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Zone Six, Live Spring 2017: Zuckerregen

zone six live spring 2017

On a certain level, what you see is what you get with Zone Six‘s Live Spring 2017. Or, to put it another way, it lives up to its title — and by that I mean its four tracks were recorded onstage earlier this year. It is the second so-far-digital-only live offering from the German space explorers in 2017 behind Forever Hugo, which was posted in March, and if the band wanted to press up physical copies of either or both releases for Sulatron Records, I doubt they’d meet with many complaints. As to why the uptick in activity — you might recall their 2015 studio album, Love Monster (review here), came out following an 11-year break — the fact that 2017 marks 20 years since the band got their start in 1997 might have something to do with it, or it might just be a coincidence of having shows recorded. Whatever the case, my general policy as regards projects involving Dave “Sula Bassana” Schmidt — see also: Electric Moon, Sula Bassana, Krautzone, Papermoon (who desperately need to put out another record), etc. — certainly applies here as well.

Helming the mixing and mastering as well as drums and synth, Schmidt is joined in this incarnation of Zone Six by guitarist/noisemaker Rainer Neeff and bassist/noisemaker Komet Lulu — both of whom have also played in Krautzone and the latter of whom is a co-founder of Electric Moon — and where Love Monster also including the synth specialist Modulfix to round out a four-piece lineup, one can hardly complain about some lack of wash on the part of Live Spring 2017, the four instrumental inclusions of which top a full 65 minutes beginning with the opener and longest track (immediate points) “Touch Down Heidi,” a 26-minute plunge into acid-drenched space-scaping and swirl-laden spontaneous creation. Improv is clearly at the root, and like the best of jam-based heavy psychedelia the European underground has to offer — incredible how much of it Schmidt is involved in crafting; one waits for the day he and Dr. Space finally collaborate — Live Spring 2017 brings listeners to the very core of Zone Six‘s exploratory process, brought to bear as it happened at two separate gigs, in Heidelberg, Germany, and Liege, Belgium.

That’s particularly noteworthy as there is a difference in the audio between one gig and the other. The aforementioned opener and the subsequent “Song for Richie” (14:55) were captured by Buddha Sentenza drummer Thomas “Jesus Malverde” Traub and “Mäusedisco” (12:14) and closer “Raining Sugar Cane Ritual” (11:57) taken from a video recorded by Schmidt himself during the Belgian show, but to be honest, each piece is of a distinct enough character and the flow between them is so immersive that the listener has to make a concerted effort to notice. By the time Zone Six have made their way through “Touch Down Heidi,” which is followed by some well-earned applause that surprises nonetheless if only because it’s so easy to forget as the song plays out that human beings were there to witness it — and/or exist at all — someone taking on Live Spring 2017 is either going to be hypnotized to its procession or they’re not, and I suspect that, as a digital live outing without wider or physical distribution or promotion, those who do embark on the journey are will do so purposefully and with some sense of knowing what they’re going to get.

zone six

Does that mean Live Spring 2017 is a fan piece? Maybe. But it’s not just a fan piece, and whether it’s the emotionally resonant melancholy of the guitar in “Song for Richie,” which is dedicated to fallen comrade Richard Van Ess, or the semi-tribalist percussive force that emerges in “Mäusedisco,” there is a continual shift in presentation on the part of Zone Six that makes each of the four improvisations stand out from the others, beginning with the textured drones of “Touch Down Heidi” that give way to the album’s most Hawkwindian thrust — met with suitable howling lead work from Neeff — and wrapping with the patient and pastoral wash of “Raining Sugar Cane Ritual,” which skillfully meanders from a launch of drone and effects wash into a dreamscape progression that, even with a rawer, bootleg-style recording, rings out with decided spaciousness.

Of course, it’s chemistry between LuluNeeff and Schmidt making any of that possible, and without that basic but hard-won element, just about any release featuring 65 minutes of improv jamming would be excruciating rather than so joyously consuming, but maybe it’s not a surprise that 20 years on Zone Six are in such a place as to be able to enact that degree of interaction. If that’s what they’re looking to emphasize or at least document with Live Spring 2017, then like Forever Hugo before it, one can only call their efforts successful. As a live album, its mission is different from what a studio record would want to present, but since organic performance and root creativity is so much the point of what Zone Six do, this context suits them from the extended opener onward, and subtle touches like arranging the songs from longest to shortest or how the colors of the cover art seem to draw the eye toward the center like layers of the earth or the band’s own creative process in diagram form allow for a multi-tiered experience on the part of the audience.

And it should go without saying that for those outside of Germany or the greater European sphere who may or may not ever get to see Zone Six live, Live Spring 2017 touches on some of the distinction they bring to their sound and approach, while also giving the now-trio a chance to contemplate where the last two decades have brought them and the progressive krautrock-infused heavy psychedelia they helped shape. Campaigning for an outfit to press CDs of a digital release hardly seems like the most impartial way to wrap up a review, but screw it, I’m a fan of Schmidt‘s work in any number of outfits and I carry a deep respect for the aesthetic he’s helped foster through Sulatron Records, so take it for what it is. Live Spring 2017 may or may not ever get pressed up as it should, but even if it stays relegated to the internet’s crowded ether, it shows what has allowed Zone Six‘s work to remain vibrant for the last 20 years and the unconstrained spirit that will no doubt continue to carry them for as long as they want to go.

Zone Six, Live Spring 2017 (2017)

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One Response to “Zone Six, Live Spring 2017: Zuckerregen”

  1. Zone Six says:

    Hi JJ!

    Thanks a lot for the review!

    Here is also some live video footage from the 1st two tracks on Live Spring 2017!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgvnkWbFiZs&t=8s

    and

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_axjh-9mOA

    Cheers and love and space outta the Zone Six!

    Lulu

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