Album Review: No Zu - Life

Melbourne outfit No Zu love percussion. They love the knowingly rigid percussion of '80s exoticism and the urban punk funk of A Certain Ratio, dropping a relentless groove that quickly becomes transcendent – eclipsing any sense of structure, song, even vocals. It's music that returns to its primal state, where the groove doesn't just happen, it's something to be revered, something to be worshipped.

The vocals here are shouty and ill-defined yelps mixed low, well below the relentless percussion. Occasionally they'll pick up a horn and blast out some heavily reverbed squeals, and that's when the real link becomes clear: Hunters & Collectors. In the early '80s Hunters & Collectors were a force to behold: a primal, throbbing, terrifying mass of noise and No Zu have tapped into this madness, though with squelchy synths and open structures they're working less for terror and more for party.

It's the work of former Tic Toc Tokyo mainstay Nicolaas Oogjes, alongside a few folks from Rat Vs Possum, and they've really brought the party. Every track is up, surrounded by a strict avalanche of percussion, with the aforementioned horns, vocals and all these other strange sounds playing within the gaps, feeling like some sort of concrete urban pagan rituals. There's a certain playfulness here. The music sounds like it's having a better party, a better time than you are.

Life's references lie in the past, in the post-punk, no wave hurdy gurdy of the early '80s, yet where this music was often grim and urgent, No Zu mine the energy, and harness it with a cheeky sense of humour and wide-eyed optimism.