ZIR – Home – LP – Vinyl [SEP 5]

LP – Standard Edition Black Vinyl with printed inner sleeves.

The notion of home isnt precise, even a dictionary will offer multiple definitions. A home can be a place where you live, a place where you belong, where you originate from or a place where youre given care; it can be a physical space, a land, a people or even a person. The concept isnt completely universal, but everyone possesses a unique idea of what home means to them.

On her fifth album, Zir considers not just what home symbolises from her perspective, but the words resonance to the diverse community that surrounds her, and how their stories have impacted her over the years. Indeed, its the first time shes felt it necessary to examine her own nationality. In the past, shes deliberately avoided labelling herself as German, feeling disconnected from her countrys politics, culture and even the German language itself. In 2025, the idea of Germanness is in flux and progressives are under attack from all sides. The countrys politics arent only being turned inward by the growing throng of far-right voices, but by scared moderates, opportunists and those blinded by comfort, willing to ignore hatred to maintain their privilege. Stepping up to provide a different narrative, Zir scours her soul, writing and singing in German for the first time and proposing growth and evolution, not fear and regression. I never considered being part of Germany, she explains. But I am.

A solemn mood permeates the albums opening track Brown is the Color, and Zir sings in measured, slow-motion breaths over noisy synth oscillations and doomed piano flourishes. Already, its a significant departure from her last run of releases, veering away from the frenetic, satirical chaos of 2023s Hakuna Kulala-released Eyeroll or its fantastical, dubby predecessor Antifate. Zir pulls on real world insights here, tracing her oldest, dearest musical inspirations to present her origins to anybody who might be listening. Cold world is holding up, she laments with a metallic crunch. To let go of your heart, let me go. And her voice emerges from the shadows completely on Tame; unprocessed, Zir sounds naked and vulnerable on Tame, curving her precise words around broken, lopsided rhythms and jangling new wave guitars. Its pop music in its own way, inverted and reconstructed to fit snugly into her well-established sonic landscape. On No Yawn, brittle, downsampled hi-hats and industrial scrapes ping-pong around distorted riffs, provided by James Ceallaigh aka WIFE; You fail to sugarcoat your half-ass attempt, she deadpans, to build your promised wonderland on quicksand. Even the beatless All Odds No Chants, a collaboration with Elvin Brandhi and Sara Persico, reveals another room in Zirs autobiographical suite, mirroring Gyrgy Ligetis enduringly influential choral works with its gnarled, dissonant vocal harmonies.

The key to Home, though, lies underneath the albums central track, the first Zir has written in German. Im Bann Der Wehenden Fahnen (in the spell of flags waving) directly tackles the countrys muddled political landscape its complex history and its dangerously hypocritical present. ne Geschichte die ohne Herz beginnt, (a story that begins with no heart) she opens. dessen strmendes Blut unweigerlich abwrts rinnt (whose streaming blood runs unstoppably backwards). We know exactly what shes talking about as Zir recounts a bleak repetition of events, pairing her words with bar room piano chords and jazzy drums that wouldnt sound out of place on a Notwist record: Wenn die Moral der Geschichte geschickt kaschiert wird wird in der Gunst der Stunde Wort fr Wort neu etikettiert (when the storys moral, so neatly concealed, meets its moment to be relabeled word for word). Its refreshing to hear such confident, poetic German words, and Zir sounds free-er than ever before examining her uncomfortable relationship with Germany in her native tongue. And this openness carries the whole record, whether shes crying harsh truths over damaged orchestral scrapes on the albums goth-y title track, or duetting with Manchesters Iceboy Violet on Through the Trees. On the former, Zirs voice soars, echoing hypnotically over unsettling analog distortions and gnarled strings. Its one of the eeriest and most beautiful tracks shes penned, camouflaging its broken electronics with ghostly moans and theatrical punctuations.

By inviting in her own demons, Zir has been able to write her most personal album. Her relationship with home will always be thorny, but through music, shes been able to create a place to exist thats truly comfortable and protective. We readjust, she says. We build our own home.

Tracklist:

A1. Brown Is The Color
A2. Tame
A3. No Yawn
A4. All Odds No Chants Feat. Sara Persico & Elvin Brandhi
A5. Im Bann Der Wehenden Fahnen
A6. No Place Like

B1. Home
B2. Spellbound To Ancestral Curse
B3. Though The Trees Feat. Iceboy Violet
B4. Nowhere Everywhere Feat. Elvin Brandhi & Sara Persico
B5. Who, Me?