Zachery Allan Starkey enlists New Order's Bernard Sumner for new LP (listen to "Fear City")
NYC darkwave vet Zachery Allan Starkey will release new album Fear City on April 30, which features a number of collaborations with his friend Bernard Sumner of New Order. (You may have seen ZAS opening for New Order on the Music Complete tour in 2017.) Where Bernard has guested vocally on other artists songs over the years (like Chemical Brothers and 808 State), here it’s more of a full collaboration, and he contributes production, synthwork and more. One of the songs they worked on together is Fear City‘s pounding title track:
Bernard enhanced everything I had written for the track synth and vocal wise, and then, vibing off the dark atmosphere of my vocals, synth parts and lyrics, he added even more new synth parts of his own, and really beefed up the drums and bass. He also put in a sample of a snake charmer that he’d recorded in the souk in Marrakech, as well as that really cool harpsichord sounding part. He also pushed my vocals way to the front, which surprised me. The end result is that “FEAR CITY” is a song where Bernard and I played off of each other in a natural way.
We’ve got the premiere of “Fear City” and it’s video which was directed by Furusho von Puttkammer with Zachery Allan Starkey and shot in Bushwick around the Myrtle Ave J/M station. Watch that, and check out a couple other tracks off the record, below.
FEAR CITY tracklist:
01. City Overture
02. XXX
03. No Security
04. Force (ft. Bernard Sumner)
05. Fallout
06. “Bright Future”
07. Coked Up Biker Anthem
08. NeoLiberal
09. Opiate
10. Fear City (ft. Bernard Sumner)
11. Love Does Not Win
12. Empire
13. COVID-19
14. Future Shock
