Stigma

Zeni Geva is one of my favorite bands. What more is there to say? A lot.

Like how many musical stories begin on this website, we start with Big Black and 16-year-old me's crash-course in noise rock. To avoid a history lesson, I'll say I was introduced to Zeni Geva by chance a few months deep into my initial noise escapade, first hearing their song "I Want You" on Apple Music's auto-play.

I was intrigued, but didn't know how to respond. I hadn't heard anything exactly like it. The rhythm was straight-ahead: deliberate and crushing; monotonous and agonizing; utilitarian and efficient. The album art, a cartoon of an anthropomorphic cow being disemboweled, featured a row of Kanji in its margin. They were a Japanese band, this probably being my first exposure to Japan's wild and rich experimental music scene (we'll probably talk more about that later).

They call it "progressive-hardcore." That sounds about right, expanding some of the focused belligerence of hardcore punk and pairing it with a proper dosage of ornate guitar work. I think the notable thing about this combination is that they can do it while having the nerve to avoid over-playing their instruments, not falling into the trap of pointless shredding or bloated arrangements.

Regardless, add some electronic and harsh noise elements, supplement a bass for a low-end guitar, and add guttural shouting to the mix, and this is what you get: a scathing, primal reduction of extreme music into some of its purest expressions. It kinda reminds me of early Swans, but a bit more primally agitated and a bit less erotic and self-loathing.

Their albums Desire For Agony, Freedom Bondage, and Maximum Money Monster are the ones I'd recommend the most (in no particular order). Having listened to all of their records available on streaming, I can't say there's any I dislike, even if there are some lulls here and there. If any of this sounds interesting, or if you liked any of the music posted on this page, I'd encourage you to check them out.

As one last sorta fun story, let me tell you about my extended search for a Zeni Geva t-shirt. As far as I know, official merchandise was available in the past, though is no longer. I typically have reservations about buying unofficial merch in general, but even that was hardly an option this time. With exception to a few Aliexpress pages, such a thing was absent on the internet. The end result of that endeavor is worn on my wall (see bottom left).

Having found no way of acquiring any material representation for this group (other than cds), I had to accept that I would never wear a badass Zeni Geva shirt and think about how cool I looked. Yeah, or so I thought.

They sometimes have t-shirt booths at county fairs. You can pay $40 to have them press an image and airbrush a design onto a plain white tee. And so--lacking a better option--that's what I did (see bottom right).

I'd recommend you do the same.