Zombi (bassist Steve Moore)

[hieronymous]

Surprised there aren't any threads dedicated to Zombi - bass/drums/synth duo, Steve Moore is awesome! To me they are like an instrumental Rush-minus-guitar, post-Krautrock Goblin as a duo doing a John Carpenter soundtrack. I have almost all their albums including some of their solo stuff.

As much as I love them, this is only the first time I've been able to see them live. They did not disappoint, they gave it their all, playing the music with incredible energy along with the propulsive sequenced lines. Sometimes Steve Moore played keyboards (Moog, Prophet, Korg), sometimes he played bass (Fender Jazz through Ampeg SVT, considerably louder than everything else), sometimes he played both at the same time!

They are playing Portland & Seattle over the next couple of days - check them out if you are into instrumental prog!

 

[grrg63]

Im pretty sure Steve has been using that particular rig for years. Definitely the Jazz bass. Great band.

 

[monsterthompson]

this seems promising. i'm off to youtube.

 

[hieronymous]

this seems promising. i'm off to youtube.

This is my personal favorite - it's EPIC though - about 20 minutes - but I feel it pays off in the end. Plus I like the space footage the person added:



It comes from Surface to Air - probably my favorite album of theirs overall:



Shape Shift is their most recent - from 2015! - and kind of goes back to Surface to Air:



I'm going to have to go back and listen to the two albums that came out between these S->A and Shape Shift - I didn't get into them as much but that doesn't mean they aren't good! Just that they weren't what I was looking for at the time.

EDIT: Listening to Spirit Animal now - much more "produced" sounding, in that the first couple of songs sound like they overdubbed stuff without worrying about whether it could be reproduced verbatim as a duo, like electric guitars and bass parts played simultaneously with synth parts. There's stuff that sounds unplayable simultaneously, but at the show the other night he was playing the low E on the bass with his right hand while playing synth with his left! Take that Geddy!

 

[nattiep]

When I saw them open for Ghost last year he was playing a Rickenbacker.

 

[hieronymous]

Finally saw Zombi again! They were opening for OM. This time around, Steve Moore played one of the new Hagstrom 8-strings! On a couple of songs he played bass (picking with the right hand) and synth (playing melody with his left) at the same time - pretty bold with an 8-string. (EDIT: saw from my post from the last time I saw them live that I saw him do it then too! I bet it was Orion.)

This pic is from the song Orion from their Cosmos album - this one wasn't on my radar, I have the album but never gave it a chance - now I will! That's part of what's great about seeing live music, huh?

 

[hieronymous]

Steve Moore posted his Hagstrom 8-string!

 

[hieronymous]

When I saw them open for Ghost last year he was playing a Rickenbacker.

Speaking of Steve Moore playing a Rickenbacker, here's a cool bass playthrough video:

 

[hieronymous]

I posted a couple of videos from the show I saw - the first one is just an excerpt and features the Hagstrom 8-string - the other is the complete song, the second song from their first album, but no bass guitar.

Family Man (from 2020)


Cetus (from Cosmos)