it all seems zru vague...
zru vogueunlimited enjoyment!
instant gratification!
Written, produced, and recorded by Zru Vogue from 1997 to 1998. Produced by Max Tyrell and Andrew Jackson.
Andrew Jackson performed lead vocals (1,4,7), lead and rhythm guitars, bass, synthesizers/keyboards, digital deconstruction & assemblage, knob twiddling, button pushing, MIDI programming, blenderizing, and sound design. Max Tyrell performed lead vocals (2,3), backing vocals (1), lead guitar, bass, keyboards, synthesizer/orbit/keyboards, 20-year time delay vocals (8), clarinet, djembe, samples, random element illusion direction. Recorded at Studio 7 Palo Alto, & Mumblypeg Studios, Los Angeles, CA.
electro-organic mood swings
Unlimited Enjoyment / Instant Gratification is an electro-organic hybrid of experimental rock & electronica that mood-swings through densely-layered atmospheres and textures, from funky to dreamy, making many stops between. Aliens and Atomic Robot Men mingle with The Beautiful People in a field of zruphonic sound at the end of the century.
a blind collaboration
Founding Zru Vogue members Andrew Jackson and Max Tyrell created this remarkable album as a "blind collaboration" — each of them working in his own studio, manipulating tracks, and sending mixes back and forth from Los Angeles to San Francisco, neither one knowing what the other was doing. This free-form creativity led to strange and unexpected results; the 10 tracks that emerged from their creative collaboration (as the album "Unlimited Enjoyment Instant Gratification") never fail to amaze and amuse.
Andrew Jackson on making the CD:
"We each composed new music, not knowing what the other was doing, exchanged DATs, and discovered a remarkable continuity in the sound. Then we continued the process, trading DATs back and forth between Max's studio in the Los Angeles hills and Andrew's studio in Silicon Valley. We added to, deconstructed, and reworked the music, using the double-edged creative sword of intuition and intention, not ever knowing what the other was doing, so that the results were always surprising and unexpected. Some of the tracks evolved into songs, while others remained instrumental. Some were reworked more than others."
"After a few months of this, we had more than enough music for a full length CD. It was time to compile some final mixes, design a cover, and put it all together. We even collaborated on the cover art and design. The CD got its name from a headline clipped from a magazine that fell out of an envelope that I had mailed to Max with one of the Digital Audio Tape mixes; another random element that we interpreted as serendipity. Throughout the project, we conjured and captured the Spirit of The Zru as we knew it. We learned that The Zru cannot be tamed. It can only be captured for a time, before it is released again into the wild."
the songs on unlimited enjoyment / instant gratification:
I Don't Want To Make That Mistake, Atomic Robot Man vs. The Beautiful People, Birth of an Imitation, Vague, The Tireless Miracle-Worker, Cruel, Abducted By Aliens, The Scene Is Shifting, Serious Is Death, Licking The Twilight, Still So Unsure.
download these songs free (high quality MP3)
> I Don't Want To Make That Mistake
website exclusive download:
> The Beautiful People/Birth of an Imitation (intstrumental)
> Scatter (unreleased out-take)
zru vogue '98 artist statement:
This long-distance adventure was conducted between May 1997 and February 1998, the result of an artistic collaboration between Max Tyrell in Los Angeles and Andrew Jackson in the San Francisco Bay Area, as we sought to discover a contemporary context for the musical entity we have come to know as Zru Vogue. Through the exchange of DATs, e-mails, phone chats, and digital art files, our vague, undefined ideas emerged and transformed over time into a series of organic, malleable musical forms. These, in turn, took the shape of songs and compositions as we each applied our unique lyrical and musical styles, trusting the seeming randomness of our actions, and applying intuition and intention to each phase of the creative process. The end result — Unlimited Enjoyment, Instant Gratification — is a true artistic collaboration in which we, the composers, are as surprised and mystified by the finished songs as we hope you will be upon hearing them.
beautiful again