Bluer Than Blue
Zzaj Productions
CD
reviewed by: Kevin
Rotcod Zzaj is Dick Metcalf who is the one of the guiding lights of the Olympia, Washington improv and experimental scene. He also publishes a fine zine called Improvijazzation Nation. Reading through some of that should give you an insight into this strange, but cool psyche. He's released a ton of collaborative efforts on his own CDR label and was kind enough to send a couple up to Seattle for us to check out. The other is ".calm" which is also reviewed in these webpages. For this album, Zzaj collaborated with the poet/guitarist Ernesto Diaz-Infante. The first two thirds of the album is Ernesto reading and Zzaj playing keyboards. This had a sort of strange lounge meets 70s synthesizer stuff that isn't my cup of tea but would appeal to fans of that stuff. The exception to this was the song "Overspeak" which I dug a lot for it's dark qualities. The last third is the strongest. It features Ernesto on guitar with Zzaj on keyboards. This is a little bit closer to strictly improv-sounding stuff, but the guitar does an excellent job of offsetting the keyboard and adding interesting timbres.
Unit
Circle Music