Poet Sandra Alland and musician Y. Josephine formed Zorras in late December 2007, after seeing each other perform at Edinburgh’s Who’s Your Dandy. They quickly became known for their unique bilingual mixture of text, sound poetry, percussion, singing, guitar, megaphones and projected images. Zorras inject passion and humour into both personal experiences and cutting observations of our troubling times, resulting in strangely alluring musical stories.
We Apologise For Any Inconvenience was recorded in May and June 2009 by Andy Duncan of Leith’s 9TH Duke Studios. It features one Venezuelan folksong and 11 original tracks, ranging from a hilarious radio play about ending up as the Maid of Honour at a stranger’s wedding, to acoustic songs about needing to hypnotise your girlfriend into loving you, to rhythmic poems spoken over a funk-soaked cajón, to pieces where words are stripped of their meaning to become an instrument in their own right. Whatever the style, Zorras always have a way of making you reevaluate the world we live in…or at least what hat you’re wearing.
Also included in the CD is an eight-page booklet of lyrics and text, designed by Alland and Josephine. The booklet showcases photos by Alland and Edinburgh artist Evi Tsiligaridou.
Zorras have performed throughout the UK, including at London Museum, Soho Theatre, Bongo Club, Voodoo Rooms, Bar Wotever, GayWise Festival, Moor Music Festival, AyeWrite! Festival, Traverse Theatre and Screen Bandita.
“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 meant to be projected onto a white sheet hung on one wall of the hall.
Unfortunately, the overly keen banner-makers of the afternoon’s workshops mistook their projector ‘screen’ for Gude Cause material and cut it up for banners. Unable to find a new screen in such short notice, they had to improvise and made do with one of the venue’s disjointed walls, which to me actually worked rather well. It gave the often surreal display an even more 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, as you would have to see them to really appreciate what I’m talking about.”
-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
"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
"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,
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