ZED is the name of a late-classic Electronic/quasi-Zeuhl project, with an important pioneer and front-man in the person of Bernard SZAJNER, but also made out of a collaboration with good artists, some of them present in highly respectable and artistic ensembles of that classic scene and period. Not in vain, but neither in a too acute irony, are the ideas that ZED further completes a progressive branch/"family" of music, since Szajner's work is, more or less profoundly, associated with that of Richard PINHAS, HELDON or MAGMA, as also of course with the leading patterns of TANGERINE DREAM, Klaus SCHULZE, or, most scantly, ENO and JARRE (and GONG!!). Anyway you take it, ZED is an interesting project dating back in the extremity of the 70s, with a definite electronic program and a more arbitrary connection with the Zeuhl (artistic, acid) spirit.
Szajner is regarded, most of the times, as an outstanding electronic technician, creating the Laser Harp for many artists of the new generation, easily working on materials that contain from psychedelic/rock top ideas to Zeuhl or industrial touching sounds to finally some new-wave/pop-electro late sound-tracks, and developing inspirational laser shows, as well as growing a couple of DJ qualities, much after his best period and his synthesized, synthetic edge of creativity. His ideas, inventions, efforts, influences and interpretations did not make him see himself as, necessarily, a musician, nevertheless Szajner is an artist among artists, at least in the electronic scene, if not in the French Electro-Rock field as well. For ZED, at least, his music is reflected as a class study, a moderately impressive moment of art and a grand scale of electronic works, sketched minimally, yet played with a pleasant deep bounce.
Not to forget, forming ZED are also guitarist Colin Swinburne (a familiar artist for every BACHDENKEL fan), drummer Clement Bailly (Richard PINHAS’s good collaborator), bassist Hanny Howe and vocalists Klaus Basquiz (from MAGMA) and Anannka Raghel - the vocals being either treated, either synthesized on the album. Szajner, as main musician, particularly chooses synthesizers, arps, laser plat generators or digital instruments, effecting (and slightly affected) the major chemistry of the music.
"Visions Of Dune" comes as a powerful work for any electronic tasters that are eager to see a bright flame of music and style being conceived out of a low-fuelled spark, plus to any fans that would like to hear a fully-conceptual (and hard-styled, to add) music based on the great Dune works by Frank Herbert. The entire lean on the novel's symbols is fully visible, through the note of each piece representing a character or a fixed idea from the fiction, and afterwards through its swiftly diverse and complex music. Szajner and his colleagues create a powerful impression of dryness, strangeness and coldness, which follows and could describe the harsh environment, the spicy essences or the sensual thrillers from Dune's story; more significantly are, though, the many electronic values that are used, in a minimal but not too puzzling way. The Zeuhl feeling in ZED's work could reside from a bit of synthetic, groovy or muscular art that flows at some point, otherwise the analogue, sequential, electro-melodic elements dominate, being combined into a result of contrasts but also of a courageous shower of motions. "Visions Of Dune" is an interesting and good project, unexpectedly low on ambient expressions, instead a bit dangerously keen on artificial, experimental or monotonous flares.
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