Projectors plays into Dupau’s ranging, blistering guitar lines, perhaps, and there is something of Battles’ John Stanier in EHD’s muscular, pin-sharp percussion, but this group quickly spin into new territory by way of their wildly inventive music. Incorporating myriad pedals, loops, and a trumpet into the remaining hour of the set, Dupau screams like a banshee while a sweaty, topless EHD makes circuits round the tent using anything in his path a percussive tool.
The band are cheered back on for an encore which begins with chopped vocal loops the pair supply while stood at the mic together, holding onto each other lest the force of their cry separate them. EHD eventually returns to his drum-kit and the duo thrash out a massive, white-hot jam. It is incendiary stuff, but not without a sense of joy, either – this is not po-faced, ‘experimental’ music (their stage names might have given that away), rather, music to give yourself over to or simply gaze upon in awe. The end of the set sees Dupau hurl his guitar followed by his microphone into an obliging crowd, both of which find some welcoming suitors. But Dupau and EHD are the real stars of the show, and they embrace to huge, well-deserved applause. If you have any interest in weird, wonderful, willfully original music – if you have any interest in music whatsoever, really – visiting ZA!’s Bandcamp page will probably be the best thing you do all day. - Drowned in Sound

ZA! is a band from Spain known for distorting just about any sound that gets on their way, but not only they distort melody with clashes and obtrusive complementary noise but through the years of existence they have sharpened their explosive vision to something more than just a disorder of sounds, styles and speed. This is definitely an album with international appeal. Za! also blends tropical music and even surveys cultures. Macumba o Muerte is a western-like confrontation between free jazz and hard rock. The opening track comes in quadruple narrative: “Buggamaistah, Spazzfrica Ehd, Papa Dupau vs Ceace”, a jaw-dropping introduction with multi-layered sequences and savage disclosures. What makes the album far more interesting than just the conflictive sounds is where this war takes place; Middle Eastern sites are the witnesses of the attacks and quickly involve themselves as a civilian resistance whose vocals give a recurrent suspension to all that noise. This proposal only elevates itself as it captures the local sounds to give the disarray a bit of direction, such in the double feature “Doble Cobra” which is illustrated like a rapid chase at market where merchants sing along. Za! sounds more like Coconot than El Guincho, but it is hardly blissful, it’s actually a violent tormented ride as intriguing and asymmetric as its awesome artwork. - Club Fonograma (USA)

A melting pot of divergent genres, tastes, cultures, and philosophies that finds itself as a one-of-a-kind gem, “Macumba o Muerte” is yet another sequenced piece of genius from Acuarela.

http://www.smother.net/ - Smother Magazine (USA)

Za! Have published “Macumba O Muerte” this year, a record that confirms that they are one of the most daring and unconventional bands of this decade. Somewhere between free, improvisation and tribal rhythms, the duo crown their greatness with their overwhelming and ever-changing live performances. - Primavera Sound Magazine (Spain)

There’s something fascinating with restless bands as long as they use their restlessness to put their music in a creative direction, using their restlessness as a tool for expression, having the ability to capture the essence of it’s various units. I put on “Macumba o Muerte”, the last release by ZA, the powerful multi-instrumental power trio from Barcelona. Two guys sharing nine instruments and vocals. Having never heard of them , after listening to the first track I started making notes regarding the second: “African thumb piano intro followed by heavy guitar-bass-drums. A feeling of standing in a street corner not knowing which way to chose realising it doesn’t matter, all of them are right. Field recordings of people chatting. Shepherds. Each track split into multiple segments floating in and out of each other. Death metal guitar followed by a bebop trumpet solo followed by a short drum intermission, orchestrated brass and a choir, chants, free form guitar solo…” That was only the second track, ‘Doble Cobra’. Mah God! They explore each cell of my aural system. Anyone interested in plain background music don’t bother, this is not for you. But, if you look at music as a brew of ingredients and influences mixed together to something really tasty, this is your menu. ZA’s relationship to traditional music and electrified heavy rock in odd time signatures do sometimes have some connections with Acid Mothers Temple’s relationship to the same subject. They are as close to heavy metal as they are to traditional music and free form expressions, all played with opened eyes and ears and a huge amount of curiosity: “Can we do like this? Of course we can, it’s just to do it!” Rock ‘n’ roll in 5. It’s not psychedelic music from the past, its heavy psychedelic music for 2009 psychedelic music addicts. - Terrascope Magazine (UK)

ZA has been working in Spain, Barcelona, ZA is.
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Acuarela releases of the original owner of the "the live Yabai anyway! You can call me and come to Japan!" Orimashita I say! - Warszawa Magazine (JAPAN)

Also played and played with Yellow Swans and lightning bolt, also appeared in the local pride Sonar Festival, Barcelona's attention emerged from the psychedelic mass Ekizo three-piece band!
ZA! Even its name ZA! ! (ZS, ZU confusion with care!) Dropped a piece of the tribal elements -Me Ekizo throughout, and mutations were created in the rock mass was not likely unique - psychedelic avant pattern!

Purimitivu reverberate to the chant at the beginning of a Kecak, drum heavy snow Mu suddenly collapsed, leading to a chaotic last takes a while between , the sound of the kalimba chaotic Dari a solid rhythm, guitar and drums in the heavy Ru You will be converted into an exotic landscape from the ding-dong, a jazzy ensemble or pinch them ... and Shiku Toko deployment buckle is tightened while powder of , relaxed and put the horn spread, wrapped in the feeling of floating Komu Spacey , khoomii and interwoven, writing in the Arabic sound and , Meru Dabi air cage submerged in a dense stand, industrial - that Kodama acid sounds, such as gaps in skill intensity and tempo, not an easy job expand, push the listener with a variety of melody, not to tap into things we get tired. masterpiece album! Sugo Irashii they live anyway. Mastering by Bob Weston of Shellac. Great attention! - Chase a crooked shadow (JAPAN)