TASMANIAN SHE-DEVIL ZOE ZAC TAKES HONG KONG

Tasmanian she-devil and grunge-inspired girl rocker Zoe Zac is heading off to Hong Kong on tour. But before she goes, she’s got a little something special for her home town of Hobart (Tasmania, Australia): a farewell gig in the new upstairs lounge at Tasman Quartermasters.

Zoe Zac returns to Hong Kong in November 2014 to launch her new album, Flow Chart, with new drummer Peter Bland. Recorded last year in Hong Kong and Cambodia, Flow Chart will be released internationally by Hong Kong-based label Metal Postcard Records throughout Europe, the United States, China, Cambodia and Australia. Comprised of five songs, Flow Chart is the first solo album from the Tasmanian singer-songwriter and punk rocker, featuring songs recorded while staying in Hong Kong and Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2013.

The album cover photo was taken on the day of the cremation of the late Cambodian King-Father Norodom Sihanouk, amidst the ear-splitting crack of artillery and surrounded by millions of people dressed in white; the colour of mourning in Cambodia.

“I feel that Cambodia is a really thriving place, despite being haunted by genocide, which I am amazed happened in my lifetime,” Zoe Zac said. “I visited the Tuol Sleng, one of Cambodia’s major concentration camps, where around 17,000 people died and part of the Killing Fields, in which an estimated two million people were murdered.

“I found the whole experience of travelling to that region so confronting; I met people whose parents had been murdered by the Khmer Rouge. It makes me realize how civilized we are in
the west and how it is so different. Having grown up in the tranquil wilderness of Jackeys Marsh in Tasmania (Australia), it’s mind blowing to go there. “I travelled through some evil places and some sublime places and I came out with these songs. Phnom Penh is really progressive and is healing with time. Later in the year I toured solo to Hong Kong, and that was like visiting the other end of the cultural and financial Asian spectrum.

So, returning to Hong Kong to release this album Flow Chart feels like coming full circle in that journey.” The title track Flow Chart is a woozy psych-grunge tune about lost love and living through chaos. As Zoe Zac sings: “Beneath this façade of religion, ends of eras are heralded by canons as history is cremated, my heart beats to the mayhem.”

The album’s second track, Raining to Stop a Riot, was written soon after Cambodia’s election last year, with its questionable democratic results and torrential rain. “Apparently people don’t riot in the rain, so I was hoping it would rain to stop riots,” Zoe Zac said.

Recorded in Hong Kong, Dudettes is a personal power anthem written with self-preservation and inner strength in mind; a love-hate song dissecting relationships around the world. The album Flow Chart was post-produced by Matt Nicholson at Invisible Audio and mastered at Crystal Mastering in Melbourne. “For my first solo recording project to be released on an international label, the impending tour is exhilarating,” Zoe Zac said. “I’ll be launching at the label headquarters in Hong Kong and I’m looking forward to giving Hobart a preview before I take wing.”

GIG TAGS:

Hobart, Tasmania, Australia gig tag: Zoe Zac plays a goodbye-Hobart-gig at the Tasman Quartermasters (132 Elizabeth St, Hobart), on Thursday October 16 from 7.30pm, supported by KTK. Entry is free.

Hong Kong gig tag: Zoe Zac plays on Hong Kong’s waterfront at Saffron Stanley, home of Metal Postcard Records, on Saturday November 22, 2014.

SOUNDCLOUD:

https://soundcloud.com/zoezac
Sean Hocking