"..soft, peculiar (very peculiar), and thick on rich/lush Sci-Fi accents.."
Zonotope™
Odyssey Oddity
Zonotope™ Bio:
Zonotope™ is a mystery waiting to be unraveled. Try to wrap your brain around all these sounds, I dare you. Here's what I do know; "A zonohedron is a convex polyhedron where every face is a polygon with point symmetry or, equivalently, symmetry under rotations through 180°. Any zonohedron may equivalently be described as the Minkowski sum of a set of line segments in three-dimensional space, or as the three-dimensional projection of a hypercube. More generally, in any dimension, the Minkowski sum of line segments forms a polytope known as a zonotope."..
Hello, how are you?
A-okay
What are you currently listening to?
A few things that have been on my turntable as of late: "Mose Allison Sings", "Chet Baker Sings", the Chic album with the two ladies in soft focus holding whistles, the Kinks' "Face to Face", the Main Ingredient's "Tasteful Soul", Inner Life II, Into Battle With the Art of Noise, a couple of Cowsills records, Pharoah Sanders' "Karma and Black Unity", Esbee Family's "Chics and Chicken", Tommy Roe's "It's Now Winter's Day", and Hematic Sunsets' "Aroma Club Paradox 4". I've also been really into that Laurie Spiegel record "The Expanding Universe", but I can't find an affordable vinyl copy which is a bummer.
Please indulge us, what's with the band name?
Basically I couldn't really come up with anything better at the time and now I'm just too lazy to change it. At the time I was thinking this would be a pretty multifaceted project, and zonotopes have a variety of differently shaped and sized sides so I thought it would reflect what I was trying to do well. I don't know if it really fits anymore though, I dunno, just don't want to have to come up with something else. I'm considering just officially shortening the name to Z™ or changing it to my alter ego Jerry Paper or just to my initials (LWN) at some point but who knows. Also, the trademark symbol is there because the project initially started with an idea for three albums called Seminar I, Seminar II, and Seminar III respectively, and Zonotope™ was like a product name. I ended up scrapping that idea though and putting the best of into Cruising Through the Hypersphere of Resonance.
Who/what were your main influences when you began writing for this project?
The project started basically because I was really obsessed with that Scott Walker song "Dealer" from Climate of Hunter. It's one of my favorite songs ever, just a perfect one-chord song with Scott's perfect voice, Evan Parker's sax, sustained wobbling synth, and just this unsettling, twinkly major chord. Hard to describe but it's perfect. I'm not really good at sticking to one thing though, and every time I try to do something it comes out completely different than I meant it to so I haven't even come close to making anything as good, but I'm still trying I guess. I was also listening to a lot of Iasos and other New Age stuff, as well as early Kevin Ayers albums like Joy of a Toy and Shooting at the Moon, so that stuff crept in there as well.
What song have you written that you think sums up your entire sound the best so far?
Have absolutely no idea. I don't really know what my "sound" is, never really thought about it, and my main focus is on the albums as a whole so the question is doubly-hard to answer.
Is there a full length on the way?
I hope so. I've been working on an album since November called "Human Unity that I'm making specifically for vinyl, although I've gotten no explicit interest from any record labels as of yet. Hopefully this'll change though, I'm more of a vinyl guy than a tape or mp3 guy anyway.
Do you prefer playing music in your studio or live?
"Studio" for sure, but my "studio" is just my apartment. Z™ started solely as a recording project and I never played any shows until February. I've only played two shows (this will be a different number by the time this hits the net) and I just get really nervous so it has a negative connotation in my mind, but I do enjoy it I guess. Also what sucks about playing live is I can't play any of my compositions live 'cause I don't have a band and I don't like the idea of just playing a recording of my music while I play over it, so right now the Z™ LIVE setup is still being worked out.
Any side projects we should know about?
Uhhh, I improvise with my friend Preston (who makes great music is Presstones, although nothing he's done in the past couple years is on the net) as Mind Island and I did a little self-indulgent self-released thing as the Diane Kensington Devotional Band that is available on my blog and bandcamp.
You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
This album: http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/11/22/f_graffitim_c8c0d42.jpg
It is indisputably the greatest album of all time. Simply impossible to get sick of.
Are you living your dream?
Not yet, although I am generally happy dude.
Thanx Lucas!
Zonotope™ is currently working on his next full length, hopefully vinyl release, look for that sometime in the future...
