I have now created 30 or so new tracks for my 6th experimental CD. I am currently in the mastering phase trying to come up original processing formula’s and something that will excite me. This phase is a very technical and time-consuming one. However, it’s just as engaging as creating the tracks themselves.
Eclipse Unmasked:
Getting a firm foothold during this release is completely impossible so don’t bother. This is Metal Machine music reborn. This album appears at first glance to be a completely chaotic collection of random circuit bending experiments gone horribly right. At second glance, it’s a beautiful collection of contra-melodies fading in and out against a stellar background of very creative experimental noise. I haven’t heard anything that sounds quite like it, which makes it all the more appealing. Don’t forget to bring extra quarters when listening to this nightmare-turned-video-game-soundtrack collection of songs. You’ll need them.
Released The Bloody Glove-1995
Released I’m Bob Dole-1996
Released Mickey is the Devil-1997
Released Mindrooms-2001
Released Twilight Clones-2004
Released Music from the Valley of the Flowers-2005
Released Plastic Loves Global Warming-2006
Released Eclipse Unmasked-2007
Released Slaves for the Billionaires-2008
Sounds of Tomorrow
Robkast Radio
Pushing the Envelope
No Pigeonholes
Black Channel
Radio Nothing
The DrugMusic Podcast
NextBigThing Podcast
WREK
“When a handful of corporations own all the major media in this country, is it any wonder that the majority of Americans are living in the dark wearing sunglasses.” (2008)
“I am amazed and honored by anyone who actually relates to my music. It is a great gift for me considering the last thing on my mind when I create is public opinion.” (2007)
My condolences for Syd Barrett 1946-2006
“Your music has always been a breath of fresh air for me.” (2006)
“At times I think of myself as an insane painter throwing paint on a canvas. Some will hit, some will miss, and some will land on the ceiling.” (2005)
“Twilight Clones was my creative big bang. Thank goodness the digital recorder was on.” (2004)
Slaves for the Billionaires:
I think the coolest bit in the liners is “all tracks five minutes.” That’s a fine bit of obsession, though such attention to detail serves Ziino well here.
The record label name says it all. Ziino trafficks in electronic disturbances–but more melodic than distorted. He’s got a math-y way of putting his lines together, and the pieces themselves are more explorations than actual songs. That would be the experimental part.
And while he does get a little wiggy, most often the tracks consist of meandering melodic lines bouncing over sometimes-irregular bass lines. He obviously knows a good deal about music theory–his convoluted melodies work well. But this isn’t about abstraction. There are clear ideas coming forth.
That’s what I like the most. Ziino isn’t weird for the sake of being weird. His music is an expression of his mind, and he’s got a pretty ordered mind. The thoughts themselves might seem a bit strange, but I’m all for that. No need for the same old same old when you’ve got Ziino able to bring the bizarre home in a fine package.
Eclipse Unmasked:
Track Listing: Co-Dependance, Eclipse Unmasked, Loon Chamber, Parental Worship, Birth 2, Black Hole in the Abyss, Mushroom Trance 2, Adolescent Confusion.
Well… if I was to review Robert Ziino like a typical rock journalist (the kind for whom “rock” is pop music guys listen to, and “pop” is rock music girls listen to), then I’d probably get out the old paint-by-the-numbers kit and do the “sounds like Megadeth meets Tori Amos with Garth Hudson on piano” routine. Only with Ziino it would be more like “Wassily Kandinsky meets modern society and develops a strange electro-chemical rash”. The parallel has substance, in an inverted way; just as Kandinsky painted music with his abstract canvasses, RZ paints with sound something like visual textures.
In some earlier works, such as Twilight Clones, these abstract ‘paintings’ tended to involve the external world, but in the current release they seem to be directed more toward internal psyche-scapes and wry observations, as in his Music from the Valley of the Flowers. It is amazing what this guy can get away with by just assembling noises. I mean you find humor, mystery, little wafting sadnesses, etc. Just as he adroitly captured the outer space experience in the first mentioned title, he mirrors inner space here.
Caution for the uninitiated; you can’t dance to this stuff… though our Mistress probably could, it would look something like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube… and she is not often moved by experimental electronica.
Mandi Ziino featured in Tri-County Independent Living Newsletter. The article celebrates her achievements with her art. “Mandi’s paintings seem to push that sensory reality further, mixing in her unique perspective, intensifying colors as with emotion, and infusing them with an energy of movement that translates into swirls and twists and collisions.”
Mandi Ziino’s photograph “Mind’s Eye” is on display in the Kennedy Center’s Hall of States from October 5-30, 2006 in celebration of National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
Mandi Ziino wins Award of Excellence for her photograph “Hidden” in VSA arts competition. More than 200 applicants responded to the themed “Destination Anywhere,” which invited artists to take the viewer to a place they never expected. The finalists’ artwork is on view at the S. Dillon Ripley Center’s Concourse, Smithsonian Institution, from September 28 - November 30, 2006.