In ten years, the heroic Belgian rock formation Ghinzu has grown up, matured, and emancipated. Now, it gives us ‘Mirror Mirror’, an ambitious third album devoid of concessions and in which the band is completely liberated.

Already armed with a steel personality at the image of 2002’s « Electronic Jacuzzi », their first, personal and contemporary album, the Brussels band polish it with « Blow » in 2004. This second album sells a record 100,000 copies and will serve to impose G...

In ten years, the heroic Belgian rock formation Ghinzu has grown up, matured, and emancipated. Now, it gives us ‘Mirror Mirror’, an ambitious third album devoid of concessions and in which the band is completely liberated.

Already armed with a steel personality at the image of 2002’s « Electronic Jacuzzi », their first, personal and contemporary album, the Brussels band polish it with « Blow » in 2004. This second album sells a record 100,000 copies and will serve to impose Ghinzu abroad as well as in their homeland. Ghinzumania has begun. A sound and a style assert themselves. Between flights of piano and bleeding guitars, the elegance that characterises them is always there.

Ghinzu plays amazing gigs wherever they go. In 2005, the band, under the leadership of John Stargasm, is established as one of the circuit’s best live formations while still managing to cultivate its mystery. It is not unlikely to find them in a little bar they love after a sold-out concert or after heading a summer festival, just to carry on partying... The ‘Blow’ tour will end on 13 June 2005 in a Homeric concert at Paris’ prestigious Olympia.

Since then – except for the musical score (with Marianne Faithfull) of Sam Gabarski’s film, Irina Palm – Ghinzu has spent the past three years affirming, polishing, sculpting and drawing on a palette of uncensored emotion: “Mirror Mirror”. ‘We wanted to try to find sounds that suited us in terms of arrangements’ explains John. ‘We worked with peripheral and satellite labs. And we really enjoyed loosing ourselves in a studio, putting sounds one on top of the other without succumbing too much to the music trends of the moment. We wanted to renew ourselves. That was our ultimate goal…’

And indeed, John Stargasm, Greg Remy, Mika Nagazaki, Tony « Babyface » Poltergeist and Jean Monte are completely rid of any hang-ups as they are back in business with this twelve-song third album strong in powerful, frontal, subtle and fractal songs and compositions, all hot and burning like molten lava. In this rich and complex record, über-pop ‘Take it Easy’ rivals with the emotional ‘Mother Allegra’, which is carried by black and white touches. In this insane and innovating record, the thundering ‘Mirror Mirror’ challenges a viciously dirty ‘Kill the Surfer’.
There is no limit to Ghinzu’s audacity, as testify both the quirky, surprising and humour-filled ‘Je t’attendrai’ and the 6-minute instrumental and ambient trip appropriately entitled ‘Interstellar Orgy’.

The assumed schizophrenia of “Mirror Mirror”, which coincides with the tenth birthday of the band, would not have seen the light of day without the relentless work and contribution of Christine Verschorren (Ghinzu…), Dimitri Tikovoï (Placebo) and Nick Terry (Klaxons) who all guided, in different ways, this maelstrom of sounds and emotions. As though “Mirror Mirror” was a hybrid music score, somewhere between Apocalypse Now, 2001 – A Space Odyssey, and Orange Mechanic.