If you like your music with a positive, pro-technology and pro-future outlook, ZIA is the band for you.
ZIA has gigged successfully in the competitive New York City scene for nearly a decade. They have had their Rite of Passage: a review by The Village Voice. They developed a following and produced a number of excellent recordings. You can download a bunch of tracks from their web site and order any of the discography.
ZIA is 1990’s music, full of sythesizers and strange instruments. If you aren’t a cultural “old fart”, you’ll love it. Even if you are, you may still love the subject matter. They talk about settling Mars, going back to the Moon, winning the X-Prize and about the simple yearning of all us spacers… to get off this frigging planet. True, ‘filkers’ cover some of the same ground, but they and their material are not suitable for a Lower East music venue. Kids who haven’t even looked up at the seven or so stars in the nightime sky of Manhattan can drink and party to ZIA.
Full disclosure: I’m not exactly unbiased since I know the writer, Elaine Walker, and work with her in the National Space Society. Remember her name. Someday she’ll be running an industrial conglomerate in space.
Photo: D. Amon, all rights reserved
PS: I understand Elaine is moving out of NYC, so I don’t know what is happening with the band. Watch their web site. I’m sure the information will show up there.
Dear Dale
I’m not a cultural old fart but I so have ears.
The music is shockingly bad! It reminds me of rehashed Hazel O’Connor at a shag fest with Gary Newman.
Sub-Apocalyptic drivel on a Cosmic Scale.
AAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
OWWWWWW Dale, Plastic & Mibiru really hurt !!!!
Now you’re going to chew my head off for being a sad old music business hack……. I can see the Tsunami from Belfast looming……
EEEK…..I’m off to bed!
Best
Simon
Some of the MP3 files they have there that I listened to were good, others were almost amareurish even when they were snappy or had good sentiment. Didn’t try them call as I am on dialup. Seemed like the ZIA stuff was better than the solo stuff.
Watch the streaming video
Oh dear……..Oh dear Oh dear!
The singer is quite attractive though!
Best
Simon
Say what you will. I quite like a lot of it, including Nibiru which I don’t find very far off from what was happening in the NYC music scene. And not a lot different from what was playing on a lot of alternative stations.
If you don’t like the production values, well… they weren’t exactly in the monetary class to do a major studio with a Producer getting a large chunk of dosh.
I can’t really compare what’s going on now… I hardly listen to the radio anymore and I’m more interested in alternative bands like this, especially if they’ve a theme different than the same old boring shite 99.9% of the music recorded has.
Much of the music out there is anti-tech, anti-capitalist, anti-american, anti-human even… it may often be good, and I may listen to it. But its’ refreshing to hear something that reflects my *own* values instead of brainless socialist crap.
BTW: I particularly like HiTen. But then I like classical too.
Dear Dale
If you want some challenging & yet very good stuff try the following:-
Lemon Jelly, The Flaming Lips, Royksopp,
Most recodings for electronicaare done at home these days on Cubase or Logic so really there is no excuse for poor production.
Oh yeah….least I forget…… Politics has knob all to do with audio engineering!
Best
Simon
I know a few people who’ve done demos on Qubase; but most of my friends over here in Ireland have gone the full studio/label route. I tend to associate production quality with pro-studio work. Perhaps that is no longer the case.
Politics does have everything to do with “the culture wars”. The avente garde weirdness of NY and London and such places is where the real battles for a libertarian world view will be won or lost. Not to say ZIA is libertarian; but they are at least going my way.
Off the planet.
“Brainless socialist crap?” Try drinking some more beer while listening to it, Dale. That’ll fix you up just fine. Then you’ll be able to ignore the politics for awhile.
Haven’t you got any better photos than that, Dale? Tell you what, you e-mail what you’ve got and I’ll try to clean them up a bit — after Worldcon.
I even play the stuff myself as do most of my musician friends, and there’s a lot of it I love and that is great music… but it is still coming at the world from 180 degrees from where I’m at. I sometimes cringe at the lyrics of some of my old favorites.
As to the photo, the ZIA image is almost found art. They were in the background of a shot of a VIP at the back of the banquet hall that night. I scanned in a standard sized print and clipped and a section that centred on them. Lighting was bad, camera was cheap. I doubt much could be done because without a negative scan – the detail just ain’t there to be had.
Dale, did you ever listen to Peter, Paul and Mary’s album “A Holiday Celebration”? It’s a mixture of some traditional Christmas songs, Jewish songs, some original compositions and finally Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind.” By the end of the album, it’s relatively easy (OK, for this whisky drinking hippie degenerate marathoner) to see the commonalities between our ideas and theirs. OK, the more liberty loving, democratic “leftists” such as PPM. Not the Stalinist ANSWER bunch of loons. (Hmm — should I call them “loons” — loons might get upset.)
OK, if I get the opportunity, I’ll try to get a decent photo of Zia. Should be able to do better than what’s on Samizdata.