Zga : Riga
One more of my favourite groups. Zga came from Latvia (they've relocated since to Russia) and this is a recent Russian CD reissue of their first (and for me also the best) album originally issued by Recommended in 1989. The tracks were recorded in 1987 and 1988 in a public apartment, played mostly on home-made scrapyard instruments (metal plates, springs, wood) amplified and recorded direct to a stereo tape deck. This is very serious and powerful music, extremely inventive and deserves anyone's attention. The reissue contains also some extra material reportedly from even earlier. Unfortunately it seems that this particular CD is totaly unavailable outside Russia. So, you can get it here. The group is still active and going strong. Thanks goes again to Hrempe for suggesting this.Riga
posted by rz at 8:42 AM
7 Comments:
The first album of many (9 or 10 by now?) and a good one it is. I'll assume this is from the somewhat recent reissue which has a lot of extra material added on. There were also a few cassettes early on which I can't find a trace of these days. There used to be a pretty informative website, I think maybe official by Nick or someone associated with the band, but that seems to have gone missing as well... If anyone knows anything about these early cassettes, please post a note here!
anon,
hrempe has a zga riga '84 title with a more industrial/rock sound but it's zga almost definately. unfortunately no further info available on this, but it must be a rip of one of those cassettes. may put this up sometime in the near future.
i have somewhere a zga-related address i can post here (as soon as i find it!) for anyone interested in contacting them or trying to purchase those hard-to-get russian cd's or cassettes.
greets
z
hey yves,
thank you too! all zga titles are of very high standard, one of a kind (& so damn rare!)
z
Thanks for this. I'm sure I remember there being recorded footage of them playing, and a brief interview sometime in the early nineties on the BBC's intermittently useful, but otherwise fairly indy-ish, Snub TV. Not sure if that's floating about somewehere in the web-ether?
I don't think so that ZGA from Russia is the Same ZGA from Riga. I see Russian ZGA fotos in web, their are young people 25 y.o. , but I knowed many years ago one member of Riga's ZGA named ALEKSANDR. He died in Europe 15 years ago or later in 35 years old. Anothers members of ZGA played different bands. There is no ZGA in Riga now...
here's a zga site with info's, pics, discographies, contact, etc... updated & active again:
http://www.zga.nonmuseum.ru/
alexander zhilin, a founding memeber of the group died tragicaly in a car accident in '95 while on tour in italy with the group. 'sub luna morrior' is dedicated to his memory...
z
ZGA moved from Riga to St.Petersburg, Russia in 1991, along with its leader and founder Nick Soudnick. (There's another russian band called ZGA playing folk, not to be confused with this one.)
This record was originally released as a vinyl LP on Recommended Records, and the master tapes have been long lost. Nick remastered this CD from the vinyl, but dropped a couple of tracks he didn't like and added several bonus tracks instead.
The early (and not so early) cassettes are listed under "Rarities" at http://zga.nonmuseum.ru/releases.html. Most of the ZGA releases can be purchased through distributors listed at the ZGA website or possibly directly from Nick.
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