Ziúr’s “headstrong, mature” punk approach and love of sound manipulation make up major pillars of her work. When I ask her about her influences, at first she has difficulty coming up with an answer: “Well, not that noisy construction site outside, that’s for sure.” But just a little later, she comes up with a convincing reply: “My faithful salad bowl is for sure one of my influences, for years now. And I recently made some recordings with packing tape. It was the end of the roll and it made all kinds of nice, rhythmic ‘tshwop’ sounds when I pulled on it, also in the low frequencies.” The sound of strips of tape being ripped off a table comes through the Skype connection. “This roll of tape is the OG (Original Gangster).” It’s an organic sound that creates a whole sonic world of its own; a characteristic ingredient that corresponds to Ziúr’s surprising way of cooking: new alchemistic elements are constantly bubbling to the surface in her layered work full of distorted samples — at times hard and explosive, at others softer and more flowing. And the same applies to her working process. “I don’t really have a work routine. It goes in waves. Sometimes I’ll work for really long stretches, hours at a time during a short period; then I have normally have to spend a few weeks finding myself again. It ebbs and flows.” A similar dynamic characterises her collaborations. Her recent intensive cooperation with James Ginzburg (of Emptyset) under the name Myxomy — their first official collaborative performance will be at Rewire, with lighting design by Theresa Baumgartner — is built on mutual musical challenges. She knew Ginzburg already from previous collaborations, including through his Bristol- and Berlin-based label Subtext. Last year on their debut record Myxomy they created a mix of pop and experimental electronics by expanding on one another’s work. It was also Ginzburg who introduced Ziúr to young Vietnamese multimedia collective Ră’ n Cạp Đuôi Collective. She worked as a 20 — Context
co-producer on the record Ngủ Ngày Ngay Ngày Tnâ. Thê’ (2021), giving the world an insight into the experimental scene in Ho Chi Minh City.
Weightless
So in recent times, Ziúr was forced to spend a lot of time in the studio, though rays of light appeared on those occasions when the lockdown rules were temporarily relaxed, allowing the stage goddess in her to get out and play. “I don’t make my music for people, but I give them an opportunity to understand what I do, and to enjoy it. I give myself completely at every show. There are moments when I lose myself in the music and there’s a connection with the audience: then we’ve come full circle. At moments like these, I feel weightless and free, and I feel an immense oneness.” One such moment came at her tribal performance in Kraftwerk Berlin with dancer Kianí del Valle and video artist Sander Houtkruijer last October, during Berlin audio-visual arts festival Atonal. “That was magical, the energy was good and I saw people grinning — just for a while they didn’t need to wear a mask. That was one of the highlights of my life.” This collaboration came about when Kianí del Valle invited Ziúr to attend dance rehearsals to see whether she could quickly come up with music for one of her pieces. This was the first time that Ziúr was moved by dance, and she clicked immediately with Del Valle. When Ziúr was then not given the assignment after all, the two of them decided to take the time to work together on a new project. They entered into a deeper emotional relationship that allowed them to create art with complete freedom; to feel instead of to think. Sander Houtkruijer had known Ziúr for a while already. The basis for their current cooperation dates back ten years, to the time they met on the street and made a plan to make a video together. Now, finally, there is a video to accompany the perfor-
