Record Review // GNOD/ZOHASTRE split (zamzamrec)

€10 //
Edition of 300 //
https://zamzamrec.bandcamp.com/album/gnod-zohastre-split //

Since this record has one track from each artist on a side, I decided it was best to just take some space to write about each side.   Have I heard GNOD before?  I'm sure I've heard ZOHASTRE before though, so this will certainly be interesting.

GNOD starts off with a track called "Looking Suspicious Dub".    It begins with quiet tones and the sound of a drumroll.  As it picks up I hear the ringing of a bell, an air in the background of it and the beats just drop with such large bass.   There is a lot going on at once- it's not easy to distinguish one sound from another, to pick them all apart, but together they can all come through like a blast, like a nuclear bomb going off.   I begin to hear the robotics, the Transformers.  But there is still that beat which makes this have a rhythm which you can dance to or just move in general.   Is it normal to feel like you want to dance at the end of the world?  Would you listen if I told you these were post-apocalyptic break beats?

ZOHASTRE has a track now on the flip side called "Tarantella".    Magical tones make the sound of one turning a music box as the drums roll along.   This changes over to a walking vibe now.   Alien lasers come through the background and it feels like we're just taking a walk around the block, saying hi to our neighbors and waving at passing cars only this is all being done in space, on a different planet with a different species, and it just doesn't feel abnormal at all.  Tones begin sort of beeping in the background and now I'm thinking of this as being more like a spaceship taking off, which might just be what it has evolved into.   It feels a bit like a harmonica now, which makes me think of folk/country, but this also happens to be when the beat drops big. 

Between these two tracks, there are similarities in the beats and the fact that neither of them seems to stop moving.  I do believe that, aside from the whole radio experience, a lot of 7" records like this are used by DJs, right?  So they just put on one song if they have a turntable and speakers.   Either of these would be great to put on at any sort of party just to see how the crowd would react.   Though ZOHASTRE might not be as widely accepted by the normal people, I do think GNOD could get anyone up to dance and this record on a whole is just so much good energy.