Zura Zaj - Small Obstacles (2018)

Zura Zaj’s journey started ten years ago when three young musicians met in a university orchestra and started tuning their instruments to each other’s tastes and creativity. A Hungarian roommate called it “strange sounds”, or “zura zaj” in the dialect of his home region, and so our name was born. We came together in various living rooms, attics, kitchens, a garden or two, and at times presented our results on stages. Many hours of music were written, improvised, arranged, discarded; a bass player joined and left again; plans were made to record, put on hold and revived, and finally achieved. We moved around, studied, found work, established relationships or ended them; a child was conceived, grew in tune to the album’s recording sessions, and was born during the mixing stages; a marriage will more or less coincide with the release.

Small Obstacles is the outcome of a decade of searching and finding, of overcoming and bonding. The oldest composition on the album (“Tide”) is the very first composition we wrote while the newest (“Acres”) is barely a year old. Some songs were originally written as a fourpiece and later rearranged (“Exhale”, “Atoll”, “Ever”, “Alight”), but all carry the creative touch of our hands, breaths, and bows.