Zoviet France
Loh Land 1

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While Post Modernity and its malcontent little brother Punk effectively deconstucted and ridiculed religious institutions by pointed out their hypocrisies and inconsistancies with rational thought, the two have been wholly unconcerned in addressing the possibilities of transcendence or the notions of the sublime. Zoviet France is an anonymous collective of British sound artists who have been clearly educated with the halls of Post Modernity and inspired by Punk's self-sufficiency; yet, the lack of an existential awe in the face of the Divine never settled easily with the group. Beginning back in the early '80s, Zoviet France developed a musical aesthetic for private rituals built from the artifacts and residues from what they saw as a cultural disintegration (both physically and existentially). To a certain extent, Zoviet France was making liturgical music to a religion that never existed, but offered resemblences to what transcendent music should sound like. The hypnosis from a drone, the relentlessness of a tribal drum circle, and dub's etherial references to various nether regions are all part of Zoviet France's arsenal of quiet noise making devices.
Originally released as a cassette back in 1988, "Loh Land" is one of the few albums from Zoviet France's early days that is still in print, and encapsulates many of their ideas for a fictional music rich with amorphously spiritual connotations. The aforementioned drones, dubs, and drums alongside distanced vocal chants with have been thoroughly abstracted through a series of delay effects boxes, tape loop machines, and multi-track studio tricks, to create the album's murky atmopshere. Zoviet France's "Loh Land" succeeds in being beautifully but indeterminantly holy.