One man's journey through the evolution of his interpretation of pain.


Certainly one of the stranger releases I recently reviewed was Bryan Lewis Saunders' 'N1-N4 Variations', of him talking in his sleep. Here he has another set of spoken word - four stories and an introduction of the word 'Daku'. It can be love, time, god or anything. Its meaning is its use, Saunders says. Saunders recites his texts, or rather tells his stories and Z'EV uses his voice to create the music. Z'EV's recent outings in electronic music, say 'Forwaard' and 'Outwaard', where he processes environmental sounds and which are far away from his usual percussion based work (although nothing new for him, as Z'EV also created text sound pieces in the earlier days of his career). Even when following the text is something that I don't always do, concentrating more on the texture of the voice in combination with the music, this is a great story telling release. Saunders has a great voice, telling stories about being sick and pain that grabs the listener, while Z'EV provides a fine soundtrack to it. The voices are transformed into animalistic cries and whispers, adding scary elements to the music. I'm not entirely sure if it is meant as such but there is an uneasy, horror like element that is part of this music. Excellent radioplay stuff. - Frans de Waard

DAKU Riveting narratives by Johnson City’s “Brainsander”, who’s had collaborative involvement with artists such as Sage Francis. This time, the work is fed into the hands of ‘rhythmajikal’ American percussionist Z’EV, who processes Saunders’ voice through a gauntlet of intensive editing to enhance the tension and make you feel even more connected. For a spoken word poet, we have quite a character: he’s made about 7,000 self-portraits by now, drawing himself at least once a day since 1995. “Day after day expelling demons, stress, anxiety, fears… You know - the garbage we go through everyday in life and dumping it out like trash in one big continuous creative act. For years it kept me introverted, so I got into storytelling as a way to come out of my shell and share, you know - to balance it out”. I guess that unless you’re a discerning connoisseur of sickness/suffering, and you’re willing to accept your share of it, it takes a certain amount of work to appreciate DAKU’s haunting confessions/metaphors. But the good news is they all fall into place, and you won’t fell like you don’t belong to them. According to the intro, “DAKU” has its meaning is its use (i.e. contextual placement) - linguistic superstitions born from our own daily conversations… - Doru/The Cookshop