This short release is a taster for a forthcoming full length release by Kotra and Zavoloka. Both are from the Ukraine and over the last couple of years they have played together a lot, both live and in the studio. For this release, Kotra returned to playing the bass, ‘clanged and creaked’. Zavoloka ‘has nurtured it and killed it’, it says on the rather beautiful cover. Whatever nurturing and killing may be, it’s hard to trace any sound back to the bass in these five pieces. Five pieces of chilling computerized glitch, with a good ear for a bass sound (that seems to be coming from anything deep end in the plug in section, rather than from a wooden box with four thick strings). Sounds crash like hard drives here, with fierce high end pitches among the deeper end music. Not danceable, hardly ‘warm’, but a truly noise related attack on the senses. Good for the fact that it defies any relation to microsound and clicks ‘n cuts, trying really to melt down all the various influences together and be something new. Makes great expectations for the full length. (FdW)
Review
Zavoloka vs Kotra – to Kill the Tiny Groovy Cat E.P.
Sempre dall’Ucraina, Zavoloka e Kotra, in un progetto collaborativo per la Nexsound, label fondata da Andrey Kiritchenko, assai attiva negli ambiti sperimentali elettronici. Uscita composta da cinque tracce, edita solo in versione cd, densa di minimali destrutturazioni e dissonanze, nello stile alquanto radicale, schizoide ma ineccepibile che nelle libere forme dei loro trattamenti in questa occasione vede i due artisti divisi fra sequenze suonate (Kotra) ed i successivi tagliatissimi montaggi (Zavoloka) operati su parti inizialntemente già concertate e predisposte. Aleggiano fra le righe strutture tipiche della tradizione improvvisativa che ibridate nei flussi contemporanei di matrice glitch’n’click testimoniano d’un aderenza ai tempi non sospetta, attenta e partecipe. Sonorità certo non convenzionali, sintetiche e aliene ma che ancora sanno poeticamente confrontarsi con l’incredibile varietà che circonda le nostre vite.
Aurelio Cianciotta
Zavoloka vs Kotra – to Kill the Tiny Groovy Cat E.P.
Die CD ist nicht nur rosa, nein, sie riecht auch noch so. Aber das ist man von Nexound ja fast schon gewohnt, dass die Verpackung immer voller Details ist. Musikalisch besteht die CD aus digitalem Gezausel für Profis und solche die es auch mal silbrig funky mögen, wie ein guter Raster Noton-Raveslammer. Meist aber ist es definitv eher etwas für die passende Beschallung des heimischen Festplatten-Terrariums.
bleed
Zavoloka vs Kotra – to Kill the Tiny Groovy Cat E.P.
Looking at To Kill the Tiny Groovy Cat shows that brevity can indeed be a virtue. Splayed over just a tidy 16 minutes (not sure it matters whether an ampersand or a versus is applicable for either disc), Zavoloka and Kotra