Altmusic Announces Zaïmph New Zealand Tour

Auckland-based experimental facilitators the Audio Foundation have announced NYC artist Zaïmph is playing throughout Aotearoa in November as part of their long-running Altmusic international touring programme. The solo project of Marcia Bassett of GHQ and Double Leopards (with Dunedin group Eye's Jon Chapman), Zaïmph has blazed an exploratory trail through psychedelic drone, ear-bleeding noise and fuzzed-out abstraction via releases on such taste-making labels as Dungeon Taxis, Hospital Productions, Utech Records, Volcanic Tongue and No Fun. She'll be performing with local sonic titans including Rachel Shearer, Rosy Parlane and Gate, and there'll be a special limited edition tour 8" lathe available at all shows from Independent Woman Records. Grip the details here...

Altmusic Presents: Zaïmph (NYC)

Wednesday 14th November - Auckland, Audio Foundation w/ Rachel Shearer, Rosy Parlane
Friday 16th November - Palmerston North, Snails w/ DSLB, Distance
Saturday 17th November - Wellington, The Pyramid Club w/ Thomas Arbor, Ludus
Friday 23rd November - Christchurch, Dark Room w/ Teen Haters, Scythes
Saturday 24th November - Dunedin, Jutland St w/ Eye, Gate
Wednesday 28th November - Auckland, The Wine Cellar w/ Psychick Witch, Astrolabe

Tickets available HERE via UTR

Watch a live clip from Zaïmph's recent performance at Toronto venue Sneaky Dees...

Listen to an immersive track from Zaïmph's 2013 release Evolucao via NZ / NYC label Dungeon Taxis...

Press release:

Zaïmph is the solo project of artist, musician and performer Marcia Bassett. Zaïmph’s recordings and performances shimmer with a dense, dissonant and often unsettling electronic aura, shot through with flashes of meditative beauty. Her preferred sonic toolkit includes prepared guitar, keyboard, cracked drum machines, custom-built noise/drone boxes, processed environmental sounds and tabletop effects.

As a co-founder of Philadelphia’s shambolic psychonauts un, tectonic drone pioneers Double Leopards, and the psych-folk drone trio GHQ, Bassett is deeply entwined with the American noise underground, and has mapped regions still only dimly understood by subsequent sonic travelers. From 2003-2008, Bassett joined Matthew Bower in Hototogisu, where her mastery of cacophonous eardrum shred achieved monolithic proportions.

Bassett’s releases have appeared on a variety of independent labels including Hospital Productions, Utech Records, Volcanic Tongue and No Fun. Although Bassett has released a number of recordings on her now retired Heavy Blossom imprint, she continues to showcase Zaïmph and other aesthetically allied projects on Yew, a label she founded in 2012.

“It would be tough to write a history of the last two decades in underground music without including Marcia Bassett … and any angle would have to include Zaïmph, Bassett’s solo project. Through small-run releases on numerous labels including her own, Heavy Blossom), Zaïmph has carved out a unique take on decaying feedback, assaultive fuzz, echoey ambience, and abstract expression.” – Marc Masters, Pitchfork, The Out Door

“…blasting a hole through the flimsy wall that separates ‘dark psychedelic’ and ‘free drone-rock’.” – Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic