WULF ZENDIK

— First review of this album —

I have experienced weird music before, I love Univers Zero but this is just weird. I have to make my point clear, the album is avaliable on YouTube in poor audio quality but unfortunately this is just not for me. Sounds like if Zeppelin went totally, well, hippy music? I don't know. How can I describe this album other than weird? Its a fascinating album but just not something I appreciate, but I do respect it. Wulf Zendik was a very interesting person to read up on, a poet, novelist, and artist. Started a community, and when he died, his property was sold. He was many things, but personally I don't really like what is going on here. I don't think its worth going through track by track, just here by not my favourite genre to explore. Maybe Raga Rock just isn't it for me? I'll look elsewhere. I mean no insult to this music, I just don't particularly find this very compelling.

Collectors/fans only.

I don't get it. Sorry. Might be a poet and a visionary but clearly its beyond my tiny brain. It's an Indo-prog theme that doesn't get out of a doom-sounding first gear, and it sounds like someone has taught a goat to talk over the top of it. Nothing stood out for me unfortunately, and I listened to the whole thing in the vain hope that something would happen. Might need to be on an acid trip to get it. Was going to listen to another Zendik album but I'm dreading that now. Perhaps I'm committing some sort of prog blasphemy, because I often struggle with some of the less 'accessible' offerings out there, particularly in the Avant realm, but this I'm not sure.

Wulf Zendik was an American author, musician, philosopher, poet and commune leader. His tribal community was in Texas and the word Cult certainly gets mentioned in reference to to this. He passed away in 1999 but his commune lives on apparently. They believed in protesting in an artistic way not with guns or violence. Sex, drugs and rock and roll you could say. His last name(not his real name) means outlaw or heretic and he was anti-establishment, anti-government for sure. This six piece band must have practised a lot because they are really good. His band was known as the ZENDIK FARM ORGAZTRA. Some exotic instruments are in play here including his own made up instrument similar to a saz. He plays flute and sings. His vocals remind me of the singer from COMUS with that sheep-like, quivering style. Really good.

The year of that this was released can't be confirmed but I've seen 1988 in another place besides here so I'm going with that. And yes a top three for that year right now. We get just under an hour of Psychedelic music, very trippy at times with vocals on 4 tracks. "Yang Yin" is the almost 14 minute opener that has a distinct "Spirit In The Sky" vibe with that rhythm and distorted guitar. He sings about snorting crystals, smoking outrageous weed and drinking black blood. Alrighty then. He gets pretty passionate with his vocals and they really are incredible.

"Farm Jam" has lots of percussions and an exotic vibe as well. Catchy stuff although those loud ear piercing sounds before 5 1/2 minutes I could do without but they are brief. "The Kiss" is kind of creepy actually lyrically. We get keys and what sounds like an upright bass on this one instead of the bass guitar everywhere else on here. "Madman" is really uptempo with vocals. Check out how passionate he sings late to end it. Excellent.

"Danze Of The Cozmic Warriorz" is an almost 11 minute Krautrock inspired piece, very trippy and my favourite. We get flute over top and fuzzed out guitar in this all instrumental jam. "Lets Get Stoned" is uptempo with exotic sounds as Wulf sings about getting stoned on the farm. Very repetitive but really good. "Inzanity" ends it and this is the heaviest tune with screaming sounds over top. A trippy beat with distorted guitar. What a closer!

while I completely disagree with what this commune represented I'm rating the music alone and man this just connects with me. I real surprise actually and quite refreshing to hear something a little different from the norm.

Looking like a mix between the legendary Moondog and the loony Father Yod from Ya Ho Whah 13, Larry Wulfing would later take the name WULF ZENDIK and create his own community in 1969 called ZENDIK Arts Farm and acquired several properties scattered across the USA in order to create a community that adhered and espoused his philosophies and vision quests. He became one of those cult leader type of charismatic personalities and was an author, poet, environmentalist and musician. He distributed his philosophical visions throughout various art forms. After his death in 1999, the community that lived on without him even managed to start their own ZENDIK News show on public access TV in Baltimore, MD and all despite being accused of being nothing but a sex cult! The group would continue well into the 80s with the ZENDIK Communal Orgastra. One of their famous sayings was distributed in the form of T- shirts and bumper stickers that read "Stop Bitching, Start A Revolution."

And start a revolution they did. This debut album by WULF ZENDIK was recorded all the way back in 1972 but seems to have been an unofficial release until it emerged in 1998 under their own Zendik Sounds label. The musicians and ZENDIK himself were residing on the ZENDIK Farm in Vero Beach, Florida at this time and laid down one of those strange cult sounding psychedelic drone laden raga albums that were en vogue in the underground at the time. Unlike many of such album this one is chocked full of ZENDIK's poetic verses with him performing his own vocals along with his famous use of sitar, harpsichord and flute. Also on this album are seven other musicians and i just love their names! Who can resist such craziness when Krom is on guitar, Zoot on keys, Bugz on bass, Nez on percussion, Monk on more drums, Zoe on even more percussion and Arol making sounds on hitherto unknown instruments of their own making.

This music is quite unique and exemplifies ZENDIK's philosophy and counter-culture themes wrapped up in exotic ritualistic performances that utilize the fuzzed out psych rock of the 60s mixed with drone ragas and almost Captain Beefheart type vocalizations. At times he even sounds like he's like a goat when he baaaaas his vowels out in freakout moments! While some music transcends the era from which it was created, ZENDIK only brings to mind the very era from which it was created. Trance inducing rhythms accompanied by sensual sitars, tribal percussion and acoustic freak folk all added to the mix offer a glimpse into the commune mentality of the early 70s and the musical expressions generated from idealism in closed communities in all its naivety and cosmic connectedness. Personally i find this stuff fascinating and more than a compelling listen for its mystique and high register on the trip-o-meter. While many a group was attempting the same ideals and parallel philosophies in their own musical form, ZENDIK actually holds my interest more than many of the others. If you're looking for stoned out animistic dances from parallel worlds, look no further than this bizarre little artifact that not only supplicates the trans-dimensional forces from above and beyond but creates a stylistic magic like no other.

Seedlings

Obscure beat poet and tree hugger Wulf Zendik aka Larry Wulfing was this Texan guru trying to live off the fat of the land in a self realised community, which promoted environmental health and sound ways to go about it.

Whereas his earlier records are stacked neatly in my Krautrock collection, this one entitled Wulfsong is somewhat of a curiosity that leaves all the sawing grungy guitars and electronic trickery behind for an altogether more personal affair.

Wulf died in 1999, which makes this album a posthumous release. He'd played and recorded music all through his life, much of the times it was merely him sitting in front of a single mic with his trusty self-made 8 string guitar/sitar. I guess these recordings of his mostly acted as blueprints to future orgiastic freak outs with his fellow compatriots, yet some of them were kept intact and stored away somewhere. Wulfsong are basically leftovers from a period of 25 years. As such you could say that it remains his most personal output, as nobody else but himself is featured on here.

With these words in mind this collection of songs suddenly take on new life. With Wulf dishing out his heart in the most heartfelt and soothing manner, Wulfsong distances itself from the wilderness of past psychedelic excursions. Even his vocals seemed to have changed, and remember some of these songs were indeed caught on tape whilst his singing style contained in the "band" was out there and screeching, almost demonic in some aspects. On here you are met by a gentle soul. His voice flies on by you like a beautiful velvety bird. Not entirely unlike Tim Buckley's quivering delivery, dear ol Larry puts his own spin on it and sounds altogether more raspy and worldly-wise.

All through this album I feel like I've tapped into the globe's most obscure radio station that proceeds to air broadcasts from a barren cave located in the dry red soil of Texas. Out of the speakers I hear this hermit and his beguiling voice tell tales of the love, sorrow, dreams and hopes of men.

Wulfsong remains a laid-back folky affair with low key string strummings, endearing vocals and lyrical tapestries. You won't find much in the way of prog rock on here, but what you do find in it's place, are a series of intimate sonic moments, where you get to hear the single most intimate utters from a beatnik guru who spent his whole life searching for the esoteric and earthy, all at the same time. On here he may have found the earthy part of the equation. There's a fragility about him that exudes honesty, zero bs and a love for the simple things in life. Like watching plant life shoot through mud and darkness.

Another spacey sound guru comes to my ears ... Wulf ZENDIK / ZENDIK FARM ORGAZTRA can be called as a historical and "hysterical" obscurity in Krautrock / Space Rock scene.

In the first eccentric persistence "Yang / Yin" heavy dizziness was created synthesizers, guitar fuzzes, down-tempo bass sounds and systematic drumming freakout. Wulf's drunken voices can drive the instrumental shots more crazier. Not really deep but stoner, hypnotic, and spacey passion here and there. There is an extreme guitar fuzz terrorism too. A great opening action. "Farm Jam", that at first reminded me a funky,garagey, bloody tough like Zippo Zetterlink, is a unpolished tribalism finished by kinky synthesizer-based sound violence, wacky guitar shouts, and percussion ethnicity. Some keen noises in the middle part sound like infernal worm voices.

