Zelda and the Unibrows – Neves-eatnouT
Neves-eatnouT is the 2001 debut album by Zelda and the Unibrows, featuring music composed by Paul Szewczyk and Joseph C. Krause. It was our only release to be pressed to a real, manufactured CD. The music had been developed over years, and had been self-released in cassette versions starting as far back as 1997, and it marked our transition from making weird bedroom-recorded skits and radio shows to making music. The album received a smattering of reviews and airplay on college radio as well as repeated features on CBC’s then-nationally-syndicated “Brave New Waves” experimental electronic music show. Tracks from this album appeared on compilations from Jam Rag and Waiting For Lunch Magazines as well as on a two-CD set of artists distributed by The Orchard. There were also homemade promotional CDs made for radio and floppy disks containing an mp3 of “Swamp” given away at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. We had been using the name “Zelda and the Unibrows” for our comedy skits, and decided it was too wacky for our music, so the spine of the CD says “ZatU” and we went around as “Zatu” for a while before embracing “Zelda and the Unibrows” once more. Our clique of friends back then was obsessed with the number 27, and later we discovered that this number appeared regularly in the work of “Weird Al” Yankovic, so we became even more committed to the concept. The title “Neves-eatnouT” is “twenty-seven” spoken backwards, many numerical choices on the album were guided by 27 or its multiples, and our logo, which looks like a tribal tattoo, is an overlayed “2” and “7”.
This album was also to be part of a never-completed blue, green and red trilogy featuring art from places where we worked. The album packaging features photos of the tool and die shop I worked at in the Summer of 2000. At the factory, I’d man one of two stations. At the first station, I’d use a magnetic wand to place bits of metal shaped like ninja stars into a forming machine, then I’d simultaneously press two large buttons, and the machine would press the ninja star into a concave shape. At the next station, I’d place two of these shapes back-to-back, hit two more buttons, and spot weld them together. This part became the metal hub at the center of a buffing wheel used to apply vehicle wax. I was paid $8.00 per hour to work from 8am to 4pm each day, making 30,000 of these per month. The sharp edges of these parts would quickly wear through my work gloves, so I’d run through large bags of disposible gloves each week. The shop would close the next year and by the end of the Summer there were only three of us left working in the whole building. Because of this, I was allowed to listen to music in headphones while working, and I’d spend the day listening to minidiscs of Philip Glass’ “Einstein on the Beach” and other long-form music. One day, the spot welder shorted out and the copper welding tips spat out sparks and flame, fusing the machine to the part. The melted mass had to be hammered off of the machine, and I kept it as a Neves-eatnouT artifact, still sitting on a shelf in my studio today.
