Deeper Tripping

The whole reason behind the new sound is because we had time off and we stepped off the frame so to speak and went, 'What is this?'” Norman offers. “'We have this business, this group… what are we doing here, what are searching for?' I think part of us coming back together was that we all wanted to remain artistic and not just have it as this business that we deliver the products that people like and we go out and play it. There was something in us that despised that kind of behaviour.

“And we really thought that after this time off, if we're going to do something, let's do what we've always wanted to do. Throughout all of our other records, there's been a bunch of songs that are instrumental slow jams that never made the cut because they were instrumental slow jams and in a way we kind of wanted to release an instrumental album, and for a while it was an instrumental album.”

Large parts of Millions Of Moments remain instrumental, but in place of vocals there are dense layers of instruments filling the space, again a shift away from the comparative sparseness of Computer Love.

“We definitely were looking for density” states Norman. “And colour and richness because there's always, well I guess hip hop always steers towards being spare. I love music that's minimal and spare and each element is really delicious. You know, that kind of music, whether it's jazz or hip hop, or very minimal classical is beautiful. But on this album we just went, 'Let's not do that and let's see how thick we can make the forest, just go for it'. And it was really fun to take that different approach.”

TZU have always been known as a bit of a party band, particularly live. Recently completing a tour in support of the first single Beginning Of The End has given the guys a chance to see how their fans are reacting to the new material.

“Definitely part of where TZU belongs in people's hearts is as a party and as a sort of honest feel-good group,” Norman says, reflectively. “I guess that's the kind of people we are in real life and that very much translated in our earlier records, particularly our first record. Now as we've grown and we've gone deeper into just being artists and exploring stuff, this is a much darker record and I know that some of our fans know us and want us to continue that really fun, party side even if it has some intelligence behind the party. But on the other side some people are really excited by it.” Norman is particularly pleased that some of his closer friends who weren't previously fans of TZU are expressing their appreciation for the new album. “We don't want to isolate and push our fans away, we'd love it if they came with us, but we recognise that it's hard to sort of continue that party vibe when you're sort of doing dark, challenging, artistic music.”

And asked what he sees as the focus of the forthcoming tour, Norman says; “I think for our shows we'd like to take the audience on a trip through the dark vortex of our new material and some of older stuff, still get people dancing, so it will be a mix, but in our shows we feel that we can take them on that trip a bit deeper.”

TZU will be playing the following shows:

Friday 21 September - Sol Bar, Maroochydore QLD
Saturday 22 September - The Zoo, Brisbane QLD
Friday 28 September - Pelican Bar, Frankston VIC
Saturday 29 September - Ferntree Gully Hotel, Ferntree Gully VIC
Thursday 4 October - Grace Emily, Adelaide SA
Friday 5 October - Bar 120, Hillarys WA
Saturday 6 October - Amplifier Bar, Perth WA
Sunday 7 OCtober - The Prince of Wales, Bunbury WA
Thursday 11 October - The Patch, Wollongong NSW
Friday 12 October - Transit Bar, Canberra ACT
Saturday 13 October - The Standard, Sydney NSW
Friday 19 October - Republic Bar, Hobart TAS
Monday 5 November - The Hi-Fi, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 10 November - Sprung Festival, Brisbane QLD
Friday 23 November - Queenscluff Music Festival VIC