Zohar (Zozo) Ginzburg can play it either way. Over the past decade or so she has made a name for herself on the grungier side of the rock tracks but also admits to a liking for more gentle “poppy” sounds. She is also an Israeli who, for the majority of her career to date, has mainly written and performed numbers in English.
Ginzburg will feature material in both languages in her upcoming gig at the Hamagber Festival, which takes place at the Enav Center in Tel Aviv from February 4 to 8. The rest of the heavyweight rock-pop roster includes the likes of Aviv Guedj, Daniella Spektor, Amir Lev, Geva Alon, and Alon Eder. The guest list isn’t too shabby either, with Eviatar Banai, Eran Tzur, Hemi Rudner, and Maayan Linik due to join forces with the leaders.
Ginzburg’s slot is on February 5 (10:30 p.m.), with singer-songwriter Rona Kenan joining her and her quintet on stage for what promises to be an intriguing fusion of powerhouse rock seasoned with rich lyrical seams.
One number that is sure to appear in the show setlist is “Einayim Kechulot” (“Blue Eyes”). It is the first single to be released from Ginzburg’s new album, a Hebrew-language record due to come out in the summer. It is a balladic offering and, if the song is anything to go by, the new addition to the Ginzburg discography may deviate somewhat from her usual more feral delivery. Then again, it may not.
After listening to a large slice of her work, both in Hebrew and English, I got the distinct impression that, while there were clear references to the in-your-face sonic protestations of the Sex Pistols and the rest of the punk rock crowd, as well rough-and-ready heavy metal sensibilities, along with the concomitant decibel levels, there was also an undeniably softer melodic underbelly to Ginzburg’s mode of musical expression.
With that in mind, I wondered whether she had ever been tempted to play acoustic guitar rather than the electric version.
“Up till a few years ago, I didn’t like playing acoustic guitar at all. I only really enjoyed playing electric. Making noise,” she chuckles. “But if you listen to the song in Hebrew [“Einayim Kechulot”] you hear it is very different.” That is patently clear. This is a solo effort with Ginzburg on tender heartfelt vocals, supported by minimal spacey-sounding instruments.
This is all, it seems, part and parcel of a different approach, or a variation on the way Ginzburg has put herself out there until now.
“There are quite a few far louder songs on this Hebrew album,” she says. “We decided to choose this quieter, more intimate song [as a single] in order to declare that this is something new, a different direction, a new sound.”
That echoes inner dynamics that have evolved in recent times.
“In the last few years I have really fallen in love with the acoustic guitar,” she explains. That suits the Ginzburg creative process. “With me, songs start out with me playing them in my living room. I did acoustic versions of my first album [2019 release Blue Mountains].”
It has been a matter of seamlessly straddling two very different sonic worlds although, at least outwardly, Ginzburg is associated with the louder stuff.
“I always liked noise,” she states. “I still love rock and roll, punk and post-punk. But there always has to be melody in the middle of all that, a ‘poppy’ melody that is easy on the ear. I don’t want to end up with something that is too raucous.”
She draws on some consummate role models.
“I have always liked [alternative American rock band] Pixies and Led Zeppelin. The contrariness attracts me. I need to have an accessible melody which I want to sing, with a powerful force behind it. David Bowie did that quite a lot too. I have always been drawn to that sort of thing.”
Settling in
IT TOOK Ginzburg a while to settle her mind and devote all her energy to music. She studied theater at Tel Aviv University, and only became a full-time musician 10 years ago, at the age of 31. Many of her contemporaries started out much younger and had put out a bunch of records by that stage of life. That may have left Ginzburg with lost music-making time to make up, but it also meant that, when she finally got around to crafting scores and lyrics, she came into it with more street smarts than most.
“I decided to go for it, in music, when I was a little older. I was more mature.” And, no doubt, with less juvenile angst to dispense with, and the hell with everyone else. “I didn’t want to make noise just to make noise,” she chuckles. “I always wanted to make more mature noise – managed noise, which doesn’t just go all over the place. You don’t want to have the noise drown out the music.”
Her initial inspirational figures come from the epicenter of the rock pantheon.
“My life changed when I heard Jimi Hendrix, and then I got into [Led Zeppelin guitarist] Jimmy Page. Today I am more into Jimmy Page, because his music evolved more.” That, naturally, probably has a lot to do with the fact that Page is still with us, and doing the business, at the age of 81 while Hendrix shuffled off his mortal coil as an early member of the unofficial “27 club” – rock and pop stars who died at the age of 27 – preceded by Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and followed by the likes of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse.
The color blue makes several titular appearances in Ginzburg’s portfolio, and she says she is drawn to the genre.
“The blues are a part of me. That comes out of me without any thought. I listened to some of the greats – BB King, Little Richard... I haven’t researched this, but it comes to me naturally.”
After paying her dues on the gig circuit Ginzburg gained a reputation as a nimble guitarist and has served invaluable time with some of our leading pop and rock acts, such as Danny Sanderson and Mashina. Having grown up listening to them, and going along to their concerts, actually sharing a stage with them must have been quite a moment for her.
“I always pinched myself when I played with Sanderson or Mashina. They are wonderful people and great musicians.”
As a born and bred Israeli I wondered why Ginzburg spent the first decade or so of her career writing and performing in English. It was, she says, a reverential thing. “I always felt Hebrew was something lofty, and that I couldn’t just do something with it. And I grew up listening to rock and pop in English.” Despite having what she admits is less-than-perfect diction: “It felt disingenuous to me to try to adopt a British or American accent when I sang. I had my own [Israeli] accent.” That, apparently, did not get in the way of her marketing efforts and she was due to tour a number of spots around Europe before that was nipped in the bud by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eventually, she discovered that a return to her linguistic and cultural roots was on the cards.
“I guested with various artists and sang in Hebrew with them. I got great responses to that. I gradually realized that it was a more natural fit for me to perform in Hebrew.”
Even so, it took a while for the dust to settle.
“It was tough for me to write and sing in Hebrew, to begin with. I felt as if I was pretending to be someone else. You can’t just switch, overnight, after performing in English for 10 whole years.”
But now she is well and truly back where she knows she belongs. “I went into the studio with –bass guitarist-vocalist [Amir] Jango [Rossiano], and we wrote loads of songs. I think we wrote around 25 songs over the course of two years and we ended up with nine [on the new album]. It was pretty intense.”
Rossiano will be on stage with Ginzburg at the Enav Center on February 5, along with drummer Asaf Reiss and percussionist Anna Raz, with Omer Elias on guitars, keyboards, and vocals. No doubt the amplification system will be put to good use, with some quieter stuff thrown in for good gentler measure.
For tickets and more information: goshow.co.il/Hamagber