The 16-legged Melbourne-based ♂♀ Heat Beat™ collective, No Zu, are celebrating a birthday. Ten years of blowing carnival whistles. Banging on drums, keys, car horns, cowbell, and anything else that comes to hand and sounds good. The festivities marked with a new 12 and a European tour. My previous reviews of the band referenced Punk-Funker`s, The Contortions and Liquid Liquid. No Zu having collaborated with the latter`s Sal Principato. The new record pulls in remixes from two more seminal 1980s Agit-Dance acts. Manchester`s A Certain Ratio (a hook up orchestrated by Aficionado`s Jason Boardman) take the tribal, Deep House-inspired groove of Body2Body and make it throw angular shapes. Cutting in samples from their own Do The Du. Adding bass, power chords, wah-wah licks, and a snarling 303. Then Jonny Sender, of NYC`s Konk, basically turns Spirit Beat into Konk. Slapping that bass and whacking that cowbell. Putting it up there with Konk classics, Love Attack and Your Life. No Zu`s own remixes of the tracks also tighten their sound. All of the mixes beefing-up the No Zu of the past. Yet still retaining the band`s unique live exuberance and energy. Making the record, in my opinion, their strongest to date.
For me, Dance Floor Balearic, is all about this combination of machines and Latin / Afro percussion.
You can order a copy of No Zu`s Body2Body directly, here and here.
Tour Dates
May 12-13 – Night Cat, Melbourne
May 31st – Primavera Sound fest Club show, Sala Apolo, Barcelona
June 1st – Primavera Sound, Barcelona
June 3rd – TBC, France
June 4th – Art Rock Festival, Saint Brieuc, France
June 6th – Badaboum, Paris, France
June 8th – Sud Pol, Lucern, Switzerland
June 10th – Urban Spree, Berlin, Germany
Reference Links
Ban Ban Ton Ton 
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