Zenzile release Elements

1998. At the Stade de France, Zinedine Zidane works wonders. In Angers, young musicians give dub a revival marked by another Z that stands for Zenzile. The instrumental version of reggae, invention of Jamaican sound wizards, brimming with delays and reverb, has almost sunk into oblivion. It needs more promotion than Zidane’s gang. It’s been a while already since Zenzile began cooking up the thing in their rehearsal room. They definitely take the matter in hand with the aptly named “Dub Promozione”, a 4-tracks EP laying the foundations of an epic journey that has retained all its flavor after sixteen years of activity. Round and martial bass lines, trenchant guitars, sharply syncopated, metronomic drums, effect-rich keyboards, blow-organ... no doubt about it: Zenzile’s founding act bears the seal of reggae. This near-unreleased record, which came out confidentially, deserved exhumation, along with the three other “special issues” that the band recorded a few years later like many intermezzi between two albums.

“Your thing won’t work, there’s no singing,” Zenzile keeps on hearing since their birth. The singing, or rather the singers, the band’s members had tasted them individually. Never again! Chance would break the “pact”. Invited to play in London for three nights, Zenzile has do abide by the promoter’s requirements: accept that a young American poetess set her words to their music. The initial grimaces give way to smiles. Jamika initiates the “5 1” – 5 musicians 1 voice – concept in 1999, between the first album “Sachem in Salem”, and the second one, “Sound Patrol”. The experience endows Zenzile with a new color, a remarkable versatility – as attested by the two tremendous remixes of “Love Child” – and above all with a guest now become a permanent member.

Two years later, a few months before the release of the album “Totem”, our friend Jean Gomis, aka Sir Jean, singer of the band Meï Teï Shô, from Lyon, will be the second “1”. And once again, Zenzile comes out stronger from the experience, Sir Jean leading the band towards African tonalities which enrich their sound palette.

In 2003, the quintet from Angers eventually records, within two flat hours, a third volume of these musical encounters with Vincent Segal. The cello virtuoso encourages Zenzile to visit, amongst others, the Orient, and to explore more electronic tones. “Hard-working, generous, obsessive, cultured, loquacious,” according to the musicians’ words, Sega is to boost the band, driving them toward this perfection which characterizes their latest works, the album “Pawn Shop” or their live accompaniment to The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

Three sold-out records, three covers – red, green and yellow (testifying to their attachment to the founding reggae), the genesis EP and unreleased records from the “Sound Patrol” period: Zenzile’s followers rightly deserved this box, as much intended to complete the essential collection of the most singular French band of the last decade, as to understand their fascinating path.