(Lost in a Sea of Sound) Words are sometimes a feeble method for describing sonic enigmas. When sounds are catalyzed deep within the conscious and then brought to pristine audible clarity, we think of Beethoven, Mahler, Stravinsky for example. In current times we are fortunate to have artists shed what is considered music and follow paths filled with rumbling disturbances unheard in the pleasantries of safe abodes. These sounds are not constructed as gleaming polished surfaces on already successful formats, these sounds are the hard work of chopping paths through unexplored jungle. They are the pounding resonance of iron being molded into great tools for hopeful conquest. The incredible beauty within is unfortunately locked away from many listeners, a discordancy of aural heaviness dragged across the listeners conscious. Aural waves begin like a tsunami, easily dislodging listeners caught in the surge areas. Sadly, this is not their fault, we are all susceptible to being caught off guard or unprepared. Illusions of Safety & Z'ev is a listening path most people have sought out, so if you have read this far it will be easy to understand this sonic might is the pinnacles of ice, wind and snow. Harsh, barren and beautiful places that there needs to be some preparation to earnestly understand and savour. As far as the backstory for Illusions of Safety & Z'ev, i will leave that to Arvo Zylo. An excellent thoughtfully descriptive writer with a knowledge base to provide heart felt history and passion. Read Arvo's history of how this album came to be here. This collection of sounds takes strength in how massively pristine it is. Sonic glaciers moving unfathomable amounts of earth, all condensed in the course of an hour. We hear planets being both discovered and destroyed, skies dropping galactic shrapnel, and the last two people on earth playing an instrumental farewell. To say Illusions of Safety & Z'ev is a sonic heavy is easy descriptive word play. Illusions of Safety & Z'ev is the tiny light in the sky that is burning so voluminously bright, we can see it from millions of light years away. This composition is a collaboration of so many people. The clarity and intensity is a testament to this. The labels involved with this release: No Part Of It, Feast Of Hate And Fear, Cipher Productions, Oxidation, Korm Plastics, Drone Records, Personal Archives, Public Eyesore, Tribe Tapes, Liquid Death Records. The links are active above. Some will take you straight to the Illusions of Safety & Z'ev LP and others to the only website reference i could fine. This release is in a count of 350 editions. There are 100 clear and 250 in black vinyl. The record is enclosed in a poly lined paper sleeve and includes a 12in x 24in two sided full color glossy poster. Both clear and black versions are on 140g vinyl. Clear is a little more scarce, but a few labels still have copies if that is what you want. - Ken Lower

(The Wire) In 2008, the legendary percussionist z’ev sent Illusion Of Safety’s Daniel Burke several short recordings of acoustically generated sounds. In a back and forth that lasted four years, the prolific sound artist layered z’ev’s recordings with his own contributions, sculpting the results into two sidelong tracks of soul-rearranging industrial ambience. “A Strategy Of Transformation” opens a holographic portal to an inscrutable yet familiar dreamscape; “Smaller Revolutions” is a gaping maw of human and bird voices, insect chirps, slamming metal and cavernous drone. A decade after its completion, and five years after z’ev’s passing, this inspired collaboration finally gets a vinyl release. - Emily Pothast

