Zru Vogue music
If you listened to college radio in the early 1980's, then you undoubtedly heard Zru Vogue. Several Zru Vogue songs received airplay, including "Cumulonimbus,” "The Dream Stops," and "Do The Zru.” But the underground hit of its day was "Nakweda Dream," a haunting, ethereal song with a lilting melody that Sub-Pop Magazine named the best independent single of 1981.
"Nakweda Dream" started out as a spontaneous improvisation. Two days before the band's scheduled recording session they scrapped the song they had been rehearsing for months and decided instead to record this mysterious new song. The B-side "Cumulonimbus" began as a small hastily drawn chart with various squiggly lines representing different instruments and noises that band members then diligently interpreted by banging on percussion instruments, vocalizing incoherently, and playing conventional instruments "wrong."
Love, Beauty, and Mutation
Zru Vogue’s first album was released in 1982, followed by a 3-song EP in 1983. Since 2004 the band has produced four new albums as the duo of Andrew Jackson and Rick Cuevas. Zru Vogue’s songs tend to be atmospheric and open to interpretation. Arrangements are imaginative and unusual, from the arty pop minimalism of “Japanese Schoolgirl Mapping Device” to the moody mysteriousness of “This Will Make You Beautiful Again” and the electronic experimentation of songs on “The Exile” and “Eleven Eyes.”
Zru Vogue Now and Then: Serendipitous Spontaneity
Most Zru Vogue songs begin as words scrawled in the book that Andrew Jackson carries around with him and keeps at his bedside. Typically Jackson will then put some music to the words and then Cuevas and Jackson flesh out the arrangements in the recording studio. But just as often, they’ll collaborate by starting tracks separately and then experimenting with sounds in the recording studio to take each song in a new and unexpected direction. To capture a fresh, authentic quality in their recordings, Jackson and Cuevas prefer to record their tracks in a single take. Any resulting imperfections or serendipitous “mistakes” help to give the recorded music more life.
Left to right: Rick, Angélique, and Andy circa 1983
A Brief History of Zru Vogue
“Times Are Hard For Dreamers” by Zru Vogue (from Eleven Eyes, 2009)Click the Play icon!
riginal Zru Vogue members Andrew Jackson, Rick Cuevas, and Max Tyrell have each released a number of solo albums since the mid-1980‘s when the group disbanded. In addition, they have contributed music to soundtracks for several independent films.
Rick | Andy in the present day
Solo Works and Beyond
Check out music from Andy and Rick:
The Exile (2006)
The eleven songs that make up The Exile form a story arc that gets into the deep, dark mind of our hero (Zero) and his adventures in a mysterious other world that co-exists with this one; an alternate universe where mother fish and insect queens dominate the landscape. Or something to that effect. Whatever the case, the music speaks for itself: a rhythm fest steeped in funk and electro grooves, sprawling synthesizer lines, and layers of percussion. Buy from CD Baby. Buy from iTunes Store.
Survival of the Cutest (2005)
Scientists have uncovered conclusive evidence that the origin of the universe was a Happy Accident. Natural Selection ... Improvisation ... the Survival of the Cutest.
A computer-generated female voice speaks those words in the introduction to this CD – and from there, it goes on to dark tribal grooves, absurdist electro anthems, and existential pop songs. These are well-crafted songs with infectious rhythms ready to take you on a strange and wonderful journey. Buy from CD Baby. Buy from iTunes.
Beautiful Again (2004)
An album of surrealist art pop songs about life, love, loneliness, beauty and decay. Beautiful Again picks up where Zru Vogue left off after their critically acclaimed records of the early 80's. “It is less dark and tribal than one might expect from their earlier work. Instead it has moments of a strange, heady joy, the kind of exhilaration one can only feel after coming out from under and feeling the sun for the first time in years.” Buy from CD Baby. Buy from iTunes Store.
Eleven Eyes (2009)
Dada, Surrealism, Zruism. One begets the other as this collection of 11 song-poems pays tribute to the artists, poets, philosophers, and musicians who first inspired Andrew and Rick in their youth and continue to breathe life into their compositions today. Authentic found recordings from France, Africa, Russia, and Germany add seasoning to the mix in this mostly instrumental collection of new original Zru Vogue music. Buy it online at CD Baby.
