Face the Wound

by François Couture The birth of Face the Wound was a difficult one and listening to it can be uneasy, too. The follow-up to (or more precisely the second part of) Z'EV's Heads & Tales CD, it was begun in 1995, completed in 1998, and finally released in 2001. The artist's mother was diagnosed with cancer and died during the writing process. The concept underpinning each of the 19 tracks is pain, both individual and collective. The title Face the Wound refers to Z'EV's belief that many of our modern society's problems come from our refusal to admit the genocide of millions of women on account of "witchcraft." The music is actually a very powerful blend of electronic percussion that taps into an atavistic sense of rhythm (the postmodern way), simple eerie keyboard lines, and a collage of speech samples taken from a wide array of cheap tapes, from self-improvement monologues to evangelist rants. The samples form a narrative divided into chapters. Each one corresponds to a track and focuses on a particular subject or theme, even though some snippets can (and do) reappear in the other tracks. Some topics can be hard to listen to and include Oedipal issues (the "kill your parents" line in track six) and various things pertaining to violence, repressed sexual desires, and religious manipulation. Among Z'EV's darkest works, Face the Wound commands respect for its artistry, clarity of vision, and in-depth reflection on social illnesses.