(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Zeni Geva was the brainchild of Japanese guitarist Kazuyucki Kishino Null, a project devoted to an avant-garde form of rock (without bass) as dark as it is dissonant, in the tradition of
Swans and
Big Black.
The early albums, How To Kill (Nux, 1987) and Vast Impotenz (Nux, 1988), and the subsequent Maximum Money Monster (Pathological, 1990 - Cold Spring, 2008), opened by the boundless Slam King (sixteen minutes), are monuments of grating sound and nerve-wracking harmonies.
But the group perhaps reaches maturity with Total Castration (Public Bath, 1992). Gruesome tracks like I Want You are made of agonized screams, funereal drum strikes, and vertiginous feedback spirals. The trio pushes itself to within two steps of grindcore on the title track and indulges in the pachydermic riffs of Godflesh, but cannot suppress its wild instincts in horrific yet chaotic set pieces such as Shoot Me With Your Blood and I Hate You, which reach unbearable levels of tension.
Dead Sun Rising is one of their most famous tracks
The mini-album Nai-Ha (NG, 1993) (Skin Graft, 1996), the twelve tracks recorded with Steve Albini on All Right You Little Bastards (NG, 1993), the single Disgraceland (Alternative Tentacles), the album Desire For Agony (Alternative Tentacles, 1993), with the deranged Dead Sun and Love Bite, as well as a couple of Godflesh imitations (Autopsy Love and Heathen Blood), and the new single Autofuck (Skin Graft) do not ease the tension.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Null is also involved in Yona-Kit (Skin Graft, 1995), a project with
Jim O'Rourke.
One of Null's most impressive outbursts of creativity can be found on
Aurora (Sentrax, 1995), a collaboration with
James Plotkin:
Speeding Across My Hemisphere.
There isn't much on
Freedom Bondage (Alternative Tentacles, 1995) that we haven't heard
before. With the notable exceptions of Shi No Umi and
Ground Zero, the songs are almost a parody of Zeni Geva.
Occasionally powerful and frightening,
Alienation, Hate Trader, Death Blows and
Burn Your Flesh Out careen without a sense of purpose.
The formidable Nai Ha (originally recorded in 1992) appears on
Nai Ha (Skin Graft, 1997).
NUll's Terminal Beach (Manifold, 1997),
0.0004 (Vinyl Communications, 1999),
Gev (Staalplaat, 2000),
Discoteca Plasma (Mindfield, 2000)
are sets of (very extreme) guitar noise pieces, like Lou Reed's
Metal Machine Music over and over again.
Zeni Geva's
10,000 Light Years (Neurot, 2001) sounds almost like a parody of
Zeni Geva. The trio knows they have been influential and that countless bands
today do Zeni Geva bettern than Zeni Geva. Instead of trying new avenues, they
try to compete with their disciples.
Null's Peak Of Nothingness (2001) was another wild rollercoaster ride
through the composer's wasteland.
Null's limited-edition CD-ROM
Datacide In Year Zero (Crucial Blast, 2002) is a solo guitar record.
Interstellar Chemistry (Beta-lactam Ring, 2002) is a collaboration with
electronic musician Bill Horist.
Mitsuru Tabata released the solo album Brainsville (1999)
and recorded a collaboration with
Guilty Connector (Kohei Nakagawa)
Guilty Connector and Tabata (Even Stilte, 2003).
The quality (not the quantity) of KK Null albums kept declining with
Erg per Galaxy (Opposite, 2003),
the live Astrodynamix (Dom, 2003),
Kosmik Engine (Voidstar, 2003),
Atomic Disorder (Neurot, 2003),
Zentropy (Autofact, 2003) and Astral Loop (Urgence, 2003).
Kosmista Noisea (Important, 2006) collects two colossal live improvisations.
Null finally changed style on Fertile (Touch, 2007), a project based
on field recordings and electronic manipulation.
Null's Oxygen Flash (Neurot, 2009) was again a work of trivial
musique concrete.
Null's career continued with:
Mondo Paradoxa
(2009), a collaboration with John Wiese
Extropy
(2009),
Star Breaker
(2016),
Abiogenesis
(2019),
Quantum Pulsation
(2019),
Quantum Pulsation X
(2026),
Dust Intelligence THETA
(2026),
Dust Intelligence IOTA
(2026), etc.
Zeni Geva's Tabata Mitsuru also had a project with
bassist Hayashi Naoto, whose live shows of 1987-88 are compiled on
Leningrad Blues Machine (Nux Organization, 1993).
The prolific Tabata Mitsuru later recorded:
La Vie Electrique - Last Exit to Brainsville (2007),
We All Gonna Face The Rising Sun (2007),
Lumrapideco (2007),
The Guilty C. and Tabata Mitsuru (2008),
Mankind Spree (2010),
Lucifer (2010),
The Big Buddies from Brazil (2015), a collaboration with Makoto Kawabata credited to Kawabatabaa,
The Long Afternoon of Tabata (2016),
Cano Cristales (2016), a collaboration with Yuki Kaneko,
Get the Car (2019),
Dangerous Orbits (2021), a collaboration with noisemaker Kazuyuki Kishino and drummer Philip Brophy,
Axe Phoebus Aureo (2021), a collaboration with Masami Kawaguchi,
Macula Kuru (2022),
Musica Non Grata (2023),
Phase IV (2024), a collaboration with British trio Artifacts & Uranium (Fred Laird, Mike Vest and Nick Raybould),
Suikinkutsu (2024),
Asura Airavata (2025),
Paralytic (2025), a collaboration with Ikuro Takahashi,
Meeting (2025), a collaboration with Shoji Hano,
Paranormal Awakening (2026), a collaboration with Tungu,
etc.
