Zura Makharadze - Dionysus' blood and sperm in our mouths (V34)

"Dionysus' blood and sperm in our mouths" is the debut solo release by Tiblisi-based composer, improviser and percussionist Zura Makharadze. After a series of incredible collaborations with fellow sonic tormentor Darja Kazimira, "Dionysus' blood..." spotlights Zura's singular capacity of creating haunting, threatening and ferociously lustful invocations, torn from a primordial percussive bedrock.

Makharadze presents a raw, torrid world of compulsions and hysteria, these improvisations travel from pin-prick silence to merciless waves of frenzied rhythmic motion and back again. Structures form and collapse in an instant, with the array of elemental percussion utilised expertly to induce concepts and narratives encompassing pure anger, joy and filthy, licentious, unrepentant submission.

""Dionysus' blood and sperm in our mouths", consisting of five improvisational compositions, the main instrument in which is percussion, sometimes accompanied by a voice. This cycle is my sound experiment devoted to the study of trance states and the Dionysian mysteries, refracted through the prism of individual mental shifts and the search for mirroring in oneself of what is commonly referred to as Dionysian not so much as a scientific term, as a set of associations and concepts closely intertwined with the topic of personal psychic state, psychic deformation, raising private questions of insanity, sex and death, which, however, are always transformed into global, universal character, thus becoming ontological quantities and in fact sometimes a short metaphor for the entire human life cycle.

"Musical instruments used in the album: metal sheet, cymbals, splash, shaman drum, davul, daf, prepared tom, riqq, water, small wood and metal percussions"

Zura Makharadze - percussions, voice
Kazimir Zimin (Darja Kazimira) - percussions, voice, visual art

Digital available via bandcamp.

Released April 20th, 2024. Venalism V24