ZENDIK - THE ALBUM

Poet and philosophical thinker of North American counter culture, Wul Zendik was also an active musician and a great performer. His music is constantly animated by exotic, natural and magic perspectives. Stylistically it provides a curious medley between dense buzzing drone ragas, fuzzed out psych rock and avant-garde theatrical lyrics. Zendik album is the product of long fruitful years in underground music business. Zendik's musical signature is rather unique, constantly lascivious, sensual and magically erotic. Strontium Rain opens the album with an occult-ritual acid rockin excursion, featuring raw fuzzed guitars, odd stoned vocals and obsessional bass rythms. Purely lysergic and hallucinatory. Purple Blaze is an eccentric-subversive-agressive spaced out piece, including screaming guitars and Zendik's typical voice incantations. When she strays is a powerful-trancey shamanic ballad for buzzing sitar and toxic vocals. Jewels and Things is an acoustic-sacred primal music trip for long sonorous strings and plaintive vocals. Zendik clearly conceives music as a transporter for a superior ravishement. Supreme- fascinating stuff. An outstanding collection of songs related to Zendik's own and distinguishable musical world: in search of the invisible and to the communication between heaven and earth, between man and the divine.

Looking like a mix between the legendary Moondog and the loony Father Yod from Ya Ho Whah 13, Larry Wulfing would later take the name WULF ZENDIK and create his own community in 1969 called ZENDIK Arts Farm and acquired several properties scattered across the USA in order to create a community that adhered and espoused his philosophies and vision quests. He became one of those cult leader type of charismatic personalities and was an author, poet, environmentalist and musician. He distributed his philosophical visions throughout various art forms. After his death in 1999, the community that lived on without him even managed to start their own ZENDIK News show on public access TV in Baltimore, MD and all despite being accused of being nothing but a sex cult! The group would continue well into the 80s with the ZENDIK Communal Orgastra. One of their famous sayings was distributed in the form of T- shirts and bumper stickers that read "Stop Bitching, Start A Revolution."

And start a revolution they did. This debut album by WULF ZENDIK was recorded all the way back in 1972 but seems to have been an unofficial release until it emerged in 1998 under their own Zendik Sounds label. The musicians and ZENDIK himself were residing on the ZENDIK Farm in Vero Beach, Florida at this time and laid down one of those strange cult sounding psychedelic drone laden raga albums that were en vogue in the underground at the time. Unlike many of such album this one is chocked full of ZENDIK's poetic verses with him performing his own vocals along with his famous use of sitar, harpsichord and flute. Also on this album are seven other musicians and i just love their names! Who can resist such craziness when Krom is on guitar, Zoot on keys, Bugz on bass, Nez on percussion, Monk on more drums, Zoe on even more percussion and Arol making sounds on hitherto unknown instruments of their own making.

This music is quite unique and exemplifies ZENDIK's philosophy and counter-culture themes wrapped up in exotic ritualistic performances that utilize the fuzzed out psych rock of the 60s mixed with drone ragas and almost Captain Beefheart type vocalizations. At times he even sounds like he's like a goat when he baaaaas his vowels out in freakout moments! While some music transcends the era from which it was created, ZENDIK only brings to mind the very era from which it was created. Trance inducing rhythms accompanied by sensual sitars, tribal percussion and acoustic freak folk all added to the mix offer a glimpse into the commune mentality of the early 70s and the musical expressions generated from idealism in closed communities in all its naivety and cosmic connectedness. Personally i find this stuff fascinating and more than a compelling listen for its mystique and high register on the trip-o-meter. While many a group was attempting the same ideals and parallel philosophies in their own musical form, ZENDIK actually holds my interest more than many of the others. If you're looking for stoned out animistic dances from parallel worlds, look no further than this bizarre little artifact that not only supplicates the trans-dimensional forces from above and beyond but creates a stylistic magic like no other.

I don't get it. Sorry. Might be a poet and a visionary but clearly its beyond my tiny brain. It's an Indo-prog theme that doesn't get out of a doom-sounding first gear, and it sounds like someone has taught a goat to talk over the top of it. Nothing stood out for me unfortunately, and I listened to the whole thing in the vain hope that something would happen. Might need to be on an acid trip to get it. Was going to listen to another Zendik album but I'm dreading that now. Perhaps I'm committing some sort of prog blasphemy, because I often struggle with some of the less 'accessible' offerings out there, particularly in the Avant realm, but this I'm not sure.