ZORNIK

Zornik is the band of Koen Buyse, a talented guy from Limburg with the looks like Brian Molko of Placebo or Brett Anderson of Suede, and a britpop-sound that has been compared to both Supergrass and Radiohead.

Zonhovenaar Koen Buyse emerged for the first time in the chronicles of Belgian rockmusic, when he participated in 1998 in Humo's Rock Rally with the band Pink Reflections. Despite genereal inexperience and a sixties fixation, Pink Reflections managed to get to the finals of this talent contest. A few months after this event however the band already fell apert, as Koen later explained because "I never was 100% happy with the music and lyrics I wrote together with the keyboard player. Our taste in music was just too different for that."

About a year later, he founded - to participate in Debuutrock - a new band, this time with the rather unpronounceable name Zornik Breknov (come to think of it, "unpronounceable" is probably a lot more unpronounceable then the comparitively easier Zornik Breknov). With this band he also took part in the Rock Rally, early 2000, and again managed to get through to the finals. As Marc Van Springel of the organising weekly Humo wrote : "Buyse showed himself to be a frontman with an undeniable presence, a singer that can catch ànd hold the attention of an audience, who can fill a complete stage on his own ... In the finals he foamed just that little bit more ecstatic, on the verge of the manic, all across the podium,, with the sort of intensity that reminded us of Paul Weller (the young and the old one). Zornik Breknov sounds, now that Buyse has slimmed it down to a trio, much more powerful and less eerie than Pink Reflections, but Buyse is still someone of "the big gesture". The limit between theatrical and pathetic is only slight, and Zornik needs to be constantly alert to stay on the good side of that ... I'm rather curious where this band will be within a year or so" An other reviewer resumed: "Other discoveries? First and foremost Zornik Breknov ... They were among the favourites, and they played the most cohesive set of the entire pack, but were unfortunately overlooked in the results."

But more important than taking part or losing in the final, was the fact that the and had gotten in touch with the Belgian branch of EMI during the events. They decided upon recording a number of demo's together, and then to release them as an EP. This meant that Zornik found itself in the shops and on the radio (and with promotion of a major label) with a debut single much earlier than the first three of the Rock Rally (which were the bands Mintzkov Luna, Admiral Freebee and Venus in Flames for this edition). In the process, the band had dropped the Breknov part of the name and was now simply called Zornik. The debut single "Love Affair" had the quality to force a breakthrough for the band immediately, albeit in the de Afrekening of Studio Brussel (not a sales-based list, that is).

The central spot in the band is undoubtedly Koen Buyse, but he insists that Zornik is a real band, or as he puts it himself : "Most of the songs we play are written by me. I write at home, acoustically, and record a guitar- and vocal part on 8-track. Then we add drums and bass in our rehearsal room at the Muziek-O-Droom. Most of the time I have an atmosphere or even a bass & drums sound in mind, but usually I don't even have to say much, because it just clicks between the three of us.".

After this enouraging start, Zornik went full-force adhead, with a new single/EP (again with four songs), "It's So Unreal" (an earlier live-version of this song can be found on the Rock Rally CD van 2000). This song grew a bit slower on the radio, but it also managed to get all the way to the top of De Afrekening. For this song there was also a video shot, which got quite a bit of airplay on the local MTV (TMF that is). After the snowtrodding of the video for "Love Affair", they headed on to more pleasant surroundings this time with actresses An Ceurvels, Pascal Bal and Leah Thijs in a somewhat "unreal" hotel.

In the summer of 2001, they managed to do gigs here and there in the trio-form, with as likely culminating point a gig at the Pukkelpop festival (on the main stage, after a late cancellation of another band).

Next plans include a third single ("Hey Girl"), and there are already advanced pland to put together a full-CD (probable release is somewhere in the spring of 2002).

Members :
- Koen Buyse (vocals, guitar)
- Kristof Vanduren (bass)
- Marijn Horemans (drums)

Buy CD's of this band at

Albums :
- Love Affair (EP, 2001, Parlophone / EMI)
- It's So Unreal (CDS, 2001, Parlophone / EMI)

Websites :
- www.zornik.com, soon to be the official site of the band
- Tourcontrol, management of Zornik
- "Zornik en de gevaren van een artistieke bles", real-video interview at Mine.
- An MP3 of an early version of "Killed in the end" at Rock Herk

Forum :
- Read the messages about Zornik
- Add your message, question, cd- or concertreview ... about Zornik in the Forum