Pasteur: “Zahala Zzahala”

Pasteur answer the great unasked question “what if Tortoise signed to Warp and really liked King Crimson?” with the song “Zahala Zzahala.” A cursory glance over the band’s influence list on MySpace initially hints to what the track could have ended up sounding like – either a math rock tinged in the vein of Battles or Zazen Boys, or some straight-up weed prog like Tool or The Mars Volta. “Zahala Zzahala” definitely boasts “angular” guitars and a seven-something minute long playtime, but it’s got more in common with jazzy post-rock than anything else. Nothing on the song ever sounds too sharp, the music allowed to stretch out and almost float at times. It’s not aggressive or needlessly complicated…it’s just slightly hurried at times. Not to mention the general tropical feel Pasteur draw out of the song, one of the reasons Tortoise remain such an attention-grabbing outfit. Check it out.