Summer's in full hellish bloom, the world is on fire, and it's time for another playlist to help us all chill the fuck out.
Years ago in the late 90s, I hosted Zao at a Muncie bingo hall and met Russ Cogdell, their quiet storm of a guitarist known for leaving the stage spattered in his own blood.
Over the next few years, I hosted them again at a local blues club, and yet again later at an abandoned elementary school, and amongst the noise and chaos of life on tour we became friends.
When I took JC Autobody out on the road for a few low-key Midwest dates, Russ sat behind the kit, driving across two state lines to sleep at my house for a week of rehearsals and exploring the Muncie Mall.
(It was on that tour that we'd total a uHaul trailer on the Illinois back roads. A driver coming the other way swerved to miss a deer and hit us instead. Ironically, the only tour accident I'd ever been involved in through all my years on the road.
We were fine, though. The trailer not so much. It was also the first time I bought the uHaul insurance. So, lucky us.)
But we go way back, Russ and I. Over the years, I'd hear Garageband demos of half-written Zao songs, and there was talk of a Masters of the Universe-themed doom collaboration. Every six months or so, one of us would toss an album into the other's DMs and say "hey dude, I think you might dig this." And we were both usually right.
So it made sense to collaborate on a playlist. But if you expected an onslaught of the extreme, as both of our catalogs tend to suggest, you might be surprised this one is a long string of big, sleepy moods. No raining blood here, just a soundtrack for these hazy days of heat headaches and buckling TX roads. A sonic escape into the cool air of a dying shopping mall. Because even extreme metal dudes needs to chill every now and then.
Hope you enjoy, and catch Zao on tour with No Mas and Cell in July.
Tracklist:
Jóhann Jóhannson - Odi et Amo
La Femme - Vagues
Ted Lucas - It Is So Nice to Get Stoned
Gal Gracen - Grass Mask
Software - Island Sunrise
Dorothy Ashby - Games
Duett - Julienne
Virna Lindt - Underwater Boy
Muddy Monk - Baby
Sopwith Camel - Coke, Suede and Waterbeds
Leto V Gorode - Гроза
The Album Leaf - Ellipse
Dennis Wilson - Holy Man
Charlie Megira - The Girl Who Was Frightened of Ashtrays
Brothertiger - Upon Viridian Waterways
Princess Demeny - New York Grief '86
Cathy Collins - Token of Love
Good Sad Happy Bad - Do It
Elan Noon - Incorrigible Youth
Swans - Sunfucker
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What I’m reading: The Long Run (Stacey D'Erasmo)
What I'm listening to: Blast (The Album Leaf)
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