Univers Zero - The Heresy of Chamber Rock

Is there a primarily European path to rock? Is there a mode of expression that remains rock in its dynamics and impact but is freed "a priori" from any blues influence or root, instead drawing on the classical tradition of the old continent? Progressive rock, in its most common stylistic sense, was an attempt to propose something similar, but it was a heresy that developed from within the system, as a rejection of something already acquired and consolidated, and was therefore an "a posteriori" attempt, grafting ideally classical elements onto an already formed fabric. But is it possible to make rock that truly starts from the classical tradition rather than arriving at it afterwards? Listening to the music of the Belgian ensemble Univers Zero, like that of other groups in the so-called Rock In Opposition movement, the answer would seem to be yes.

Univers Zero formed on the Belgian scene in the '70s, coalescing around drummer Daniel Denis, an admirer of Magma's Christian Vander, who came from another paraprogressive outfit: Arkham.

From the outset, the group's music moves along a few very precise lines: first of all, a clear inspiration drawn from 20th-century composers such as Bartók and Stravinsky. In this regard, many critics have also linked Univers Zero's music to King Crimson and Magma. As for the former, though, the parallel stops at a shared subversive stance toward the musical status quo of the time, since in terms of development the two are completely different in spirit and style; the comparison with the French group Magma is more apt, due to a certain dark, dramatic gloominess underlying both. Magma's music, however, proceeds through granite-like, characteristic rhythmic and vocal patterns that are repeated cyclically, whereas Univers Zero is marked by continuous, disorienting invention with a far richer internal dynamic. Magma, moreover, despite being an original outfit, is also undoubtedly a rock band, a label that fits Univers Zero rather awkwardly. A far more plausible reference outside the classical realm is undoubtedly Thierry Zaboitzeff's Art Zoyd.

Other distinctive features of Univers Zero include: an instrumentation that pairs a conventional rhythm section with viola, cello, clarinet and so on; a characteristically nervous, disorienting drumming style that perfectly complements the constant inventiveness of the harmonic instruments; the almost total absence of improvisation; interlocking arrangements in which musical themes chase each other, merge, shatter, and entwine (in this sense, a plausible reference point in a completely different field would be Gentle Giant); a dark, unresolved tension that characterizes almost all of their pieces; and the fiercely explicit attempt to create a true "chamber rock" (rather than symphonic rock), one that preserves rock's spatial dimension while borrowing from classical music the temporal development of themes.

Univers Zero debuted in 1977, a year potentially not very favorable to their approach, with a self-titled album that would later go down in history under the title 1313, presenting themselves as a curious seven-piece lineup, even though the group's epicenter is drummer Denis, author of 3 of the 5 tracks. From the opening 14 minutes of "Ronde" to the closing "Complainte," the defining traits of the group's music take shape, with viola, cello and clarinet conversing now tightly, now pensively, while the rhythm section anchors the pieces to the physicality of a rock aesthetic. The style tends to be tense, at times aggressive, before resolving into the disturbed, restless melancholy of "Complainte." The debut presents an ensemble that is perhaps a little precious and self-indulgent, but one of enormous personality; the reference to classical music is unmistakable, while rock, the audience Univers Zero addresses, is evoked through the impact and repetitive structuring of certain sections. In this sense, the group's aesthetic carries ancient echoes (Bartók, Stravinsky, but also, why not, Webern, Schoenberg and Berg) reworked and lived out in a new, unprecedented context, creating music with psychological as well as musical references, both ancestral and avant-garde.

From the very beginning, Univers Zero stood as the paradigm of how to make erudite, complex music without falling into the traps of cacophony, of chaos elevated to a system and passed off as a creative act, or into the snares of the avant-garde as a self-referential end in itself — a path the group would continue to follow right up to the present day, alongside the French group Art Zoyd, with whom they share several points of contact.

In 1979 their second album came out, Heresie, less technical than 1313 but also far more evocative, descriptive, almost pictorial. It's a record in which the band indulges in a dense, bleak, almost horror-like atmosphere; on the opening "La faulx", which with its 25 minutes takes up the entire first side, the instruments slowly circle around a dark point of equilibrium, building a growing yet bodiless tension, then an accusatory voice, desperate screams in the background and the clarinet breaking through the oppressive mood, launching a grim, desperate march toward nothingness. It's impossible not to think of heretics headed for the stake, or lost souls exiled into miasmic swamps. The following track, the splendid "Jack The Ripper", recalls the atmosphere of the opener from its very title, while the closing track "Vous le saurez en temps voulu", with its greater instrumental extroversion, ends up being more tied to the aesthetic of the debut album.

Two more years go by and Ceux du Dehors comes out, a less bleak and more whimsical work than Heresie, but also a bit less interesting and engaging, even though the eclecticism and the constant succession of themes in the album's two longest tracks ("Dense" and "Combat", both over 12 minutes) achieve a formal perfection that would serve as a reference point for all the band's later output. Ceux Du Dehors is a more extroverted album, more closely tied to the aesthetic parameters of a certain avant-garde rock. Still, there's no escaping the dissonances of the brief "La musique d'Erich Zann" or the mournful choruses of "La corne du bois perdus".

