Stereogum » Zach Hill

Area Codes: 916 – Sacramento, CA

corban — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:53:41 +0000

A prominent narrative going into CMJ this year was the surge in the popularity of hardcore music, and at the forefront of that discussion was Sacramento’s Trash Talk. Though Trash Talk have been together, and been very good, for a number of years, they pretty much stacked paper at CMJ, from a press clip standpoint. Trash Talk came to embody a city that no one really knew much about — outside of that they have a former NBA fan favorite as a mayor — but what they did know wasn’t pleasant. Sacramento is a reputably scuzzy, rundown city, a petri dish for the Trash Talks of the world. In terms of writing a press release, or blurbing a band, that’s some pretty clean, easy-peg stuff when you’re trying to find the right contextual phrasing for a band. But, once you take into account all the distinct, separable types of music, from Raleigh Moncrief’s moving style mishmash to Chelsea Wolfe’s dark, spare rock incantations, it’s not so easy to put Sac-town in a box like that.

Hear New Old Wavves (Feat. Zach Hill)

brandon — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 15:46:41 +0000

Nathan Williams posted three Zach Hill-backed tracks to his blog yesterday. As he puts it, they were recorded “a little over a year and a half ago in Sacramento” when he had bad hair and was collaborating with the octopine drummer. We’ve heard “Hula Hoop” before. It’s joined here by “Glued” and “Goldy Lox.” All three make a case for Williams asking Hill to come back again in the future.

Wavves – “Horse Shoes”

jessica — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:52:11 +0000

Wavves have been busy lately, touring, working on their own strain of weed, and releasing new music for free. According to Spin, Wavves’ Nathan Williams is planning on releasing more on his own, and will turn some of them into 7-inches sometime in the future. He released his ode to time-wasting, “TV Luv Song,” last week, and “Horse Shoes” came via his Twitter account today. “Horse Shoes” features Zach Hill on drums. Check out both below:

Zach Hill – “The Primitives Talk”

amrit — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:54:32 +0000

Just in time to redirect and personally absorb some of the manifold impending plaudits for his ever inventive, fierce, lyrical drum work on Marnie Stern’s forthcoming (and excellent) third LP Marnie Stern, Zach Hill has made this video for his forthcoming solo release Face Tat. I went into the cameos and the bi-coastal polarity of the album and the single “Memo To The Man” last time, here it’s about computer generated beauty salons and manicured, probably press-on nails and their psychedelic properties, as they do common things like knock out syncopated synth lines or tap out emails at a keyboard or float disembodied through kaleidoscopic portals, possibly toying with floating cubes of plasma along the way. It’s the most psychedelic video focusing on press-on nails ever probably. Very normal. Directed by Stephanie Davidson.

Zach Hill – “Memo To The Man”

amrit — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:05:32 +0000

It’d make sense for a solo release from from a man as ubiquitous in virtuosic metal/noise/prog/punk/shred circles as big spending Zach Hill to come packing a stacked cameo list. Just yesterday we heard shards of his muscular invention on Marnie Stern’s ace junior LP lead listen “For Ash,” today it’s the first MP3 from Zach’s own sophomore solo release Face Tat. The album features everyone from Devendra Banhart to No Age to Prefuse 73′s Guillermo Scott Herren; “Memo To The Man” has Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier sitting in for some double-drumming, on a weirdly dark-pop groove track that dips into tricks from the West Coast (the chime of The Smell acts like Abe Vigoda or HEALTH) and the east (vocals like BKLYN’s !!!) and many points in between. Or in Zach’s amusing words:

This started from myself and friends making the kind of abrasive/forward music in ‘pop’ form I’d want to hear, but hadn’t. There’s an emphasis on experimenting with ‘destroying’ sounds so that the source of the melody, rhythms, vocals, etc., is not recognizable or traceable, and then building these things into abstract forms of pop music with conventional structures. Some of the most melodic aspects to this recording are coming from things like the sound of pissing/urinating on a stack of Rolling Stone magazines (I have a subscription), kicking in the screen of a computer, arguments on the street, etc.

Progress Report: Marnie Stern

jessica — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:10:02 +0000

NAME: Marnie Stern
PROGRESS REPORT: Waiting for the release of her third full-length album, recorded at Retrofit Recording in Sacramento, CA. Knitting.

