Oslo percussionist works regularly with Euro improv heavyweights like Derek Bailey, Rhodri Davies and Charlotte Hug, but his first solo album makes one wonder why he needs collaborators at all, such is the scope and density of the music it contains. Zach is a one-man AMM, deploying a battery of techniques and instrumentation (including zither) to create a rumbling, sizzling backdrop to sharp percussive interventions that range from the delicate to the abrasive. In his ability to sound his instruments without conventional attack, extracting otherworldly textures and overtones from metal, wood and skin, he recalls amore mercurial Eddie Prevost.
The concluding section, in which Zach apparently takes a host of electric shavers to each percussive device simultaneously, is quite monstrous, with the weight of the ambient space (the album was recorded in a disused chocolate factory) adding to the oppressive menace of the music.