Much thanks to Frans de Waard for his thoughtful review of ceremonial venerations and devotions in Vital Weekly:
"There
is more to this than what I list in the header of this review; there is much
more than that. In the final year of his life, when recovering from a train
accident, Z'EV stayed with Blake Edwards in Chicago for quite some time.
Edwards is the man behind Dead Edits, a duo he does with Eric Lunde, and
various of their releases deal with the Z'EV legacy and more in particular Z'EV
project with voices, which he called UNS. On February 24, 1980, UNS played live
for the first time and Dead Edits have declared 24th of February as St. UNS
day. This box provides you with everything you need for a proper celebration of
St. Uns day; "ceremonial venerations and devotions (7” lathe, CDR, 3”CDR,
book, votive candle, foldable shrine, fetish and veneration objects". When
I reviewed a double CD by UNS on C.I.P. (see Vital Weekly 721), 'I quoted the
Industrial Culture Handbook about UNS saying, a "band producing
"low-tech" rhythms and rants (the vocalist's name is Saul Zev)".
Through some sort of lo-fi process is applied to the voice and it all sounds
warped and folded up. There is surely also some sort of loops employed here and
the text as such is not easy to recognize (as in: not at all). It is indeed rhythm
and rants going down here. Dead Edits have three sound carriers here, in which
they work out how the UNS sounds work and they come remarkably close to the
original. C.I.P., Blake Edwards' previous label enterprise, released 'An UNS
Momento' as the inaugural CD release for the label a long time ago (see Vital
Weekly 174) and comparing what Dead Edits are doing on the 5"CDR here
comes very close. Here we have short pieces, noisy, repetitive and, most of
all, a very captivating listening. As said, I have no way of knowing how they
do it, but they do it. On the 3"CDR they have one long, twenty-minute
piece, which is more in line with longer UNS pieces, as documented on 'What
Does The Brain Have To Do With It' (see Vital Weekly 721), leaving also the
voice territory a bit, which some more field recording material (or so it
seems), which all mixes up into a lengthy and noisy excursion, which is less
voice-based than the shorter pieces. On the 7" it is all a bit more
traditional UNS with voices and a cut-up recording of organ playing drones on
one side and voices and loops on the other side. Altogether this is a wealth of
music and with some interesting variety throughout the various formats.
There is also a small booklet with further texts and images,
all cut-up, distorted and mysteriously and deliberately vague. All of this in a
neat black box, crafted with much love for the actual physical release. A most
complete package, I would think. There are only 24 copies of this made, so
should want one, there is no time to waste."