Zonotope™
Odyssey Oddity
Zonotope™ Bio:
Zonotope™ is a mystery waiting to be unraveled. Try to wrap your brain around all these sounds, I dare you. Here's what I do know; "A zonohedron is a convex polyhedron where every face is a polygon with point symmetry or, equivalently, symmetry under rotations through 180°. Any zonohedron may equivalently be described as the Minkowski sum of a set of line segments in three-dimensional space, or as the three-dimensional projection of a hypercube. More generally, in any dimension, the Minkowski sum of line segments forms a polytope known as a zonotope."..
Hello, how are you?
A-okay
What are you currently listening to?
A few things that have been on my turntable as of late: "Mose Allison Sings", "Chet Baker Sings", the Chic album with the two ladies in soft focus holding whistles, the Kinks' "Face to Face", the Main Ingredient's "Tasteful Soul", Inner Life II, Into Battle With the Art of Noise, a couple of Cowsills records, Pharoah Sanders' "Karma and Black Unity", Esbee Family's "Chics and Chicken", Tommy Roe's "It's Now Winter's Day", and Hematic Sunsets' "Aroma Club Paradox 4". I've also been really into that Laurie Spiegel record "The Expanding Universe", but I can't find an affordable vinyl copy which is a bummer.
Please indulge us, what's with the band name?
Basically I couldn't really come up with anything better at the time and now I'm just too lazy to change it. At the time I was thinking this would be a pretty multifaceted project, and zonotopes have a variety of differently shaped and sized sides so I thought it would reflect what I was trying to do well. I don't know if it really fits anymore though, I dunno, just don't want to have to come up with something else. I'm considering just officially shortening the name to Z™ or changing it to my alter ego Jerry Paper or just to my initials (LWN) at some point but who knows. Also, the trademark symbol is there because the project initially started with an idea for three albums called Seminar I, Seminar II, and Seminar III respectively, and Zonotope™ was like a product name. I ended up scrapping that idea though and putting the best of into Cruising Through the Hypersphere of Resonance.
Who/what were your main influences when you began writing for this project?
The project started basically because I was really obsessed with that Scott Walker song "Dealer" from Climate of Hunter. It's one of my favorite songs ever, just a perfect one-chord song with Scott's perfect voice, Evan Parker's sax, sustained wobbling synth, and just this unsettling, twinkly major chord. Hard to describe but it's perfect. I'm not really good at sticking to one thing though, and every time I try to do something it comes out completely different than I meant it to so I haven't even come close to making anything as good, but I'm still trying I guess. I was also listening to a lot of Iasos and other New Age stuff, as well as early Kevin Ayers albums like Joy of a Toy and Shooting at the Moon, so that stuff crept in there as well.
What song have you written that you think sums up your entire sound the best so far?
Have absolutely no idea. I don't really know what my "sound" is, never really thought about it, and my main focus is on the albums as a whole so the question is doubly-hard to answer.
Is there a full length on the way?
I hope so. I've been working on an album since November called "Human Unity that I'm making specifically for vinyl, although I've gotten no explicit interest from any record labels as of yet. Hopefully this'll change though, I'm more of a vinyl guy than a tape or mp3 guy anyway.
Do you prefer playing music in your studio or live?
"Studio" for sure, but my "studio" is just my apartment. Z™ started solely as a recording project and I never played any shows until February. I've only played two shows (this will be a different number by the time this hits the net) and I just get really nervous so it has a negative connotation in my mind, but I do enjoy it I guess. Also what sucks about playing live is I can't play any of my compositions live 'cause I don't have a band and I don't like the idea of just playing a recording of my music while I play over it, so right now the Z™ LIVE setup is still being worked out.
Any side projects we should know about?
Uhhh, I improvise with my friend Preston (who makes great music is Presstones, although nothing he's done in the past couple years is on the net) as Mind Island and I did a little self-indulgent self-released thing as the Diane Kensington Devotional Band that is available on my blog and bandcamp.
You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
This album: http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/11/22/f_graffitim_c8c0d42.jpg
It is indisputably the greatest album of all time. Simply impossible to get sick of.
Are you living your dream?
Not yet, although I am generally happy dude.
Thanx Lucas!
Zonotope™ is currently working on his next full length, hopefully vinyl release, look for that sometime in the future...
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