michael chamy

zanzibar snails (dallas)

Zanzibar Snails are the droned-out improvisations of visual artist Nevada Hill & journalist Michael Chamy, along with a rotating cast of intrepid musical explorers. The partnership began with the founding in 2005 of drone/skronk-cum-free jazz ensemble iDi*amin , which by the fall of 06 had mutated into Zanzibar Snails. Since that time, Zanzibar Snails have forged a bold musical path, always purely improvised, which has involved collaborations with wide-ranging instrumentation as diverse as saxophone, clarinet, bassoon, toy instruments, and amplified baking pans and have played all-acoustic or all-electronic. The common thread at the heart of every Zanzibar performance is the utmost regard for timbre, texture, drone, and aural cooperation, characterized by the use of pure sound sources such as analog oscillators, electrical test generators, and shortwave radio.

The Snails have shared stages with the Silver Apples, Harvey Milk, Six Organs of Admittance, Suishou no Fune, Wooden Shjips, Indian Jewelry, Aidan Baker, Rahdunes, Mike Tamburo, Dennis Gonzalez's Yells at Eels, Monsters of Pot, A_PINK_CLOUD, Shawn David McMillen, Social Junk, ST 37 and many more. Zanzibar Snails had the honor of being voted Best Noise/Avant-Garde in 2008 by the readers of highly trafficked Dallas/Denton music blog, We Shot JR.

Hill and Chamy also run Mayyrh records, which releases music by both Zanzibar Snails and other projects by Zanzibar collaborators, all featuring handmade design by Hill, a prominent local designer and screen-printer who was chosen Best Album Artist in 2008 by the Dallas Observer critics. Hill has a degree in printmaking, runs his own print shop, and does designs for a top merchandising company. The new Zanzibar Snails dual CD/DVD Journey Into Amazing Caves!, featuring the visuals of David Lee Price and designed by Hill, is slated to be ready in time for the No Idea Festival. Additional projects for the spring include the release of two other Mayyrh albums, including Age of Disinformation, a collaboration including Chamy and No Idea participants Aaron Gonzalez and Michael Maxwell among others. Chamy also recently founded along with Maxwell a new all-electronic improvised trio called The Watchers.