Review
Publication date : Thursday, September 20th 2012 - 8 269 views In Pursuit of Zen Bow
In May, the label Reel Heavy Productions reissued Impression, a 12" by Zen Bow recorded in 1986 and pressed at the time in a few thousand copies. Behind this record, available again, lies a long odyssey begun several years ago by the journalist Seb Carayol.
It is the story of a long obsession. A long quest for a track heard on a sound system. That track is Impression, by Zen Bow. A song recorded in 1986, in the United States, and released on the Gramps label. But Seb does not know that yet. In the course of his work as a journalist, Seb Carayol has drawn up a list of this kind of obscure track: "For about ten years I've kept a list for an imaginary label, of records I'd like to see reissued one day so I could buy them. The Zen Bow was on it."
As it happens, the American magazine Wax Poetics, for which he freelances regularly, runs a column devoted to elusive tracks, "retro-reviews, in a way. I thought Impression was perfect for that column." But for that, the artist has to be found… On his blog Reel Heavy Productions, Seb Carayol tells the story of this adventure (in English), which ended with the reissue of the 12" last May.
Looking for Zen Bow
He has only one name, the mysterious Zen Bow (which inevitably recalls the book "Zen Bow, Zen Arrow", by John Stevens), and one track, Impression. He begins by scouring search engine results. An almost daily routine, with no result. And then, one day, his name turns up. A user, Yassmat, has put online a video in which he plays his 45 of Impression. On the label, Seb finds a name, Zenbar Bennet, and a mention of the State of Connecticut. Lucky break: there is only one entry under that name in the American white pages. Bad luck: the woman who answers explains that Zenbar no longer lives there (they divorced long ago), and takes care to tell him not to call that number again before hanging up.
Back to square one and the search engines. And then one day, after yet another query, a sentence appears: "Zenbar Bennett is now on Facebook". "So I created an account, where for a long time he was my only friend." When he finally gets a working phone number, Zen Bow picks up saying: "Seb? So that was true?" It is indeed true: a French journalist wants to interview him about a track recorded 25 years ago.
 1,000 copies, a reissue
Zenbar Bennett now lives in Atlanta, where he works in a factory. Born in Jamaica, in the parish of Trelawny, he settled in Uncle Sam's country in the early 80s, in Hartford, Connecticut. A talent contest there was devoted to reggae artists. There he met Crucial, a local group, with whom he recorded the famous Impression, pressed in a thousand copies. He only recorded two other tracks, Black & Beautiful and Auction Block.
Of course, he sees nothing of the small fortunes exchanged between collectors on eBay (after the article was published in Wax Poetics, bids climbed to $600). During the interview, Seb slips him a piece of advice: reissue the track. "He misunderstood what I said and sent me not only copies of the record, but also the master tape. I spent a year wondering what was on that tape... And above all: how to play it?" Because before the repressing and distribution comes the question of restoring the tape, which had been sitting on a shelf for 25 years. A field in which Seb is a complete novice.
Baking the tape
"I learned a lot of things: with those tapes, to be able to play them, you first have to bake the tape. A technology designed in the 60s so that data would be preserved indefinitely. There's a sort of plastic layer on the tape that hardens automatically after a week, to protect the data. You have to melt that plastic to work on the tape. Except that a lot of studios kept the machine to play them, but not the oven…
He rings the Ampex studios in San Francisco, which made the tapes, and which do not quite understand what this Frenchman wants from them. After many tribulations, he is pointed towards Penguin Studios, which does restoration for Motown and Def Jam ("You've got piles of tapes everywhere. They're the biggest nerds you can imagine!"), where the tape finally reveals its secret. Surprise: it is not a mixed version "It was a raw take, with no effects at all, horrible all the way through! We took the original maxi, and remixed everything by ear. That's where those guys are impressive. I think the track sounds better than the maxi of the time, which was muffled, a bit too heavy on the bass and treble. We put that right, without distorting it."
 Sold out
The repressing and distribution were entrusted to Control Tower. To spare the owners of the original maxi, the reissue is not quite identical: there is one track fewer ("I think I'll do it like that every time."). The sleeve reproduces the cardboard box of the famous tape. Available at the end of May, Impression quickly sold out with distributors (a few copies should still be left in record shops). "I'd given myself a year to sell them all, because it's a demanding track. It's not necessarily the most killer track everyone was expecting."
Even so, it is a break-even operation for him and his label, Reel Heavy Productions. "You come out with zero euros, but a good experience. It's a hobby: at the weekend, some people build model boats, and I do this (laughs). What you get out of it is meeting the guy and working with him. Zenbar is completely amazed that people are still interested in his music. So when I sent him his royalty cheque…"
"With all the repress labels, there's an archiving effort that's starting to become substantial. Between Digikiller, the English labels, the Israeli ones… In France there are many, and very good ones: Livity, Only Roots, Kingston connection, Iroko… What Makasound did too." Even if, in an ideal world, artists would reissue their own tracks themselves: "No need for an intermediary: that's the ultimate justice."
Encouraged by this first success, a second reissue is in the works, with a release hoped for in early 2013. We will learn nothing more about this mysterious record, except that he had to track the artist down deep in the English countryside. That adventure will also be told on his blog. "And I still have my list of 25 tracks". Which may make for 25 reissues?
Listen: The reissue of Impression by Zen Bow
Also read: Seb Carayol's blog, Reel Heavy Productions
Report written by Sébastien Jobart
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