Ziúr’s music is lucid and physical when you’re inside of it, and ineffable when you’re not. That dreamlike pull comes from her ability to whittle down a song until it just about falls apart, while somehow keeping the feeling intact. I can’t sing a melody line from her third-full length album, Antifate. All the motifs are there somewhere, floating in my memory until I try to recall them. The dark, deconstructed sound of the album makes her a natural fit for the PAN record label, as does her strong roots in Berlin’s club scene, though Antifate is her least club-leaning album.
Instead, it takes its inspiration from medieval myth to conjure a strong sense of place. Its title is an abstract reference to Cockaigne, a land of plenty where “wine flows freely and houses are made of cake”, a place peasants dreamt up for comfort. The utopian backdrop makes for a great playground for Ziúr to start from, while continuing the sharp political threads that are present in her work.
Rather than going for a maximalist, overblown sound to represent her land of plenty, Antifate is commandingly restrained. On opener ‘Alive, Unless?’, the ricocheted drums that ground the song still feel like fragments of a whole. ‘Aid What It Is’ is a mangled and slippery, like an alien interpretation of a trip-hop club night.
| A1 | Alive, Unless? |
| A2 | Orange Cream Drip |
| A3 | Antifate |
| A4 | Gravity's Gravity, Clout Is Clout |
| A5 | Fringe Casual |
| B1 | Aid Is What It Is |
| B2 | Sister Lava |
| B3 | Aka Doctor Opp |
| B4 | The Dip |
| B5 | The Carry |
