ÜBERALL IN TERRA STRANIERA BORDERS BEYOND

Review originally posted at www.therocktologist.com

Zauss is a project from a couple of talented musicians who join forces in order to offer original music in the vein of jazz, they are Markus Stauss and Francesco Zago, who have been working together for almost a decade. This album "Überall in terra straniera borders beyond" was released in 2011 and contains one hour of music divided in 13 tracks, here you will listen to free jazz, improvisations, soundscapes, great music.

The album opens with "Hymn" in which they offer a soft entrance to their realm, here the sax sounds very soft, while the guitar creates some atmospheric sounds that are really tranquilizing. With "Senza nessuna eleganza" the craziness appears for the first time, the first seconds are an explosion of sax covered by guitars, it has nothing to do with the opener track, here the chaos is present and though later the sound changes a little bit after two minutes, that crazy sensation prevails. The chat between sax and guitar can be appreciated once again in "Bewegung" whose sound is also crazy and chaotic, they are having a nice chat until they get nervous and talk faster, they are answering each other. At minute 3 everything calms down.

"Moods" does not have the previous craziness, it has a softer mood and an inherent experimental face; the chat between both instruments is almost always present but in different forms, here I imagine they are talking about science or something like that. I believe when one can imagine things is because the music succeeded, so go figure. "Pastorale" has an interesting sound, I like how the sax is repeating itself and the intensity increases and decreases constantly, while the guitar is creating background soundscapes. This is one of my favorite tracks of the album.

"Wendepunkt" has cadency in its sound, the saxophone in moments is even sexy, while the guitar adds some grains of sand here and there in the first two minutes, then it puts more energy and in moments reminds me of King Crimson. "Earthquake" is not that chaotic as the title suggests, it has some tension on it nevertheless, they maybe are announcing it will be something terrible soon, but not now. The music could be used for a science fiction film, actually. "Kontaktspiel" returns to the crazy world of Zauss, when both instruments plays endless notes without a clear direction, but implement energy on it and seems they are having fun.

"Quisquilla" is soft once again, with those delicate and delicious saxophone touches, here the interest thing is that the song changes direction several times because later it becomes crazier and then softer, like a rollercoaster. The shorter tracks are "Little Quakes" and "Strahlen" with 2 minutes length each. The first one honors its name because of all a sudden we can listen to little notes, little noises here and there; the second one has longer plays, I mean, they are not little noises but long sax passages.

"Migrazione" is a longer track and here the guitar reminds me a lot of Robert Fripp's style in his soundscapes sessions, there is an inherent Crimsonian sound here. The album finishes with "Meandering" a six-minute improvisation which has the same style as the previous one.

Well, I must admit Zauss has not been an easy listen to me, I've given them several spins, but I believe their style may be difficult to dig. I think this has been my least favorite project of the ones Markus has introduced to me, which doesn't mean it is a weak project, not at all, after all it is all a matter of taste. My final grade 7 out of 10.

Enjoy it!

International project ZAUSS consists of Italian guitarist Francesco Zago and Swiss saxophone player Markus Stauss, who have collaborated on a number of different projects over the years. Zauss is the name given to the sole project involving just those two, and so far four albums have been released under this moniker. "Uberall in Terra Straniara Borders Beyond" is the second of those, and was released through Stauss' own label Fazzul Music in 2011.

Challenging instrumental music with at times strong orientations towards free improvisations is the material you will encounter on this album. Avant-garde jazz having a meeting with what many would describe as freely improvised music, although perhaps not quite as oriented towards free-form jazz as many other such ventures. Those who enjoy this type of music, and find the use of abrasive effects and various kinds of noisescapes to be refreshing additions to such performances, should know their visiting time with this one.