Review of Dead Edits St.Uns: ceremonial venerations and devotions

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."