After an EP (Crawling Wind, recently reissued on CD), 1984 saw the release of UZED, which picks up where the previous album left off, bringing it to perfection and fulfillment in a great masterpiece of writing and technique. The 10 minutes of the opening "Presage" alone would be enough: a few piano chords form the center of gravity around which all the other instruments revolve, then the bass and a drum part that's never sounded so rock-driven push the track into the frenzied dash of a berserk violin; a thousand themes then chase one another in a track that's extraordinary for its compactness and the refinement of its arrangement. The rest is no less impressive (from the romantic "Celesta" to the long, splendid "Emmanations"), making for a work far more explicit and rich in nuance than its predecessors, whose music could be likened to a kind of hyper-structured chamber rock.

In 1986 came Heatwave, notable for its heavy use of synthesizers, already timidly present on the previous record, lending the band's music a more alienating dimension. Among the 4 tracks, the 20-minute crescendo of "The funeral plain" stands out, with drumming that's perhaps never been so imaginative and effective. Heatwave is an excellent record that revisits the band's various facets but ends up feeling a bit cold and mannered.

At this point Univers Zero broke up, remaining a legendary cult band until 1999, when, somewhat surprisingly, The Hard Quest came out, an album that fully recaptures their extremely refined style, but ultimately comes across as academic, lacking adventurousness and engagement in its rather slavish repetition of the stylistic tropes of earlier works.

Denis and company ended up forgotten among the great bands with nothing left to say, until, three years later, Rhythmix (2002) came out, standing proudly alongside the Belgian combo's great classics. The opening is reassuring but a touch predictable stylistically: "Terres Noires" is indeed a masterful track, but one we've heard before - disorienting, jagged rhythms, vaguely Balkan melodic lines, and so on. The rest of the album, however, holds surprises: the mood of the tracks is often suspended, indeterminate, some passages come very close to a certain non-aleatory contemporary classical music, rock is often only in the background, and Magma - often cited inappropriately whenever UZ are discussed - are light years away. The rhythm section is extremely refined, and not only thanks to Denis; the oboe parts are gorgeous, at times almost heart-wrenching, as are those of the other wind instruments, with arrangements that are perfectly balanced and perhaps more complex than ever.
Univers Zero once again prove themselves an exemplary band at making cultured, in their own way cerebral music without falling into the easy traps of cacophony, hit-and-run improvisation, and chaos passed off as unconventionality, and this album exemplifies and exalts these traits in masterly fashion.

In 2004, with Implosion, Univers Zero reached their eighth studio album, and their third since the 1999 reunion, and it's now clear that the band has become an emanation of Daniel Denis, long the group's principal composer, who here plays all the keyboards in addition to drums. The instrumentation remains extremely rich, with oboe, English horn, sax, cello, clarinet, violin and so on.
The sound remains unmistakable, multi-layered, often built on a continuous referential and self-referential interplay between winds (Dick Descheemaeker's clarinet more prominent than ever), piano, drums (Denis keeps his drumming at a high level of inventiveness) and cello (Aurelia Boven), always with strong internal dynamics and hyper-structured form.
Compared to the previous album, though, some changes are noticeable. First of all, there's a partial reduction in a certain refinement and abstraction that used to push the band toward cultured forms of contemporary music, in favor of a somewhat more physical, direct impact; then, if anything, the dark, bleak, Ossianic mood of their music has become even more pronounced (for instance the sepulchral strings on "La Mort De Sophocle", the percussive, avant-garde frenzy of "Partch's X-Ray"); thirdly, there are several brief improvised digressions, at times almost noise-like ("Suintement", "Miroirs", "Ectoplasme", "Bacteria", "A Rebours"), which, to be fair, do make sense in context, but come across as filler. Moreover, some tracks are all too typical, perhaps appearing as mere exercises in style (for instance the lopsided dances of "Falling Rain Dance" and "Rapt D'Abdallah").
In conclusion: an album less adventurous and interesting than many others by the band, and a step back from the previous one, even though we're still at an excellent level, and it won't be hard to be captivated by the pairing of "Temps Neufs" and "Mellotronic", among the closest things to progressive rock the band has ever produced, by the bleak melancholy of "La Mort De Sophocle", or by the 9 minutes of highly ingenious chamber arabesques that close the album, "Meandres".

Anyone who knows Univers Zero by now knows what to expect from a new album: a unique, tense, enveloping sound - embroideries of strings and winds as refined as they are unsettling, rhythmic interlocking born of Stravinsky, rare and oblique guitar cuts.
Clivages is exactly that, as indeed have been the band's last few albums for some decades now. Choosing one over another is essentially a matter of taste. What hurts the album the most, however, is the particularly clean mixing: the sounds don't form that sluggish, searing amalgam that has always been UZ's trump card.
There are still some fine moments though, especially among the more Holst-like ("Warrior") and lopsided ones ("Scubresauts", a step away from Thinking Plague). Here and there, the old necromancy comes back to life.

Univers Zero once again prove themselves at the forefront of the contemporary scene: a thoroughly current band, once again a benchmark for an avant-garde rock full of creativity and emotion.

Contributions by Marco Sgrignoli ("Clivages")

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