REVIEWS (MUSIC)CRITICS
ZEM — Changing armature to retune the soul
A fusion harp, an inner swing
Some silences soothe. Others cut deep.
ZEM, a harpist of Ethiopian origin, does more than just play: she weaves.
With her semi-electric harp, she weaves a hybrid sound — somewhere between ethereal folk, introspective jazz
and hushed trip-hop. A bridging, multilingual music (French, English, Dutch), mirroring her own story: born in Ethiopia, adopted by a Belgian-Dutch family, she embodies a modern, multicultural, vibrant Belgium.
“The harp chose me just as much as I chose it,” she confides, almost between the lines.
As a child, it was love at first sight in a living room where several harps stood — those belonging to a friend’s mother, a harpist at the Opera. Since then, the majestic instrument has never left her side.
But with ZEM, biography is never a pretext: it is a tone.
Her Ethiopian roots, long sung in Amharic with her brother, have faded over time. Yet they linger like an invisible basso continuo. One may forget a language; one never forgets one’s inner timbre.
And then there is this theme of anhedonia — this ‘anaesthesia of the heart’ — which her music touches upon with clinical delicacy.
In psychology armature protect.
In music armature define the key.
‘Changing key signatures means accepting to alter one’s inner key. ”
The play on words becomes clear: shedding the armour so that the heart ceases to play in muted tones. For anhedonia resembles a harp whose strings have been muffled. The notes are there, but deprived of their echo.
In *La Harpe en Sourdine: Récital pour un Cœur Anesthésié*, every arpeggio seems to seek out the crack through which light might enter.
In *Réaccorder l’Âme: Au-delà des Murs du Château*, the therapeutic endeavour becomes a process of tuning: tightening without breaking, listening before striking.
“A dead note is not a lost note. It awaits another touch of the finger.”
ZEM does not dramatise. She nuances. She transforms fragility into sound. Her art is neither complaint nor posturing — it is lived through.
Ultimately, her harp does not shield us from the world.
It invites us to feel it anew.
The pen of improvisation, the ink of nostalgia.
No rough draft, just rebounds.
The art of cultivating equality — even in the face of silence.
Fabrice Allouache (*) – Ladies in Jazz – 2026
***
ZEM Do-Re-Mi-Sol-La
A secular lullaby for a world of psychopaths
Psycho-pentatonic and the essential fifth
‘Some works are reassuring. Others make you cough. ZEM, however, plays on the fifth… even if it means awakening the fifth of madness. ”
With Living in a World of Psychopaths, harpist ZEM composes a piece that could be described as psycho-pentatonic — a portmanteau for music that thinks as much as it soothes. Here, the major pentatonic scale (C-D-E-G-A) becomes an aesthetic statement: no F, no B. No apparent flaws, no superfluous frills. A pared-back structure that gives the illusion of a simple world… whilst the theme is dizzying.
“Psychopaths are among us,” the title declares. But ZEM seeks neither gratuitous thrills nor facile accusations. She plucks her strings as one might interrogate a system. The fifth — the quintessential stable interval — becomes a metaphor: musical balance on one side, a social coughing fit on the other. The tension does not scream; it resonates.
“Is it a bug… or a feature?”
The question returns like an ostinato.
In this harp that takes on the guise of a critical conscience, gentleness is not weakness. It is contrast. Whilst the world values domination and overconfidence, ZEM chooses restraint, nuance and listening. Her music does not judge; it reveals.
“Not every loud note is leadership.”
Therein lies the subtlety: the pentatonic scale avoids the most obvious friction, yet leaves a void hanging in the air. What is missing speaks as loudly as what is heard. As if the absence of F and B were a symbol of a world that erases its dissonances without resolving them.
Ultimately, ZEM does not describe monsters. She explores mechanisms.
Her harp does not condemn — it questions.
And in this sequence of shadows, the music recalls a simple truth:
Dissonance is not madness.
It is a call for harmony.
“The pen of improvisation, the ink of nostalgia.
No rough draft, just improvisations.
The art of cultivating harmony — even in the face of dissonance.”
Fabrice Allouache (*) – Ladies in Jazz – 2026
***
ZEM, the harp in chiaroscuro
Some artists take to the stage. Others reveal themselves. With *Veils to Cover*, ZEM does not merely play the harp: she weaves a mystery, crafting a soundscape in which every string becomes a golden thread. In the space of a few seconds of a skilfully fragmented video sequence, the musician makes her mark: her movements are assured, her touch pure, almost whispered. Her fingers — slender yet decisive — brush the strings with a goldsmith’s precision, as if she were writing the score of a dream in Braille.
The camera, her accomplice, captures this tactile prelude before gliding towards a diaphanous veil. And there, jazz becomes image. ZEM appears as a silhouette, sculptural and fluid, like a contemporary goddess summoning Love, Beauty, Music and Joy all at once. One is reminded of a reinvented mythology: a modern pantheon where the harp is no longer a ceremonial instrument, but the beating heart of a rhythmic and sensual Orient.
For this is where the audacity lies: ZEM does not merely pluck the strings, she plucks at our curiosity. The rhythms, with their subtle oriental flavour, open up a hybrid space — somewhere between modal trance and impressionist jazz. Her body dances behind the veil, strange and magnetic, as if the music itself were seeking to materialise. Movement becomes rhythm, rhythm becomes a whisper.
Then comes the moment of ‘zooming in’; the gaze draws closer, capturing a luminous, almost solemn face, in which the artist’s controlled surrender is evident. ZEM does not flaunt herself: she reveals herself. An essential distinction. She plays with veils as she does with harmonies; she covers to better reveal, she conceals to better move.
In Veils to Cover, it is all about breathing. The silence here has the density of a suspended solo, and the harp, an instrument too often confined to the classical repertoire, finds a thrilling modernity here. ZEM belongs to that rare lineage of artists who defy labels: she jazzifies the East, orientalises jazz, and within this sonic chiasm, invents her own idiom.
One emerges from this brief sequence as from a smoke-filled club at dawn: a little dizzy, delightfully unsettled, with the sensation of having witnessed a revelation more internal than visual. Beneath the veils, the truth of an artist. And beneath the strings, the unmistakable mark of a signature.
Under my signature, words become arpeggios, and ‘Veils to Cover’ asserts itself as a literary intention where mystery engages with the demands of the word.
Thus, behind the chiaroscuro of the harp and the play of the veils, looms the benevolent shadow of its author, a craftsman of images and sounds, who has managed to translate into words what ZEM suggests through music.
A unique pen – that of my authorship -, which transforms ZEM’s world into a subtle literary improvisation with jazz-inspired touches.
Auteur : Fabrice ALLOUACHE.(*) Ladies In Jazz – 2026
(*) Fabrice Allouache is the creator of Ladies In Jazz, a platform dedicated to celebrating the "ladies of vocal jazz". His writing and digital presence focus on:
Tributes and Reviews: He frequently writes evocative tributes to both legendary and rising jazz artists
Advocacy: He is an active member and contributor to communities like "Women in Jazz 2022," where he shares historical insights and promotes the achievements of female musicians to combat inequality in the industry.
Historical Narratives: His writing often blends musical analysis with poetic storytelling. He has written about Ella Fitzgerald, describing her improvisational style as "writing in the air" and her 1956 Cole Porter recordings as elevating standard melodies into a "crown" of vocal artistry.