Another bluesy psychedelic flower garden is the following track "The Kiss". Old-fashioned, loose, drone and jammy smell can be felt like hippie movement in our younger days. Something nostalgic we can feel, can't we? Contrary to that, "Madman" the maddest, the heaviest, the craziest one, may cut our brain in pieces with its sharp-edged painful sound attacks like a ripper. Wulf's shout is a killer too.

The masterpiece for us (surely!) is the titled track. Simple but suprahypnotic, surrealistic, spacey phrases spiced with dazzling guitar and stoic, stable synthesizer basis should be appropriate for us to fall into infinity of his magnificent Krautrock world. Shoegaze, inorganic footsteps get us intoxicated deeply. Amazing mind altering agent really. "Let's Get Stoned" is not so stoner but sticky groovy sound train go through over our head. All instruments play percussively, whilst explosive voices reverberate like magical spelling or words of curse. The last "Inzanity" is the shortest but its aggression along with insane loudness and activity based upon stoned groove should drive us definitely manic. Obviously we get addicted into his inzanity finally.

Let me say this album "Danze Of The Cozmic Warriorz" is an obscure masterpiece of Kraut / Space / Indo-Raga scene. If you love Kraut obscurities, please check it out, and I'm sure you get immersed in his narcotic world.

I accidentally found this CD a few years ago and I loved it at first listen ( interesting, at first listen I locate the album in the late 60's or early 70's, so I was very surprised with the fact that the album came out in the late eighties). The music is trance-like and quite dark. There's Eastern influence, but the album is full of kosmische-Krautrock and psychedelic elements, with an interesting quirky vocals (several tracks are instrumentals). There are some similarities with CAN's tago mago or even PINK FLOYD's ummugumma album, and Inzanity could be part of Amon duul work. But this is only a guide to those unfamiliar with Wulf Zendik music, because he is an original and versatile artist. This is a very strong and balanced music (no weak moments), recommended for fans of progressive and exotic music. Fully deserved four stars!!

First published in 1986, Dance of the Cozmic Warriorz is a remarkable collection of Zendik's unique musical pieces. The spiritual-mystical obsessions we can perceive in Zendik personal writtings are perfectly illustrated in these elaborate-spacey ritualised rockin songs. All compositions deliver highly groovy, sensual and tripped out excursions through buzzing sounds, theatrical incantations, fuzzy acid guitars and tribal pulses. Yin-Yang opens the album with a powerfully haunted ritualistic journey of sounds, featuring insistant rythms, fuzzed out guitars and Zendik's emotional-tormented-otherwordly vocals. Farm Jam is a propulsive freaked out psych improvisation including wha wha guitars, maniacal drum assault and kosmische synthesized epic strings. The Kiss is a jazzy-bluesy ballad including dancing sexadelic grooves. Madman is a damaged-sulfurous garagey song. Dance of the Cozmic Warriorz is a narcotic-druggy meditative instrumental. To conclude this album is constantly profound, expressive and challenging. it remains a metaphoric vehicule to reach superior states of consciousness, to acces to a sense of continuity and transcendance.

Poet and philosophical thinker of North American counter culture, Wul Zendik was also an active musician and a great performer. His music is constantly animated by exotic, natural and magic perspectives. Stylistically it provides a curious medley between dense buzzing drone ragas, fuzzed out psych rock and avant-garde theatrical lyrics. Zendik album is the product of long fruitful years in underground music business. Zendik's musical signature is rather unique, constantly lascivious, sensual and magically erotic. Strontium Rain opens the album with an occult-ritual acid rockin excursion, featuring raw fuzzed guitars, odd stoned vocals and obsessional bass rythms. Purely lysergic and hallucinatory. Purple Blaze is an eccentric-subversive-agressive spaced out piece, including screaming guitars and Zendik's typical voice incantations. When she strays is a powerful-trancey shamanic ballad for buzzing sitar and toxic vocals. Jewels and Things is an acoustic-sacred primal music trip for long sonorous strings and plaintive vocals. Zendik clearly conceives music as a transporter for a superior ravishement. Supreme- fascinating stuff. An outstanding collection of songs related to Zendik's own and distinguishable musical world: in search of the invisible and to the communication between heaven and earth, between man and the divine.