Zu
The Lost Demo (black)
Since 1995, orphaned by their previous project, the three founding members of Zu (Jacopo Battaglia, Luca Mai and Massimo Pupillo) had been hanging out in the historic small room in Piazza Degli Zingari in Rome, every day, all day long, working nights and sometimes sleeping directly in the basement so as not to waste time. Looking for their own voice, without excluding any direction: electronics, tapes, sequencer (Film Nero) cello (played by their friend Francesco Chiari), and of course their first iconoclastic outbursts on bass sax and drums. One can obviously hear the shared love for NoMeansNo and Ruins, but much more was already part of Zu's DNA, including an instinctive ability to digest the myriad listens and influences that permeated them, without ever copying anything but transforming everything into their own personal voice. After about two years of intense and continuous rehearsals, this tape was the first demo they sent out, recorded in that room by their friend Giampaolo Felici, with whom they shared that space and with whom years later they would also found Ardecore. The cassette went around so much that the Zu themselves could not find a single copy of it, until one mysteriously reappeared, intact and still perfectly listenable, which transferred and mastered became, more than 25 years later, 'The Lost Demo.'