So... What do we have here? An LP with on both sides a collaborative work from the sadly departed Z'EV - yes, it's been five years already - and the always inspiring Illusion of Safety, who has more or less stopped actively producing as IoS in 2014 but re-activated again. Sometimes Daniel Burke goes by the name of Soundoferror. These pieces were not released before, and it's great to finally hear them (but better yet, add them to your collection). Both sides are just tipping the twenty-minute mark, which is good. Would it be more, there wouldn't be enough space to give room to all the sounds.
The tracks were created in between 2008 and 2012, with the initial sounds coming from Z'ev. So we're talking about parts of arecording of the Z'EV/IoS show in Chicago 2007. Daniel Burke worked from those and added modular layers, field recordings and very probably - listening to the sounds - treatments of some sounds by of Z'EV, after which the music was returned to Z'ev for final treatment. While best known as a percussion player, Z'EV also worked with computer manipulation of sound.
The first side is titled "A Strategy of Transformation" and is, without doubt, the loudest of the two, even though "loud" is not precisely describing the atmosphere. The sound is at moments erratic, probably because of the rhythmic approach of the tools and setup from Z'EV, yet IoS manages to mould the sounds into a more coherent soundscape with his additions. The percussive basics, however, never really leave the composition.
And why I emphasized the percussive 'ethics' of side A becomes clear on the reverse side. "Smaller Revolutions" is more ambient in its approach. Think bows or other (non-percussive) treatments of the metal sources. And here, the additional layers by IoS generate a beautiful soundscape in its full form. Excellent dynamics are obtained by keeping open spaces in the frequency spectrum and the volume. This might be my favourite of the two sides because of those dynamics.
This vinyl was co-released by various people/labels to ensure it would happen. Thankfully, it did, even when the production took two years to complete, and I want to thank everybody involved for making this happen.
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