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TZU.
Hip-hop evolved as a live rather than recorded form of music, it grew from the streets rather than being cultured by the industry, and while many people seem to be forgetting this, TZU certainly aren't. Though they love working in the studio, the spontaneity of live performance is something they thrive on. As MC Joelistics explains, "Because we have all come from playing instruments and from a live band format, the exciting part of the performance is that chaos element, from freestyling to instantaneous remixes of tracks."
Recently they got a chance to show just how spontaneous they could be, when they did a show in the outer suburbs of Melbourne to a smaller crowd than they expected. "They didn't promote the show at all, so there was about 10 kids there. This is just recently, and we haven't played a show like that for ages where there's nobody in the audience, but what we got them to do was just turn on all the house lights and we scrapped our entire set and did this spoken-word freestyle half-hour Pink Floyd journey with chimes and drum solos. We just basically went into impro-land."
Joel bursts into laughter, obviously enjoying the memory. It's not so unusual considering some of the other projects that he's been involved in. He's converted Romeo & Juliet into a hip-hop format with Scrape, a community-based organisation out of Fitzroy, his newly-built studio has both a pump and Hammond organ, wurlitzer and clavinet, and at the moment he's working on a side project that he describes as "stoner, lo-fi blues music." He puts the wide-ranging musical directions that he's able to take down to the environment in Melbourne. "Melbourne audiences are open to experimentation and there's a lot of venues where you can actually try things out and it's not like dodgy, small 20 person pubs and then there's a great divide before you get 2000 seater shows, which is how I find it in Sydney."
Another by-product of Melbourne life is the long, cold winters. "We're all addicted to studio usage, particularly in Melbourne, in the winter. There is a strange social disease that seems to affect everyone at this time of the year and I find that the studio is the best medicine." Which is why he's built a studio in his backyard, and is anticipating a lot of time spent there over the next few months. "There's a toilet next to it and there's a bath just next to that, like in a little laundry, and I'm pretty sure that we'll put a little bar fridge in the laundry and never see the light of day ever again."
Before they can get to recording the next album, though, there's touring to do both on their own and in support of Ozomatli, something they're all looking forward to despite previous bad experiences; for example, their first major tour with De La Soul. "We were really excited, even shitting ourselves, and hyped to meet them, you know," he sighs. "But anyone who's toured with a big act, particularly a hip-hop act, knows that you rarely get to talk to them: they're over here to pick up chicks and get smashed, and they don't give a fuck about this small time Aussie hip-hop group, and it's hard not to get jaded."
Nevertheless, Joel thinks there might be something different about Ozomatli. "They're a great group 'cause they started out from a community centre, and I think there's something quite roots about Ozomatli... I have a feeling that they might be a little more open than your average phat jeans, white T-shirt dudes from the states."
Both bands certainly fuse many styles into their music, and Joel promises that the next TZU album will be a departure from their 'Position Correction,' which was only released in March, but was recorded over the space of several years. Despite being so keen to look forward, he's very proud of their latest release, a fun CD that's perfect for listening to in the summer holidays, possibly at a picnic or at the beach, and he's happy with the reception that it's been getting from fans. "It's going really well", he laughs. "You know, my mum likes it!"
Alexis Buxton-Collins
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TZU's new single Wildstylee and album 'Position Correction' are out now through Liberation.
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