(Disaster Amnesiac) Excellent news here at Casita Amnesiac, in that I've managed to hook up a turntable (thanks Dad) and make room for vinyl listening. Thus, a circling back to last year's Illusion of Safety & Z'EV album, released by a veritable consortium of interests. Side one's track, A Strategy of Transformation, moves from a promise of the classic z'ev Wild Style percussive attack quickly into feels that are of a more Musique Concrete nature. Field recordings of people speaking are interspersed with digital Glitchcore techniques. Some of the latter sound a lot like the ones that z'ev showcased at his performance at the Lab in San Francisco, 2015; he pulled these swooping, cascading falls of sound from an electronic drum set that looked as he'd gotten it at the Goodwill for $7.99 plus tax or something. This piece wends its way regally through these varied zones. Disaster Amnesiac recommends it as a headphones listen. The discrete elements will come to the fore of the consciousness much better with this method. Alternately, one could just crank it up as far as one's speakers can handle, thereby assuring annoyance from house mates, spouses, parents, etc. Your choice, Noise Person. On the flip side, Smaller Revolutions starts out with the quietest of drones. This sound disperses at a stately pace, with thin layers added to the initial line over the course of several minutes. Obviously it's within these tissue of sound where the listener will find intrigue, the attentive listener, anyway. Give in to the slightest distraction, you'll likely miss the thread. Disaster Amnesiac supposes that at that point Illusion of Safety & Z'EV will become simple Ambient Music, but I also suppose that that's not really what these two sound artists' intentions were. z'ev ain't around to comment, but, still. Toward the end of the piece, the layers widen with blends of ring modulator sounds, percussion and harsher electronics. This soup is worth waiting around for as its elements mix up into a goulash of yummy Industrial Music. The sounds from Illusion of Safety and z'ev make for a fine sonic payoff in the second half of Smaller Revolutions. Worth noting too is the wonderful artwork from Bradley Kokay. Disaster Amnesiac can't tell if it's the result of digital or hand done collage methods, but either way the graphics on Illusion of Safety & Z'EV are striking in their complexities. Cool stuff! Clearly, this LP, with its large team of production stake holders, was a deeply felt labor of love. z'ev is missed and respected by many it seems. Can we get a decent release of that Lab performance? - Mark Pino

(Sound Projector)The self-titled item by Illusion Of Safety and Z’EV was released in 2022. I see it dates back to a period around 2008-2012, and represents only a small part of the work they did together at that time. The release also came out as a vinyl LP released, or distributed, by nine other international labels, each of whom added their catalogue number – these include Korm Plastics, Public Eyesore, and many others. Z’EV (Stefan Weisser) and Illusion Of Safety (Daniel Burke) achieved these two long tracks by the tried and trusted method of long-distance mail collaboration, sending each other recorded sounds in jiffy bags, and inviting all manner of editing and transmutation from the hands of their compadres. The very title of the first track, ‘A Strategy of Transformation’, pretty much tells you this is what’s going on, and so successful have the creators been that you’re unable to recognise a single familiar sound in these 21:29 mins, instead faced with a cold and alien array that offers few pockets of comfort to the tempest-tossed voyager. And yet there’s a compelling pull to these strange whirlpools and small eddies of sound. If nothing else, the grace and delicacy with these strands are spun would make even the proudest spider turn in his shingle. According to Creaig Dunton of Brainwashed, what we’re hearing is treated percussion, treated synths, and field recordings; Dunton apparently finds it a violent and chaotic collage, but that’s quite some way from what I hear. On ‘Smaller Revolutions’, the effects are even more subtle and ingenious, and one is drawn even deeper into this unusual world with less of the vaguely unsettling atmosphere in evidence. The whole project is about change, changing sounds; it seems that Z’EV and Illusion Of Safety had met up in 2007 at an even in Chicago, and Weisser approached Burke with the idea of a mail collaboration, sending him some sounds next year. They were all acoustic recordings, yet Burke was struck by how they sounded as if they were actually electronic, and – despite Z’EV’s known genius as a percussionist – didn’t appear to have been created by percussive methods. It seem like Burke added a lot to these sources – synths, field recordings, samples, electro-acoustic treatments – but at all times his plan was to let Z’EV’s work shine through, wishing to remind the listener that this complex and semi-mystical fellow was not simply about “banging and clanging”; indeed Z’EV was always keen to challenge this misapprehension of his work, where the popular misconception was of a man hammering sheet metal and drainpipes. As this record shows, the range, variety and subtlety of Z’EV’s sounds was remarkable, and unique. I also learn from reading about this that Burke stopped being Illusion Of Safety around 2014 and went under the name of sounderror for a time, but now IOS seems to have resumed; Arvo Zylo reminds us that Burke was one of the founding fathers of 1980s experimental cassette culture, and his influence on so-called industrial / experimental / noise / ambient music is extensive, as well as what Zylo shrewdly calls “non-denominational” music. - Ed Pinsent