''Uzed'' is the fourth album by

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band

Univers Zero Univers Zero (also known as Univers Zéro and Univers-Zero) are an instrumental Belgium, Belgian band formed in 1974 by drummer Daniel Denis. The band is known for its dark style of progressive rock, heavily influenced by 20th-century chamber musi ...

. Due to a packed touring schedule, the band released this work three years after their previous album proper, '' Ceux du Dehors'' (although the '' Crawling Wind'' EP was released in the interim). This record marked an important stylistic shift for the band. The synthesizers which had been more moderately employed on ''Ceux du Dehors'' (and not at all in previous works) became much more prevalent on this release. In fact, the album opens with a

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

riff. Along with using more electric sounds, Univers Zero began to take inspiration from Middle Eastern musical themes, especially on the album's opener, "Présage." The new sound was partially attributable to the addition of some new band members. André Mergen's

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work provided some new textures for the ensemble. Michael Delory became the first

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselv ...

employed by the band since the departure of co-founder Roger Trigaux after '' Heresie''. Delory, unlike Trigaux, would play

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

with UZ. On ''Uzed'', he plays a notable and unexpected guitar solo at the end of "Célesta (For Chantal)." Jean-Luc Plouvier was the primary

keyboardist A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instr ...

for this album, and would form a combo within the band with fellow keyboardist Andy Kirk. Kirk would play on and write most of the material for the next UZ album, ''

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''. The album was recorded and mixed by Didier de Roos at Daylight Studio, Brussels.

Track listing

Personnel

*Daniel Denis: drums, percussion, synthesizer *Dirk Descheemaeker: soprano sax, clarinet, bass clarinet *Christian Genet: bass guitar, balafon, bowed guitar, tapes, whistle *André Mergen: cello, alto sax, voice *Jean-Luc Plouvier: electric and acoustic pianos, synthesizers, piano string, percussion Also with: *Michael Delory: electric guitar *Mark Verbist: violin (on "Célesta (For Chantal)")

References

{{Authority control 1984 albums Univers Zero albums