4 out of 5

Label: Atavistic

Produced by: Matteo Spinazzè

Another challenging and summarily rewarding experience from Zu and cohorts.  This time the pairing is with Nobukazu Takemura, an artist with whom I’m not familiar, but his history – branching from the DJ crowd into the abstract and experimental – is fascinating, and definitely befitting of a similarly no-genre-can-hold-us minded group like Zu.  Indeed, collecting these like-minds makes for a record that’s initially confounding for those expecting Albini-esque rockouts a la Igneo or even more direct jam sessions as in their Chadbourne team ups; several tracks on Identification are almost akin to white noise at first listen.  Of course, multiple listens are a requirement for groups / pairings like this, and help part the curtain to hear the restrained passion scripting these compositions, forming a brilliantly rippling surge of electronic and organic forces that push into one another.  Occasionally the Zu we maybe expect breaks free – spastic drumming on The Culprit, some full riffing here and there – but it’s not without computation; it’s not a full storm, but rather tempered by Nobukazu’s manipulations.  Which, again, once you get the temperature down, is a head bobbing experience, rhythms emerging from what was once bloops and stutters.  The mid-album, 12-minute Usual Conversations With Yama remains, to my ears, oblique, though, which makes the disc’s flow hit an unfortunate stopping point.  It’s interesting conceptually, but I can’t quite fit it into the larger scheme, and maybe I’m guilty of skipping it on occasion.  But Identification, on the whole, is another winning entry into Zu’s catalogue, if not Nobukazu’s as well.