Zack Kouns

With The Tree of The Elders, Zack Kouns, who apparently lives in the Crab Nebula, has rendered the entire of Carlos and Elkind’s soundtrack for The Shining into 70 minutes of celestial, atmospheric pop music. It is a master class in chilling, underwritten, atmospheric music; kind of like the musical equivalent of a Susan Hill novel. With soundscapes as dense and oblique as a London pea-souper, infused with an atmosphere of creeping dread, it’s a trip to say the least.

After ambient opener The Garden of Cyprus, second track Patmos introduces some breezy horns which sound like a jazz infused call to prayer, before settling down into a dazzling mish mash of unearthly voices and droning guitar, of the kind found on anti-pop depths of Blur’s 13 album.

Zack’s lyrics get a rare airing on The Bush Who Looks Like a Person – distorted, incomprehensible beat poetry, fed through God knows how many effects pedals, and set to a soundtrack of sludgy bass sounds and trippy underwater noises.

God Moving on the Face Of The Waters’ jazzy wind instruments and dissonant arrangement recalls Jonny Greenwood’s score for Bodysong – which itself was pretty much all of Radiohead’s frills and textures, without Thom Yorke’s pop sensibility to unite each disparate element, which is pretty much what this album could do with. Here is an album with no skeleton, no unifying factor.

Here Lies The Heart’s meandering organ melody, offset by Kouns’ scattered falsetto vocals is a high point of the album, as is The Measures Of Everything, with its explosive guitar drone which bursts in after five minutes of percussive noise. It wouldn’t sound out of place on one of Constellation’s releases in the early 00’s, and makes for a surprisingly affecting album closer.

It is quite impossible to take a stand for or against this music – it exists within its own little bubble, and judges itself by its own standards. It is a brilliant album in the literal sense of the word; and now, I’m going to take it into the woods and burn it, and then bury it. Then I’m going shoot the ground with a gun. And then burn the gun.
- Chicken Ramen

You never know when or how a life changing new record will fall into your lap. Often times the underground music network we hold so dear sends all kinds of delicious cassettes and vinyl flying up and down the East Coast, and this is the case with our latest snag and subesquent spiritual discovery of Mr. ZACK KOUNS. This nomadic noise nut has been held up in West Virginia for some time now, and made a recent appearance at legendary North Carolina fest SAVAGE WEEKEND. Anyway our friends in HUNNIE BUNNIES brought back KOUNS most recent LP Concealed History Of Coming Races and it immediately flipped our lid. Channeling 60's psych folk but putting a dark modern day haze on it this record goes where few care to wander anymore, a place we truly cherish. Zack is known for always doing something completely different so it’s really special to hear him fall into such a raw and rootsy but absolutely far out and mind bending groove. There is a healthy amount of fiddle, slide guit box and other familiar folk sounds blended perfectly with noise drones, sparse percussion and tastefully effected vocals. We wouldn’t be surprised if some of these tunes were inspired by Kouns’ trips up to the holy North East, he’s got tha vibe. - Boston Hassle

Mr., Kouns is one of those artists who is refreshingly unpredictable, and “Michael Jackson: I Just Can't Start Loving You” is a perfect example of how dicey an endeavor trying to pin him down can be.

The majority of these sinister ditties are piano and keys based songs, embellished with, I dunno, maybe Juno synths and some sort of cheapo sonic embellishments and sparingly used chimes. This is one of the records that I reacted to almost immediately but chose to listen to numerous times. Though the music is mostly ballads, the lyrical content is fairly sick. For instance, the song “Desperation Is Coveted,” a great example of a cheerful chord progression features ironically motivated words of violence and insanity: “Torture and Violence/Is Our Inheritance/I felt them surge up inside of me;commingled with impotence and fear.”

The overall effect is similar to a mix of John Trubee and Boyd Rice, though the music resembles neither. On a personal note, I'd like to hear a duet between Lisa “Suckdog” Carver and Mr. Kouns. “Michael Jackson: I Just Can't Start Loving You” is one of those records which can both be categorized with ease when it comes to its off-kilter pop, but nearly impossible to pigeon-hold when paired with the sickness of the lyrics. As far as its genre-twisting content goes, it's the kind of record I love. Bizarre and catchy, Zack Kouns has managed to create on of those weird ones. Cheers! 9/10 - Foxy Digitalis

If you’re looking to explore, to break into the great, wide open under them skies of … faded tan and green, Zack Kouns, guaran-fucking-teed, can get you there. Michael Jackson: “I Just Can’t Start Loving You” is exactly the sort of record you seek out when you’ve had enough of the EVERYTHING ELSE that inhabits the shelves of your most trusted friends (they’re probably still rockin’ that Fleet Foxes 2XLP, right? Riiiiight?). Unfamiliar territory is so sacred I almost want to kiss it when I finally see that sweet, sweet frontier unfold in front of my very ears.

For hours I tried to figure out the closest link, the band I could name that would instantly imply which way the winds of Mr. Kouns blow, and in the end I can only, weakly, say: Holopaw? Au? Neutral Milk Hotel? Beta Band? Paranthetical Girls, for fuck’s sake? The old stand-by for when I was at a loss for words, Emperor X? Could this be an obvious Animal Collective/Avey Tare-/Panda Bear-ism I’m self-denying for selfish purposes?

Meh; I have failed to capture his beauty. Versatile enough to keep you guessing and bold enough to inspire utmost confidence, Z.K. has accomplished here what many had been wanting to hear for years: Near-operatic chops and compositions blended with an experimental capacity equal to that of your average noise merchant. The final product isn’t as far from commercial viability as you might think, either, as the beats are tight and the melodies true to the core. But weird; always, always weird.

I’m pretty sure Kouns is just that sort of dude: He stands out from the crowd easily, expresses himself without wanting to back down immediately (or if he does, he doesn’t show it) and probably spends a lot of time thinking. He’s in love with his voice, but not dangerously so, and he knows the best way to get himself across is to woo with colorful rainbows, electronic peacocks with tails a-flutter and sour-skittles kisses to the brain. I would never trust my instincts the way Kouns does, which is why he’s making shit HAPPEN (or at least he put out a CD-R on Psych.KG — a label in Germany I plan to investigate — in 2011) and I’m sitting here writing about his exploits instead of the other way around. (Strangely, I wouldn’t have it any other way.)

Plus, I don’t have a marimba. (Damn.) Nor a Wurlitzer or any number of tinker-toy curiosities it took to put together songs like “Punishment,” so I guess I had two strikes against me already. But there’s more to it than that because one has to want to put one’s self out there, and it’s a sick impulse if you really think about it; who wants people to know what they’re going through? Who wants to hang their emotional cock in the wind and wait for people to laugh, cry or disregard? Not me.

Kouns? He’s in, and his Michael Jackson-something-or-other LP is one of the most personal albums you’ll ever hear, and it’s quite sad and beautiful, just like your life probably is, only better and worse.
- Gumshoe Grove