Zorras Reviews
Live Reviews:
“A very unique mix of poetry, music, stories and just plain weird. The poetry was sharp and funny, the placement effective, the visuals fitting; a rather unforgettable experience, I highly recommend checking them out to anyone looking for something different. At some point after Zorras, I turned to someone I had met at the festival and said 'How the hell do you follow that?'”– Ultimate Metal, Edinburgh, Autumn 2009
“Next up were Zorras, Canadian-Scottish-Venezuelan bilingual duo made up of Sandra Alland and Y. Josephine. Inspired by the likes of Yoko Ono, Miranda July, Camille and Tanya Tagaq, Zorras’ unique and unusual mix of poetry, music and bizarre sound effects, sometimes delivered through a megaphone, took you on a journey of emotions, from laughter through embarrassment, pain and anger.
Alland’s cadenced recital combined with Josephine’s amazing and powerful vocal range and rapturous guitar and rhythms made their performance utterly mind-blowing. Their show was accompanied by a slide-show, compiled and presented by Ariadna Battich, which was...projected onto a white sheet hung on one wall of the hall.
It gave the often surreal display...(a) distorted and twisted aspect, which brought out a sense of a warped world. For me, Zorras were the highlight of the evening and I would thoroughly recommend them to anyone.”
– Wisrutta Atthakor, The F-Word: Contemporary UK Feminism, Autumn 2009
“The place is rammed...and the show does not disappoint. Reminiscent of Miranda July and complemented by a deadpan delivery, Alland's words are at once both drolly funny and sweetly strange...Y. Josephine's vocals and percussion really shine and embody the set with the kind of soul spoken word frequently lacks.”
– Lock Up Your Daughters magazine, Glasgow, Spring 2009
“This is not My Coming Out Poem of Pain, this is Sandra Alland's brilliant Beckett cut-ups...The images come so fast you sometimes feel like a Slinky falling down the stairs, yet the emotion and intention are clear, moving, and often funny...Y. Josephine plays guitar, somehow gets a whole drum kit out of a Peruvian fruit box, and sings in a sweet, smoky, untouchably cool voice.”
– The Skinny (Edinburgh/Glasgow), 4-star review, December 2007
CD Reviews (We Apologise For Any Inconvenience):
“My favourite Edinburgh music ensemble, full-stop.”– ste mccabe, Dandelion Radio, Manchester, September 2010
“Scottish-Canadian poet Sandra Alland and musician Y. Josephine have a more experimental take on spoken word performance than your average word-spitter. Having emerged from the Edinburgh queer cabaret scene a few years ago, Zorras deliver their musical stories bilingually, mixing text, sound poetry, percussion, guitar, megaphones, singing and projected visual images. Though I'd wager their live performance is more true to their artistic vision than an audio recording, they are still interesting on CD, mixing it up between more musical numbers like the guitar-folk 'Nest' and more radio-dramatized pieces like 'Here's To Wang.' I personally love the 'In the Details' spoken interludes, humorous musings on the idiosyncrasies of the Bulgarian language.”
– Curve Magazine, San Francisco, February 2010, original review here
“After listening to experimental music for a number of years, it becomes very rare to come across something which truly sounds new to you; many bands considered "avant-garde” are really just re-iterating semi-formed conventions (or as deep as conventions can be in such a genre), so Zorras came to me as a real breath of fresh, seaside air.
The Scotland based act describe themselves as "Poetry-music weirdness fusion. With megaphones”, and that is honestly the best way to describe them. The main composition of their music is very quirky, sharp spoken poetry over percussion box or guitar accompaniment. The delightful stanzas heard come from Sandra Alland's side of the duo. She is a published poet and you can really see why; all the material put on show is very slick, dipping into racism, lesbianism, national identity and human interaction, but always keeping a light and very funny tone.
Y. Josephine makes up the second half of Zorras, and beautifully so. She contributes basic but rhythmic guitar lines alongside very impressive percussion box work, but she really shines in her sung sections, where her very powerful and expressive voice is given free roam, adding even more variation to the wild contrasts between their songs – which is definitely not a bad thing due to the many talents and ideas at their disposal.
The highlight of the album for me is in the final track "Head Games” featuring very interesting abstract poetry and hilarious vocal performances from both members. Makes me laugh every time I hear it.
Despite all of the praise which I have given Zorras, they are definitely not a band that everyone will enjoy; even fans of other experimental music, but due to the gargantuan amounts of intelligence and fresh ideas present on the release, I recommend at least giving it a listen to broaden your horizons and hopefully find something you consider truly special.”– Avant-Garde Metal, Edinburgh, December 2009, original review here
“The debut Album from Edinburgh duo Sandra Alland and Y. Josephine isn't for everyone. Especially not me... I can just picture Maude Lebowski yupping along with Alland, while flicking paint at a canvas from a harness on the ceiling and saying 'vagina' at inappropriate moments. She also has a bad habit of slipping into some unknown language... but the album's still worth a listen.”
– anonymous racist misogynist reviewer from SubCity Radio, Glasgow, Autumn 2009