Melbourne Heat Beat octet NO ZU recently dropped their second album, Afterlife, to a deafening roar of delighted approval from fans, critic, and radio programmers alike.
They’ve had feature albums on Triple R, FBI, RTR, and 2SER, stellar reviews everywhere from The Age to Pitchfork, and they hosted Triple J’s Mix Up program all last month.
They’re taking their 16-legged percussive punk-funk machine on the road, hitting all the major centres around the nation later this month – check below for dates and ticketing details.
Somehow, we still managed to get Nic from the band to find the time to share his and the band’s biggest inspirations both old-school and contemporary and it’s quite the list.
Vendetta Palace – ‘Pressure Time’
Sent to me on Monday by Jordan Dolheguy, who has done most of our artwork, including, Afterlife – with no explanation. I know why JD sent this track to me though – it’s an unspoken aesthetic and musical connection we share. He knows NO ZU well and i’m sure he recognised something of us in this track that i’ve never heard before, in fact, I’ve never even heard of the band before. Amazingly perfect punk-funk groove track that feels like home instantly. A good example of how ZU ideas and inspirations are often annonymous or dismembered sounds from the history of groove and percussive music that simply connect themselves to the collective ZU brain, embed their impressions then disappear, laying in wait until the subconcious draws on them in the heat of the Heat Beat.
The Slits – ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’
Oh mumma, I was obsessed with this song around about 2004 or 2005 or so. Sonically, it was everything. Attitude, it was everything. Playful, percussive, light, deep, and Ari Up’s controlled/not controlled vocal cracks where it should crack and quivers where it should to cut you deep in the heart. Perfectly imperfect music that is bold and sure-footed chaos. That’s all i’ve ever wanted to do with the ZU.
Mondo Rock – ‘Chemistry’
Resist the urge to just hear the hi gloss cheese. This is chemistry. This is Australian pop-groove. A friend, Chloe, introduced me to this track recently when explaining a similarity in some ZU clothing choices to those seen in this video. She had a point. I like to think we have at least 20% after-hours sex-dungeon going on in the stage wear though also… Anyway – give me that chorus for eternity please. Such pop boldness will never be a focus of NO ZU, but decontextualised elements from tracks like this, that melt the body, are always bubbling under the surface ready to explode hot lava over more abstract Heat Beat sounds.
Severed Heads – ‘Petrol’
Take a three year old me, Joy Division/New Order on a drive through the Simpson desert in a Lamborghini in 45 degree heat without AC in 1985 thank you. That’ll be fun. I’ve been getting drip-fed Severed Heads for all my adult life while never sitting down for the full meal. Everything I ever hear or notice blows my bloody socks off like the exhaust of a muscle car.
Fashion – ‘Love Shadow’
A favourite to DJ as of the last few months. A passionate chugging catwalk of a slap-bass groove that has you begging for that dopamine drop chorus and sound effect. It’s hard for me to resist a track with spoken word as a bridge too, especially when it sounds so hot and steamy.
No Fixed Address – ‘We Have Survived’
When we played a Goodgod Smallclub (RIP) birthday bash a few years back, Bart Willoughby from No Fixed Address was on the bill too and that’s how I found out about them. “You can’t change the rhythm of my so-ooul”. An amazingly direct and powerful song of survival by the first nation’s people from the brutal and illegal colonisation of Europeans on our continent – one that the larger Australian society still hasn’t fessed up to properly and is in fact still engaging in an institutionalised cover-up. Bart wrote this song when he was 18! …18! This upbeat reggae groove has so much bite it’ll eat you up your head and spit your eyes out like pips – forever seeing the simple truth of our forgetful nation while your hips will move with total abandon.
The Rapture – ‘House of Jealous Lovers’
Well, it’s been long enough now for me to express the deep impact of this and ‘Out of The Races and Onto The Tracks’, yeah? I mean, it’s always felt like way too much of an obvious choice when I do lists like this, but hey, I’m trying to bare my ZU-soul here. The ZU is and will always be a bit rough around the edges because of songs filed deep into the memory during impressionable times like this one here. The thing that floored me about The Rapture’s first releases and then this record was the piercing high frequency guitars reminiscent of DNA and a thousand post-punk bands that I love and then the total respect for the beat and anchoring all the outlandishness to it. All I wanted at the time was to find myself in a trance-like state performing music of chaos, rhythm and cowbell and in ZU I found it.
Angelique Kidjo – ‘Batonga’
A recent discovery that Andrew put me onto when it clicked that we were on the same bill for WOMAD as Angelique. We’ve been so lucky to play the shows we have and to be included on the bills we have, playing alongside greats of the endless-sea of amazing body music. It’s really crazy if we stop to think about it, so we don’t. This jam is so infectious and has an optimistic charm and levitating rhythm that keeps you floating all day. South Africa’s Yvonne Chaka Chaka’s track Sangoma gives me that same kind of light headedness that is more addictive than life itself.
Grace Jones – ‘Private Life’
For my last choice I want to go with another track that’s as familiar to me as the Roof Seal ad on TV. Maybe it isn’t to you though? The impact of this song and then the discovery of many many more Compass Point Studio recordings can’t be understated. There was a short period when, as a three piece, NO ZU would drink a lot of dark ale or stout beers trying to play dub with weird synth sounds and delay drenched roto-toms and trumpet and getting completely zonked and lost in it. Although this didn’t really translate into any recordings, the hallmarks of dub and dub-mixing is ever-present in the NO ZU Heat Beat Philosophy™ and the lesson learnt that much can be done with few ideas and a groove says just almost everything about our approach to making music.
NO ZU National Tour Dates
Thursday, 24th March 2016
Waves Nightclub, Wollongong
Tickets: Eventbrite
Sunday, 27th March 2016
Newtown Social Club, Sydney
Tickets: Newtown Social Club
Thursday, 14th April 2016
Mojos, Fremantle
Tickets: Mojos Bar
Friday, 15th April 2016
Babushkas, Perth
Tickets: Oztix
ADELAIDE
Saturday, 16th April 2016
Rocket Bar, Adelaide
Tickets: Moshtix
Saturday, 23rd April 2016
Max Watts, Melbourne
Tickets: Max Watts
