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ZIRCON & THE BURNING BRAINS - HISTORY
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Nigel Harris, Alan Freeman, Steve Freeman |
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Zircon & The Burning Brains (aka ZBB for short)
was established as an incognito project of the brothers Steve and Alan
Freeman, debuting with the cassette release "Schreek" in 1981.
Encouraged by Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound) who really enjoyed the
tape, copies were also sent to some fanzines and gained a mixture of puzzled
and positive reviews. ZBB = Zircon, after Frank Zappa's "Zircon
encrusted tweezers" from The Mothers "Overnite Sensation",
Burning Brains, from Tangerine Dream's "Electronic Meditation" an album
conceptualised around a "Burning Brain", and a source for a lot of
the album and track titles! Originally a sideline to the early
"screaming at the world" Holy Atheist, ZBB was just a re-branding
with a new concept at the start, and would have gone no further after failing
to come up with successful recordings for a second release. From 1982 onwards ZBB were an actual band, a trio
comprising Alan & Steve Freeman (from Alto Stratus) and
"Kafka Man" Nigel Harris. The debut by the trio "Take
Two" saw the rebirth of the ZBB project, and was soon followed by 3
further releases in just over a year. Zircon was the equipment, originally an
old ITT cassette recorder rewired as a feedback device, and the Burning
Brains were the human performers. Instrumentation included motors, tin cans,
pots and pans, pocket calculators, radio, lots of cassette recorders, a
Sinclair Spectrum computer, and later on various cheaply bought analogue
synthesizers, Casio keyboards, etc. Early ZBB was purely improvised with microphones
scattered around a room, home-made tape loops, hand-wound record players,
motors dancing on guitar stings, etc. There were many more releases from that
time than are currently available, largely because not everything stood the
test of time we decided against reissuing everything. So, the releases
documented on this site reflect the very best output - the music we're still
proud of, plus some dips into the early mayhem of primordial ZBB. Electronic
based, between industrial and contemporary avant-garde, ZBB made a
spontaneous and innovative music that is quite unlike anything else! Nigel's
fascination for esoteric (French and Oriental) cultural elements mixed with a
music hinting at Throbbing Gristle through to Nurse With Wound, via Krautrock
and Electroacoustic/musique-concrete. When one realises what basic
instrumentation and resources we had - it is all the more remarkable. The "Cortex!" cassette was always fondly
thought of as the finest ZBB. In it analogue synthesizers, tape-loops, a
primitive sequencer (on a Sinclair Spectrum no-less), found-sound, impromptu
vocals, etc. add-up to a unique experience. One where everything was as
perfect as it could be. All this time on, it is still a music that
challenges, is fresh and original, and defies convention, in that it is still
very much avant-garde today. Pretty highly rated too, with copies being sold
for as much as £20+ on Amazon back in 1999! So, it was the inevitable title
to publish as a first CD. Digitally transferred by Colin Potter and sounding
great, it has 2 bonus tracks: "Imaginé" originally on "A Cage
Went In Search Of A Bird" and the title track from the "Out Of The
Ashes" cassette. Snazzied-up with flashy improved artwork, it made a
great value debut for the Ultimate Transmissions label. £8.00 + p&p from
Ultima Thule is also a much better option than an over-priced and old worn
cassette original! The Auricle Archive CDs round-up all the best of
the rest from the ZBB vaults. The first two are anthologies of choice works
going right back to 1981. "Cold Smoke" adds up to an essential
"industrial" history of ZBB, and features two unreleased remixes,
plus all the remaining material from "Out Of The Ashes" cassette.
"Embers", in contrast, tells the tale from a more
abstract/avant-garde angle, with an unreleased track, selections from the
hitherto undocumented "db" cassette, and yet more rarities, ending
with the sonic blitz of "Theatre Of Modern Warfare". The later
"Dissecting Human Life" was compiled after a trawl through various
unreleased session tapes from 1984-86, including material for an album that
was never completed. You'll also find a rare ZBB tracks and CD-Rom material
on the "Rarities" disc. After a final 80s session (circa 1987) that never
came to much, ZBB was then put on hold (as with all other musical projects)
when Steve and Alan started up Ultima Thule as an official business. Also,
not so long after that, Nigel moved to Japan and got married. The only times
we heard from Nigel in the 90s was when he bought a copy of The Crack In The
Cosmic Egg book or to order Audion magazines. Much later we re-established
contact again, thanks to a newfangled thing called email! Nigel had been in
other projects, in art and music, most notably solo work under the guise of
Sukurappu Koujou Sumire Gumi (what a mouthful!) with a few very eclectic and
engaging releases. Steve and Alan were also again very active in music with
Endgame and many other projects, of which The Newt Hounds particularly
intrigued Nigel. So he suggested that maybe we do something together again in
a similar fashion. Thus, over 2 decades after ZBB split, two new albums were
recorded, "Zircognition" the result of transcontinental volleys by
mail over a year, and "Occidental Encounter" made during an
intensive day's session in the Tachyon Studio when Nigel came back to England
for a holiday. Quite remarkable, it was almost as though ZBB had never split,
but mutated with all sorts of new gadgetry and an even higher level of
musical communication. It may have been a short-lived reformation, as no
further collaborations have happened since. Although, also completed at this
time was the remarkable hybrid ZBB / Endgame sessions and the CD release
"Fire Lane" under the guise of The Zircon
Game. |
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discography... SCHREEK - MC Musiques Nouvelles MN 002
(1981) original ZBB tracks on other releases... |
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Zircon
& The Burning Brains reviews in Audion - #6/31, #9/20, #42/5+42 https://auriclemusic.bandcamp.com/album/zircon-the-burning-brains |
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