Now, this is what I find interesting. Whether the person behind ZJ has an industrial/noise collection of certain magnitude, does it matter? For me it does add a lot, since I don't think the music of ZJ sounds like every other ordinary female vocal popmusic out there, and I do think there is some importance to influences even when the end result is different, I think it is quite clear that her influences differ from the regular "girl singers". Does gaining popularity automatically make you a hipster? Does it even matter if hipsters stumble into buying noise records due to namedropping artists?
(discussed this the other day, is it better for scene infrastructure if some innocent bystanders actually buy records? For all its anticommercial rhetorics this scene is extremely keen on releasing products. Products need consumers. It would be somewhat foolish to think the consumers should be "worthy", sort of teenage norwegian black metal style. Does that mean that all listeners become part of the scene? Of course not. But its hardly any danger of the "alternative mainstream" picking up on trve kvlt, a record named "multicultural degeneration" ain't going to be acceptable for example, which means they will only pick what IS or canonical enough to be not dangerous despite subject matter (Whitehouse perhaps?). I think one should take a more Jüngeresque approach, let them be interested while we ignore them, mainstream interference will only be a problem if we start to adopt our output to fit THEIR demands)
I have no problem seeing a person with a real and intense interest in PE/industrial playing music that suddenly becomes popular with "hipsters". The only things that matter should be if there is a real interest and passion for the culture, not what the dayjob is.
I just came home from a dreadful nightshift, if someone would be prone to give me money and pay me to tour places instead I would certainly find that more appealing than this.
Now, I do not claim that ZJ is a part of this specific little island of extreme music, not by any means. Not any longer anyway. It has transcended (or descended depending on one's point of view) into a much less specified area. That was the point of me mentioning 20 jazz funk greats earlier. That doesn't sound like "industrial" either, but I wouldn't say that it's an irrelevant record in an industrial context. I DO find both fantastic music though, I listen to stridulum all the time, one of my favourite records ever. I hope that do not make me a hipster now...
(Sorry. I'm rambling. Haven't slept for a long time, brain completely overheated. It is almost worse than writing drunk...)
