The pressure and frustration rise as Ziúr realizes how and why the ego-ruled macho-dominant society treats people as insignificant or worthless. Her upcoming album ATØ (Planet Mu, 2019) is a public call for action and an unkind reminder to all the weirdos and survivors that there are more powerful outcasts in this world than we are forced to believe. And the impact of their alliance can be brutal.
Emerging out of the fringes of Berlin club culture over the past few years, Ziúr’s sound willfully eschews the 4/4 minimal blueprint, creating a constantly-shifting kaleidoscopic abstraction that feels at once connected in its digital collaging to post-internet culture and at the same time contains something truly mystical. The music of the Berlin-based experimental producer and Discwoman’s member is simultaneously ancient and so new that it hasn’t even happened yet.
ziúr, berlin, 2019 © borshch
“I think I connect with darkness on a different level,” says Ziúr. “What other people consider being light I just automatically respond to with darkness. That is also my light. Like ‘religious person number X’ who thinks life ends and then they go to heaven and I go to hell because I’m a sinner. But their sort of heaven would be my hell automatically. I wouldn’t want to be there. So hell is probably way more exciting.”
Occasionally, Ziúr’s electronic textures are reminiscent of fellow Berlin producers mobilegirl and Amnesia Scanner, who in their own individual ways circumnavigate a Berlin sound with busy digital abstraction. After several EPs and two LPs on Mike Paradinas’ hugely influential Planet Mu label (the one on which ATØ will be released this autumn), I ask her if she feels that there is something dark in the heart of her new work. In response she brings up the track ‘Life Sick’.
ziúr, berlin, 2019 © borshch
What other people consider being light I just automatically respond to with darkness
ziúr, berlin, 2019 © borshch
“I do think I choose wisely what I do besides it all resulting out of an emotional state because that’s how I work in general. I just go to the store and buy a carrot if I really want to eat a carrot. Stuff like that. It’s the same approach if I want to share lyrics about suicide. It’s not literal; the song is called ‘Life Sick’. Its last line didn’t make it into the song, which made it extra dark. If I want just to show stuff I always try to be considerate with what I want to say and show.” She explains: “When I wrote these lyrics of ‘Life Sick’ I was kind of shocked. In like a minute and I was like, ‘Oh my God, they’re so dark’ because they are basically suicidal. I’m not suicidal, but I think I can relate to the feeling because I had some moments in my past where I thought I knew how it feels if you want to end it.”
Yet Ziúr’s does not forget what lies on the other side of darkness. “I also think that it’s impossible not to attach darkness to lightness. I try to see the whole picture rather than just focus on one thing, so everything needs to be in balance with each other.”