The Beginner (CD)

The fourth full length Zea album and the first one on Makkum Records. A full new collection of Zea’s wildly varying songs. Songs that hold no stock in normality or convention and while the ingredients can come from all different corners of the world and from all sorts of styles, the listener will hear this unique form of a song. Joyfully obstinate, energetic and catchy.

“Song For Electricity” is based on the Ethiopian song “Bogiye” (Abonesh Adenew) and the song “Bourgeois Blues” is based on the original Leadbelly song, the lyrics are from a version by The Fall, called “Bourgeois Town”. “The Beginning” is spoken by an old neighbour of Ken Carbonu, the Ghanian musician Zea recorded and played with in Accra, Ghana in 2008. The title “Staande Ben Ik vergeten Wat Ik Dacht Toen Ik Lag” is inspired by a poem of Flemish poet Eddy van Vliet, called “Staande”.

Split label release with Red Wig.

REVIEWS

This is what happens when you give a troubled youth recording equipment. I don’t know what it is that’s happening in Noordwijkerhout, but there’s a lot of stuff coming out of Next to Jaap’s Studio that is worth paying attention to. Next up, ZEA, who is, for want of a better word, insane. Clearly, clinically, certifiably insane. God bless him.

The Beginner is an incredible record. Oh it’s incredibly bonkers, that’s for sure, but it’s so bloody energetic, so bull headed and so schizophrenic in its approach to crafting a tune that you simply can’t fail to be impressed by it. Fancy going to “the place where donkeys grow?” Of course you do. Want to hear somebody ranting about the energy crisis? That’s here. Want to know what armpit elastica is? Step on board. You may not like it all, or find all of it pleasant to listen to but I’m not sure that’s the point of it. I’m not entirely sure what the point is, to be completely honest with you but every time I try to explain this record to somebody I can’t stop myself from laughing. This is what happens when you give a troubled youth recording equipment. The results are astonishing.

— Richard Foster, Incendiary Magazine.