The last time I saw the Brooklyn band Zs, they sat on the stage quietly, clustered around their sheet music like bees, hunched, and then erupted in a sound that could've frightened cement. This was late 2007-- not long after the release of their full-length debut, Arms, a pornographically strict hash of avant-garde classical music, free jazz, and punk. More than noisy, Arms was violent. Like good boxers, Zs sensed that timing, precision, and angle meant at least as much as power. I'd heard Lightning Bolt hit harder. And Don Caballero. But Zs-- they were blinding. I buckled.
When I'd interviewed now-former guitarist Charlie Looker earlier that year, he'd promised me they were loosening up. I was skeptical. Under that spotlight in south Brooklyn, they focused so intensely on their scores I think they dented their music stands.
Eventually, they did loosen. A little. Hard, a 15-minute EP released in 2008, had moments that, in their own hyper-regimented ways, were funky. (Use this term responsibly-- Zs still have more in common with locusts and trash compactors than Parliament.) Saxophonist Sam Hillmer had previously played with a tone that could cut grease; on Hard, he added some fuzz and gristle. Guitarist Ben Greenberg started to devote some attention to his sound, not just his notes.
Since Hard, the band has slimmed to a trio: Hillmer on sax, Greenberg on guitar, and Ian Antonio still on drums. Music of the Modern White isn't a loose album, but it's one that suggests a new set of concerns for them: Atmosphere, texture, sonics-- in short, the pats of music you can't notate. This is good: It drags them off the page and into the room, making the music sound more like dialogue. Most of the album's first half is howling, spectral noise. Textured, too. When Hillmer finally stumbles into the mix, his playing is expressive and unscripted-- more like a devotional than a calculation. The second half is quieter, breaking into a light, orderly pattern of handclaps and harmonics. It concludes with a meditative, droning wash so far removed from anything on Arms that it's hard not to smile: Zs got loose.
But Music of the Modern White isn't drone, it isn't ambient, and it isn't easy. Even in repose, Zs are still a band probably best kept away from tinder and picnics. Still, it's transitional music for them. They're like birds trying to figure out how to be bears. What they're doing now might not play to their obvious strengths -- but they also might just be developing new strengths. Having seen what I've seen of them till now, I don't doubt that once they figure out what they want next, they'll grab it by the throat.
