Z’EV: Man vs. metal

The gripping black-and-white photographs depict an intense man, his head clean-shaven, and a cigarette dangling from his lip as he pounds on titanium and steel. They are photos of metal percussionist Z’EV that appear in the Industrial Culture Handbook published by punk journal RE/Search in 1983. His appearance in the handbook placed him in the lexicon of industrial music, alongside the genre’s founding fathers, Throbbing Gristle, NON and Cabaret Voltaire. But as these acts gained notoriety for their subversive sounds and philosophies, Z’EV remained outside industrial music’s (d)evolution into dance music. Rather, he has continued to summon the hypnotic qualities of reverberating metal by molding not the clang and bang of his performance but the ghostly acoustic feedback that swells between each mallet strike.

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Z’EV spent a lifetime studying various enclaves of music and spirituality from around the world. He has written books on the nature of rhythm and rituals in music and has been a fixture in the avant-garde music scene since the mid-’70s. But for years his records were frustratingly impossible to find. As a result, more people have heard of Z’EV than have experienced his work. That is, until a retrospective CD, titled The Ghost of One Foot in the Grave (Touch), released in 1997, rekindled interest in his work. Several releases have since materialized. And following his latest offering, a revitalizing new work titled Symphony #2 Elementalities on Atlanta’s Blossoming Noise label, Z’EV has embarked on his first tour of the United States, consummating a legacy he started nearly three decades ago.

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Association with industrial music was never disconcerting for Z’EV. “It was just a bunch of people coming from an art background, moving into a proto-punk kind of thing,” he explains. “My relationship with industrial music had to do with the instruments I was using. They were products of high technological industrialization.”

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His sound has more in common with the tonal experimentation of minimalists, such as Tony Conrad and Pauline Oliveros, than the dirge of groups such as Einstürzende Neubauten or Test Dept., who utilize similar instrumentation. “I was never interested in people coming to see a violent thing happen, because it wasn’t violent. It was a powerful thing,” he explains, recalling reviews of early performances. One hometown Bay Area journalist wrote that he manipulates large, metal objects with the look of a concert pianist. But in New York, a writer called him “a man who personifies violence in sound and vision,” and asked “why does this remind me of a guy being jerked around by two vicious Doberman pinschers?”

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The latter review didn’t sit well. “He’s probably someone who cowers during a thunderstorm,” Z’EV huffs. “Some people revel in a thunderstorm and others get scared. It’s an elemental thing and people’s relationship to them determines if it’s something scary or something to embrace.”

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Z’EV’s metal of choice is titanium, which he discovered at a Bowing scrap yard in Seattle circa 1982 where he acquired surplus materials salvaged from the cooling system of missile silos from Triton submarines. “When the rocket shoots out of the sub, you have to cool the interior of the silo or it would melt the submarine,” he adds with childlike enthusiasm. “Titanium can become white hot and maintain structural integrity. The more heat and pressure that’s used to create a metal creates energy potential. When you hit titanium, it amplifies the sonic energy it puts out.”

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This potential howls during his performances. Z’EV’s instruments include steel sheets and boxes, titanium tubes, a gong made from a patio-table base and a section from the tank of an 18-wheeler. Each is played with various mallets and maracas that have been altered with ball bearings. Z’EV’s MO is to utilize the scraps of industry, drawing out both the massive and meditative qualities of metal. He fully acknowledges the artistic notions of turning swords into plowshares but, most importantly, his performance channels the power of pure, harmonic sound.