ZEA / ZE4
- Arnold de Boer (Netherlands): Guitar, vocals
- Xavier CharlesClarinet
- Harald AustbøCello
- Ineke Duivenvoorde: drum
Zea seizes time, stretches it, drives the rhythms into pulsating circles, pulls the sounds from the ground and lets the texts rise from the toes. In lichem fol beloften (A body full of promise) becomes a dance that enchants bodies, dispels pain, and keeps death at bay. A cadenza of percussion and strings, a minimal trance of guitar, cello, clarinet, and drums.
Reviews
„"You don't necessarily have to understand Zea's Frisian lyrics precisely to be touched by this intimate, poetic sensitivity... Xavier Charles's clarinet illustrates the emotions, amplifies, dampens, meanders along the words, far more than mere accompaniment, in constant reinvention! It's a psychological landscape that unfolds to the rhythm of Arnold de Boer's wild guitar. Waiting. Songs about mindfulness for others, for their pain. As someone who maps the humanity we should embrace, Arnold de Boer also chooses writers from different countries who speak of something like the meaning of life, of the baggage we carry – a contemporary Du Bellay. Zea absorbs life and gives it back in the form of stories for day and night. A startling attentiveness to the world. Definitely something to keep in mind if you get lost."“
https://lagazettebleuedactionjazz.fr -- Anne Maurellet
„"Zea, stripped down to its bare bones. It's almost naked. A voice, a clarinet, a cello, a drum, a guitar. And yet, nothing is missing to wage poetic battles. Shivers through Frisian. Zea crafts guttural poems from his mother tongue about the promises of the body, about the time it takes to approach others despite the rain, about the urgency of life that makes us forget its limits. Language is dissected with a jigsaw, the mouth full of stones, underscored by a simple riff hammered on the guitar. Elevated to the rank of an exquisite elegy by the grace of the modest and precise playing of Xavier Charles, an old comrade of The Ex and a clarinetist whose humanism has long been proven. Zea thus goes his own way, on a human level, full of idiosyncrasy and grain, with textures reminiscent of medieval miniature painters. A small, fraternal theater."“
https://pointbreak.fr/luz-2025-chroniques/#jour3