Marnie Stern’s knitting is an important part of the progress report, because right now she really can’t think of much else to do. The followup to the excellent This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That was completed in December and is ready for mixing. And it feels too soon to start a new record, yet her next one still has a few months (August or September, she thinks) before it’ll be released. Stern says she doesn’t like to go for walks in the city. She hates the cold, and only goes out about once a month “for like five drinks then I pass out in a cab.” Her boyfriend lives in Calgary. She’s not very internet savvy. So for now she stays inside, knits, plays guitar, and hangs out with her dog. “My mom calls us Grey Gardens! We’re just in the bed all day long,” she says.

New Chll Pll Video – “Tales From The Crypt” (Stereogum Premiere)

brandon — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:21:55 +0000

Hella active drummer Zach Hill’s in (and has been in) more bands than you want to try to list, but we’ve most recently caught him helping out Boredoms and Marnie Stern and toughening up Wavves (more on that in a sec) when not releasing his own “solo” material. In Chll Pll Hill he does what the band’s name suggests, joining forces, calming down (a bit), and harmonizing with Hexlove’s Zachary Nelson, who layers lapping electronics (complete with dark/”funky”/sometimes gentle pop hooks) over submerged drum play. You get a taste in the self-directed strobed video for “Tales From The Crypt,” an spacey bit from Aggressively Humble. It finds Hill stepping to the mic and carving out his eyes with monsters and negative hand gestures.

Stereogum Spends The Weekend At ATP NY

amrit — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:16:09 +0000

ATP was the year’s finest festival. We’ve already covered that. But the band performances are only half the (All Tomorrow’s) party. For a weekend, the mountain resort that inspired Dirty Dancing is a surreal estate, overrun by music-heads and artists; everyone’s in the same boat (some literally in boats), enjoying the same kitschy diversions. You’ll see Alan Vega shooting pool at 3AM and a few hours later Nick Cave checking his email while Frankie Don performs cheesy ’60s covers to an empty lounge. Worlds be colliding.

We really wanted to share the experience and document all the Borscht Belt family fun had between sets. So we grabbed our pocket cams, all unprofessional-like, and treated Animal Collective to a shopping spree in the gift shop, No Age to a vegan meal in the food tent (they were joined by a tripping bro known all weekend as Monster Man — please enjoy the shrapnel of corn puke near his lip), Internet poker enthusiast Bradford Cox to a few hands in the executive gambling suite run by Steve Albini, and Boredoms’ Boadrum 9 drummers Zach Hill, Hisham Bharoocha, Aaron Moore, and Jeremy Hymen to some arcade games.

Here’s the best way to spend $125 at ATP NY.

Pygmalion 2009 In Photos

amrit — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:37:24 +0000

Some 90 acts descended upon Champaign-Urbana, IL this past weekend, performing across 14 venues and four days for the fifth annual Pygmalion Music Festival. We sent photographer John Gitchoff to circle the fest, and he delivers this spread including shots of Low, Iron & Wine, the Antlers, and the Zach Hill-ified Wavves. Enjoy.

ATP NY 2009: Wayne’s World

brandon — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:42:55 +0000

Our second year at Kutsher’s was rainier than the first, but that didn’t matter so much to us or, seemingly, the other attendees: If anything, this year felt more celebratory (and debauched) than 2008. You wouldn’t be faulted for noting a certain hippie vibe. Visually, there were the tie-dyed shirts and hoodies (purchased at the amazing lost-in-time gift shop along with cat-shaped thermometers) sported by Sufjan and his band, Animal Collective, and soon enough sprinkled throughout the audiences. Or …. the perpetually smiling guy with the white bag who tried to sell us “special brownies” half a dozen times. Or the crusty, barefoot couple dancing like mad (and like hippies) during Animal Collective. Or folks making out on couches, doing weird things in the swimming pool, etc. Or the ad hoc dance floor that broke out in the lobby on Saturday night (while tellingly, downtown NYC icon Alan Vega, no hippie for sure, played pool by himself twenty feet away). Maybe part of the vibe was built-in by this year’s co-curators the Flaming Lips. Wayne Coyne, in fact, may very well be the most positive vibing frontman you’ll see all year: When the Lips closed the fest with “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” it felt not only fitting, but you almost sort of believed the sentiments for one non-cynical moment.

It took a weekend to get to that point.