San Francisco: Zero had just finished blazing through their final set of the night. The music floated, soaring, peaking, and exploding. The audience was electrified. Drummer Greg Anton came off stage, dripping sweat, breathing fire, amazed at the response: "These people are all looking at the stage trying to figure out where the music is coming from. So are we . . . It's coming from some point between us all." The Zero point, where it all rolls into one. Zero Consciousness. Uncharted space. Free-form improvisation that mixes jazz, rock, and rhythm and blues, creating great tender waves of power which lead us with integrity into those realms where the structure of chaos is warmed and defined. It's a mutual trust. And the audience allows itself to be taken where it may, reveling in the freedom.

Yet there is form to this energy. Melody, laughing and weeping from Steve Kimock's guitar; the whole range of fiery zest from the saxophone of Martin Fierro and Hadi Al-Sadoon's trumpet; lyrical space and counterpoint rhythm from Banana's keyboard; the dynamics and surprise of Greg Anton's drumming. These musicians trust they will find each other in the void and we trust them.

From San Francisco, founded on the enduring partnership of Anton and Kimock in the late 70s, Zero evolved from the Heart of Gold Band which was formed with the late Keith Godchaux, who was then stepping out on his own from the Grateful Dead. Later, they went in a more purely instrumental direction, playing with several classic Bay Area bassists. With the addition of Banana, who was the lyrical liverwurst of the Youngbloods, Zero became a successful touring band in the 80s and put out their first record, Here Goes Nothin', to critical acclaim.

The late legendary guitarist John Cipollina was a constant member of the band. He took the position of rhythm guitar, showing a dimension of his talent new to lovers of his music. Nothin Goes Here contains one of the last performances by this great musician--on "Gregg's Eggs," the one live track on the album, recorded at a benefit for the Seva Foundation for the blind in Harvard Square, Boston.

Zero recorded the remainder of the album at Prairie Sun Studios in Cotati, California, with engineer/producer Brian Rizner, a wizard of sound with a history of creating fusion out of confusion, working with such bands as Miles Davis, Steely Dan, Santana, John McGlaughlin, and Weather Report. His partnership with Zero was perfect. The band went into the studio, set up live, and just played. Five uninterrupted days and nights. The air was thick, the wine flowed, gravity was non-existent. And Rizner could predict the Zero point! When harmonic convergence was ready to appear from the arcane meanderings of the group's musical soul, he was always ready to capture those transient crystallizations in a medium primed and ready. "When is more important than what," said Steve Kimock, a point of Zero consciousness understood by Rizner. And also by John Kahn, musical director and bass player with the Jerry Garcia Band, who brought his eminent instrumental and studio skills to these sessions, laying down fundamental touchstones for the odyssey. One night, another long-time Zero bass player, Bobby Vega, came to Prairie Sun when everyone was gone except Anton and Kimock. True Zero point happened--"This is Your Brain" and "This is Your Brain on Drums"; and Rizner got it. Such is the serendipity of readiness.

Where nothing goes, everything is revealed. The variety and strength of feeling that life has for itself is to be found and savored with the music of Zero.