UnicaZürn

David Knight (guitar, synthesizers)
Stephen Thrower (reeds, keyboards)

Who are UnicaZürn?

UnicaZürn emerged in 2009 from the belly of a live-improv' beast called The Amal Gamal Ensemble. Knight and Thrower have worked with the Ensemble since its inception in 2001. UnicaZürn music also has its roots in free improvisation, but the results are then burnished and restructured with intensive studio sculpting.  

What records have they made?

Temporal Bends - the first UnicaZürn album (uZu MUSIC 001)
Built up from recordings created during four years of sonic experimentation, UnicaZürn's debut is a shifting, unpredictable mood-kaleidoscope for analogue synthesizers, saxophones, voices and treated guitars, which journeys from lush unease to the downright alarming. Knight and Thrower regard the 'feel' of their current sound as midway between early Roxy Music and the Tangerine Dream of 'Atem' or 'Zeit', to which they add a shared passion for the long-form grandeur of progressive rock and the microcosmic sound-worlds of electro-acoustic/acousmatic music.  

UnicaZürn are joined on Temporal Bends by special guest Danielle Dax (Pop Eyes; Jesus Egg That Wept), who sings and provides lyrics for the closing number, 'Jack Sorrow'.

What have reviewers said about the album?

"...like Jacques Cousteau meets HP Lovecraft twenty thousand leagues under the sea." - FREQ Magazine

"Temporal Bends is exactly the sort of music that I would expect to hear if I was rapidly losing consciousness in a pool of my own blood aboard a haunted submarine (a compliment I rarely give).  An impressively ambitious, harrowing, and complex album." - Brainwashed

"Knight and Thrower bring a deep intuition to the performances, allowing treated guitar, saxophone and clarinet to blend with analogue synthesizers, mellotron and organ… Only occasionally does a locked snippet of sound repeat itself enough to suggest anything like an insistent beat" - Ken Hollings,  The Wire

Where else have I heard of them?

During the 1980s Knight was guitarist and co-songwriter with highly influential art-pop maverick Danielle Dax, and contributed wall-of-rock guitars to the malign poetry of Karl Blake in Shock Headed Peters. He also works as Arkkon, a solo project concentrating on brooding electro-minimalist music. Thrower's credits include eight years in Coil, with whom he recorded the seminal albums Scatology, Horse Rotorvator and Love's Secret Domain. He is currently one half of electro-psychedelic duo Cyclobe, with Ossian Brown. His solo credits include original electronic movie scores for Hell's Ground (2007) and Down Terrace (2009).