For the past two years, Los Angeles scene veteran and crooner extraordinaire, Bryan Gonzales, has been cranking out dank release after danker under the name Nass Zuruck. Starting the band with his pal Joel Perez on bass, he eventually went studio solo. Today sees the release of his best to date with Plastic Love, a self-explanatory foray into the farces of shallow romances, no matter how profound they felt at times. Pumping a simple drum machine, Gonzales stretches the tonal capabilities of raw synth, pocketed bass, and stripped-down guitar underneath his haunting, forlorn utterances.
The 12-track LP is comprised mostly of single-length dark pop jams with a few tracks begging for extended remixes or sampling galore. It even includes a spot-on-yet-genuinely-unique rendition of one of my favorite Joy Division songs “Shadowplay.” For those versed in the German language, you might have realized the band name means “wet back,” which was a deliberate reclamation of a slur Bryan grew up with. Standing mostly alone in the world of darkwave, the album contains a few sound bites from movies that explicate a righteous indignation of self-empowerment with an attitude of, “This may be sad, but we’ll get through this.” The album dropped today on Bandcamp and will be available soon on cassette and CD via KBOR records. Check the music video by Gabby Gonzalez for the single “Distance” below and stay tuned for more from this dark dance DIY stalwart.
