Z'EV
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Z'EV (born Stefan Joel Weisser, at 7:58 a.m. on February 8, 1951 in Los Angeles, California) is an American text-sound artist and mystic who is perhaps best known for his work as a catacoustic (reflected sound-based) percussionist.
z'ev requests that people note that either Z'EV or z'ev are acceptable typographies for his "brand name" (context depending), but that Z'ev most emphatically is not.
History
After studying at CalArts with Concrete poet Emmett Williams, he produced works using the name S. Weisser, primarily concentrating on visual and sound poetries. In 1972, he was included in the "Second Generation" show at the Museum of Conceptual Art in San Francisco.
Beginning in the early 1970s, he developed a personal technique utilizing self-developed instruments formed from industrial materials such as stainless steel, titanium, and PVC plastics. Initially these instruments were assemblages of these materials with a movement-based performance style that was a form of marionette (although with the performer visible). He has since come to refer to this performance mode as 'wild-style', a term originally related to graffiti.
It was at this time that he began performing using the name Z'EV, which comes from the Jewish name his parents gave him at birth: Sh'aul Z'ev bn Yakov bn Moshe bn Sha'ul.
While but one of the progenitors of the ‘industrial movement’ (see Industrial Culture Handbook) he is, however, fairly solely responsible for delivering the ‘tribal’ impulse and esthetic into the Western/European cultural milieu developing between the years 1978-1984.
In Nov./Dec. 1980 he introduced intense metal based percussion music to the UK and Europe while opening for Bauhaus on their first headlining tours there.
In 1981, 'Shake Rattle & Roll', a VHS video documenting his first wild-style performance on the East coast (produced by video artist John Childs), was released by Fetish Records in the UK and was the first ‘music’ / art video to be commercially released.
Since 1984, he has been concentrating on performing in a more traditional mallet-percussion style, albeit with highly idiosyncratic and 'extended' mallet percussion techniques and his 'self-made'/adapted instruments.
Both performance modes, (wild-style and mallet percussion), have been described as cacophonous when considered in Western terms, because of the dense elemental acoustic phenomena his instruments produce. In point of fact, Z'EV doesn't actually consider the results as "music" per se, but more as orchestrations of highly rhythmic acoustic phenomena.
It is also worth noting that he does not consider his performances as solos, but rather as the unique inter-reactions between: (himself + his instruments) + (the particular physical space of the performance), (the particular time and geographic location of the performance) and (the energies of the audience).
While the first two will of course remain the same, a change in any of the last three will result in a totally different performance.
In 1990 he began working with Amsterdam House Musician, DJ Dano. Their work, also in conjunction with Austrian media artist Konrad Becker, was instrumental in the emergence of the genres known as Gabber and Hard Core.
His work with both text and sound has been influenced by the Middle Eastern mystical system best known as Kabbalah (although not of the Jewish variety), as well as - but not limited to - African, Afro-Caribbean and Indonesian rhythms, musics and cultures. He has studied Ewe (Ghana) music, Balinese gamelan, and Indian tala.
His recordings have been released by labels such as CIP, Cold Spring, Die Stadt, Soleilmoon, Tzadik Records, Subterranean and Touch Records.
Z'EV lives in London, England with Conceptual Artist Barbara Steveni and is contactable at: rhythmajik {at} yahoo {dot} com.
Discography
