For almost 10 years, Buenos Aires-based artist collective, record imprint, and documentary production company ZZK has been at the forefront of emerging Latin American music and culture. Starting with their infamous underground electrocumbia party back in 2008, the ZZK team has proven itself savvy enough to parlay the brand’s growing influence into a underground empire of cutting-edge music and visual arts.
Of course, that’s not to say it’s been easy, and ZZK has recently turned to its global network of fans and followers to help push the multi-tentacular project into ambitious new territory through crowdfunding. Just this year, and in large part thanks to a successful first campaign, they unleashed the new label AYA upon the world and formalized ZZK Films with the release of their first documentary A Musical Journey. Now, as label founder Grant C. Dull and his crew push into phase two, they’ve released a handful of trailers for some very promising upcoming projects.
First up, a clip from the feature documentary Analog Memories takes us to Quito, where the grandson of a record label impresario relates how he encountered a treasure trove of unreleased masters dating back to the 1970s. Though the project is still in development, Analog Memories will follow this young musician on his quest to understand his grandfather’s legacy, while digitizing his one-of-a-kind archive for posterity.
From there, ZZK will give itself a much-deserved pat on the back with a documentary chronicle of their meteoric rise entitled The Sound of Change. Incorporating interviews and a wealth of archival material, the The Sound of Change captures ZZK’s brash, avant-garde aesthetic while taking a moment to reflect on their impact in the world of Latin American electronic music and its growing global fanbase.
Finally, the first episode for an ongoing multi-part series entitled The Nu LatAm Sound gives us a taste of the depth and breadth of South America’s musical evolution. Focusing its first season on the underground scene in Ecuador, the episode takes us to the Amazonas region, where a new generation of musicians is incorporating the traditional sounds of local indigenous groups with more contemporary genres. The 20-minute episode features interviews with a number of Amazonian artists who reflect on the influence of the region in their work, and what exactly makes their sound so unique.
With so much ambitious new content on the docket, it’s an exciting moment for fans of the electrocumbia movement spearheaded by ZZK. If you happen to be one of them, be sure to pitch in to ZZK’s ongoing crowdfunding campaign and help make these projects a reality.