{"id":8254,"date":"2014-01-03T16:10:17","date_gmt":"2014-01-03T16:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=8254"},"modified":"2014-01-03T16:10:17","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T16:10:17","slug":"zebra-pulse-riffin-on-a-nice-groove-and-free-form-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2014\/01\/03\/zebra-pulse-riffin-on-a-nice-groove-and-free-form-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Zebra Pulse :: Riffin\u2019 on a Nice Groove and Free Form Chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ramshackledayparade.wordpress.com\"<\/a>
ramshackledayparade.wordpress.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Victoria King<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s July. You\u2019re driving to the sounds of your favorite CD. You pop the disc out and put it in its case, leaving it on the front passenger seat. Before you remember to find a shady safe spot for your tunage, you exit the car and forget your beloved in the direct light of the summer rays. You return three hours later to a hot, steaming CD \u2013 blow that steam off and pop it back in. The sounds have warped and twisted into a contorted soundscape of drumbeats, displaced vocals and other eerie dancey crashes and bashes.<\/p>\n

Such is the fiction that unfolds in my mind when listening to Zebra Pulse. They\u2019re one of those indefinably awesome anomaly Alberta bands that really make you wonder, \u201cWhat\u2019s in the water over there?\u201d<\/p>\n

I called drum machinist and pedal player Owen Strasky, joined by two of his three other band mates Sean Macintosh (player of drums that \u201csometimes have electronic things\u201d), and Dave Schaefer (tape player) in the garage in Owen\u2019s new house. They\u2019d been forced out due to the potent fumes of recently re-lacquered floors. Absent was sampler\/turntable\/no-input mixer\/synthesizer-player Parker Thiessen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I tried to sound cool in starting things off with, \u201cSo do you wanna talk about your latest release,\u201d and now here\u2019s the part where I was a dumbass and sounded things out phonetically, \u2018HEY \u2013 VAY \u2013 BAY – BAYS?\u2019 They laughed politely until I realized with sudden intense and embarrassing clarity, \u2018OH! IT\u2019S JUST HEAVY BABIES!\u2019 (PS you can Tweet them at @heavybabies<\/a>, and their Facebook states their manager as, \u201cThe Heaviest Baby\u201d)<\/p>\n

As it turns out the idea of \u201cheavy babies\u201d is a joke within the band. \u201cIt was explained to me when I joined the band that there was a running joke about \u2018heavy babies\u2019 . . . and I just think it\u2019s really funny,\u201d Sean explains. \u201cA baby that\u2019s just too heavy for any normal human parent to hold or do anything with, so they just perish due to their own density . . . please don\u2019t judge . . . we\u2019re not parents ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hey, Vay Bae-Bays<\/em> is the band\u2019s latest release and as their Bandcamp attests, it\u2019s \u201codd sounds making leaps and bounds.\u201d Makes sense, since they point to a diverse array of musical inspirations including electronic music, musique concrete, dance culture music, and Flying Lotus. \u201cWe have big ears . . . and I mean that both figuratively and literally,\u201d the guys relayed. \u201cAnother thing about this band is that it\u2019s a different dynamic than the typical band because we\u2019re just doing whatever we want to when we\u2019re playing [live]. And so there\u2019s no pressure to remember structure or anything like that.\u201d Dave affirms, \u201cit\u2019s pretty stress-free,\u201d other than just balancing everybody\u2019s volume in the overall mix (something that\u2019s normal for any band).<\/p>\n

Zebra Pulse has been noted to give some pretty wild live shows (sometimes in costume). The guys maintain that they like to keep it pretty abstract, yet inclusive. Performances are improvised, though they generally riff off the vibes created on their recordings. \u201cIt\u2019s like travelling into this zone that we\u2019ve created that\u2019s just about exploring stuff and sharing it with a room full of people,\u201d explains Owen and Sean. \u201cSometimes we\u2019ll just catch a nice groove and keep riffin\u2019 on it. And sometimes it\u2019s just like free form chaos\u201d. They profess that they don\u2019t want to be the type of highfalutin group that\u2019s too tough to get down with. The on stage happenings of Zebra Pulse are often the band\u2019s own way of working out the day\u2019s frustrations \u2013 a kind of music therapy all on its own. \u201c[We] want it to be about including people in something that\u2019s maybe not typical of their usual listening experiences . . . like freak \u2018em out, but not scare them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though they were pretty tight-lipped about upcoming releases, they admitted they\u2019\u2019re looking back into some live recordings done at CJSR (campus-community radio in Edmonton), as well as forward to a winter hibernation session of writing with the big reveal possibly in the spring of 2014. The only real clue I was given was that new material might be heavier and darker in concept. Oh, and \u201ccesium-137\u201d . . . if I let my imagination run a bit rampant I hear the soundtrack to a dark radioactive planet ruled by heavy babies, but my guess is as good as yours.<\/p>\n

FYI, Cesium-137 is a radioactive isotope of caesium. In addition to the above, Zebra Pulse also had some neat ideas about \u2018Men in Black\u2019, pre-show rituals, and outer space & technology. It wouldn\u2019t all fit here though \u2013 ask them about it yourself. Freak out to their music at zebrapulse.bandcamp.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victoria King \u00a0It\u2019s July. You\u2019re driving to the sounds of your favorite CD. You pop the disc out and put it in its case, leaving it on the front passenger seat. Before you remember to find a shady safe spot for your tunage, you exit the car and forget your beloved in the direct […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[300],"class_list":["post-8254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}