Z Sides is a 2024 studio album by Fred Frith's United States experimental rock group Cosa Brava. It comprises a sound collage of extracts from live mixes of the band's musical improvisations performed on tour between March 2008 and May 2012.
Background Z Sides was conceived by The Norman Conquest ( Norman Teale), Cosa Brava's sound manipulator who created soundscapes for the group's music, and live mixes during their concerts. Cosa Brava's live songs often contained segments of improvised music, and The Norman Conquest assembled a collection of extracts from these improvisations performed in concerts between March 2008 and their last European tour in May 2012. Using these extracts, Fred Frith and The Norman Conquest built a sound collage to create "an imaginary stand-alone performance" that they called Z Sides.
Reception Cosa Brava's two previous albums were generally well received by critics, with All About Jazz describing their music as "somewhere between folk, Celtic, modern chamber, Latin, funk, Eastern, and prog-rock". Eyal Hareuveni at salt peanuts* noted that Z Sides is very different from Cosa Brava's two studio albums and their "genre-defying" songs. She wrote, "Z Sides distills and reimagines the infinite musical imagination of Cosa Brava and proves that beauty is indeed an elusive and strange thing." A reviewer at Squidear wrote Z Sides "captures the group's dynamic interplay and remarkable inventiveness".
Track listing
Source
Personnel Fred Frith – guitar, bass guitar (2008), voice Matthias Bossi – drums, voice Carla Kihlstedt – violin, voice Zeena Parkins – keyboards, voice Shahzad Ismaily – bass guitar (2012) The Norman Conquest – creative live sound Source
Recording and production The Norman Conquest – concept, editing Fred Frith – editing, production, photography Lisa Robotka – layout Source
Recording locations Improvisations used on this album were extracted from the following Cosa Brava concerts: March 20, 2008 – 21 Grand, Oakland, California April 7, 2008 – Porgy and Bess, Vienna, Austria April 8, 2008 – Cankarjev Dom, Ljubljana, Slovenia April 9, 2008 – Teatro Fondamenta Nuove, Venice, Italy April 17, 2008 – Rote Fabrik, Zurich, Switzerland April 19, 2008 – AMR Jazz Club, Geneva, Switzerland May 16, 2008 – Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV), Victoriaville, Quebec May 11, 2012 – Hall Toll, Stavanger, Norway May 12, 2012 – Norrlandsopernmusicbox Black Box, Umeå, Sweden May 13, 2012 – Stadtgarten, Cologne, Germany May 14, 2012 – Tafelhalle, Nuremberg, Germany May 15, 2012 – Generalmusikdirektion, Graz, Austria May 16, 2012 – Progr, Turnhalle, Bern, Switzerland May 18, 2012 – Treibhaus, Innsbruck, Austria May 18, 2012 – The Moods, Zürich, Switzerland May 19, 2012 – Teatro San Leonardo, Bologna, Italy
References
External links Z Sides at Klanggalerie Z Sides at Klanggalerie on Bandcamp