KEITH LEVENE: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING A COMMERCIAL ZONE CZ2014
With his ever-present guitar hoisted over his shoulder, Keith Levene walked through Václav Havel Airport one glorious day in May 2014 en route to Faust Studios in Prague where he would finally finish what he started 30 years earlier.
Levene suddenly noted a happy sort of coincidence, something that resonated with the London native and multi-instrumentalist.
“It struck me that the airport code for the Czech Republic is ‘CZ’ and the album I was there to make was also ‘CZ’” chuckles Levene.
“I have this personal saying that goes ‘everything counts’ and given the context — that certainly did,” he adds.
In addition to being a country code CZ also stands for Commercial Zone a release which has been referred by some as the “lost 4th PiL album” and others as the “post punk opus.”
To understand Commercial Zone’s three decade long history one must travel back in time to 1983 and a land far from Prague: Manhattan.
Back then Levene was in his fifth year as a director and principal musical composer for Public Image Ltd. or “PiL.” PiL had relocated operations from London to New York.
During Levene’s tenure with the “company” PiL produced three groundbreaking albums: First Issue, Metal Box and Flowers of Romance. PiL were the darlings of the independent, avant-garde, and post-punk worlds.
Levene states “By 1983 we’d had some success and it was time to position PiL in a more mainstream yet ambiguous arena. This was an area I referred to as the Commercial Zone.”
“So I went into the studio on 57th Street and began writing and composing the music for the album bearing that title,” he recalls.
The fruits of Levene’s labour on the first Commercial Zone demonstrate his incredible range as a composer. Take for instance the orchestral and serene “The Slab” or the contrast of the bluesy guitar-driven Lou Reed Part I and II.
Unfortunately, however, not all parties in the PiL camp were on the proverbial same page where the music was concerned.
Before Commercial Zone was completed, creative differences over the project resulted in Levene’s declining to continue with PiL.
“It was the last thing I wanted but I had no choice really. To have stayed would have meant compromising the integrity of the project which is something I could never do,” he explains.
The following year Levene released Commercial Zone (1984) as an album comprised essentially of incomplete work from the prior year’s sessions. Meantime PiL reproduced Levene’s work and released a similar album entitled This is What You Want This is What You Get.
Levene was never fully satisfied with either release and hoped to address the balance, complete the project and realize the Commercial Zone he envisioned – some day.
Thereafter Levene became immersed in activities both inside and outside of the music industry. Over the ensuing years and then decades, he released three solo albums, produced work for other performers, wrote soundtracks for film, did jingles for commercials, created 3D artwork and immersed himself in the computer field.
Then in early 2014 Commercial Zone came calling once again for Levene. He made a conscious decision that “now is the better time” to realize the Commercial Zone which at first meant to take the original work from 1983, enhance it and then add some new material.
Levene went on to establish a crowd-funding project on the Indiegogo platform to help raise the necessary funds toward creating Commercial Zone 2014 (“CZ2014”). The project was a success and ultimately raised twice the amount of initial budget.
Due to the success of the campaign Levene upped the game significantly. Levene decided the original material and fantastic artwork was only the beginning.
He felt that the unique custom artwork should be applied now in these post vinyl/digital days. Thus Levene decided CZ 2014 needed to be completely original as well “in order to take CZ way past 2014 and be way more than it could have been.”
While in Prague Levene created the tunes that comprise CZ2014. The release is not a rehashing of the original Commercial Zone LP. Instead all of the songs are completely new Levene compositions – save one. “I wrote the music for the tune ‘What’s My Name’ at age 17 in 1976 while I was a member of the Clash. It was at a sound check for a Clash/Sex Pistols gig at a pub called the Black Swan in Sheffield. Although that tune appeared a year later on the Clash’s debut album I never recorded it…until now for CZ2014,” Levene explains.
To say that song is intense is to put it mildly.
Here he quotes Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers who worked with Levene on his 1989 Violent Opposition release as he explains “An earmark of a so-called punk tune is that you must play each note as though it could be your last. So there you have it!”
Contrast the rollicking “What’s My Name” with the upbeat and effervescent “Bits of Prague” versus the bluesy “Call it a Day” – which sounds like it could have easily been called “Lou Reed Part III” – as opposed to “The Harmonic Forrest” which is a totally atmospheric visual experience.
Through these spectacles one can appreciate the incredibly broad and sweeping range of composition that Levene is famous for.
Although he initially solicited the help of others on the project, in the end CZ2014 is ultimately and completely a Keith Levene production.
In addition to writing all the tunes, Levene played all the instruments. Moreover Levene was the engineer, producer and mixer on the project.
Levene even went so far as to create the abstract and vibrant custom covers that will accompany the CZ2014 physical releases. Each cover is unique and as such is made one at a time – by Levene.
“The studio at Faust had a number of rooms filled with instruments, paints, chalks and materials. Everything came together incrementally and simultaneously,” states Levene.
On November 23, 2014, the 35th anniversary of PiL’s Metal Box, Levene released a backer’s issue download of Commercial Zone 2014 to the funders of the Indiegogo campaign. Thereafter several of the backers provided their reviews of CZ2014 on social media and elsewhere. They have been overwhelmingly positive.
An early crowd funder “Ugo” who saw PiL and Levene perform live in Seattle in 1982 states the following: “As I started to go through it (CZ2014), each turn in the road was a surprise and I found myself getting that chill up the spine as I moved into each new landscape…laid out. Different moods, different textures, different instrumentation, travelling through so many environments, but still all holding together into a single journey. I’m still trying to digest it all…bottom line is that I’m going to enjoy spending time with these songs and discovering their depths.”
Levene who is rarely satisfied with his own work is extremely proud of CZ2014 and goes as far to say that it is better than his work on the much loved Metal Box release.
“CZ2014 is completely fresh. It represents not the end of something but the beginning. I put everything I had in this project and truly believe that the best is yet to come,” Levene says.
Kathy DiTondo
