Jesu & The Bug Form New Duo Zonal, Share Two Songs
Justin K. Broadrick and Kevin Martin are two guys with long histories of making noisy, intense, adventurous music. Broadrick co-founded grindcore originators Napalm Death when he was a teenager, and he spent years making harsh, gutted industrial metal with Godflesh. More recently, he’s been working a sort of emotional and melodic doom-metal drone as Jesu, and he’s teamed up with Sun Kil Moon on a pair of recent collaborative albums. Meanwhile, Kevin Martin has been making wild, splattery, all-over-the-map electronic music since the ’90s. He’s had a lot of names, but he’s best-known as the Bug. And like Broadrick, he’s an inveterate collaborator; in the past couple of years, he’s made records with reclusive dubstep wanderer Burial and drone-metal titans Earth. And now Broadrick and Martin have teamed up. Again.
Broadrick and Martin have a long history together, working in groups like GOD and Ice. Most notably, they teamed up for years as a duo called Techno Animal. Techno Animal released six albums over a decade, starting with 1991’s Ghosts and ending with 2001’s The Brotherhood Of The Bomb. More recently, they’ve been playing shows under the name Zonal. Earlier this year, Zonal teamed up with Moor Mother for the song “On The Range.” And now they’ve got a full album coming out.
Zonal have signed to Relapse, and their first full album under this new name is coming this fall. (The label is also planning a campaign of Techno Animal reissues.) Today, they’ve shared two new tracks, “Cage Version” and “No Version.” Both songs are heavy, ominous instrumental ambient-drone stuff, and you can hear them both below.
That Zonal album is coming this fall on Relapse. In the meantime, you can name your price to buy “Cage Version” and “No Version” at Bandcamp.