Justin Broadrick and Kevin Martin formed Zonal as a continuation of Techno Animal, their groundbreaking industrial dub/hip-hop collaboration which was active during the 1990s and early 2000s. While they used the name Zonal for a limited release in 2000, the project fully emerged during the late 2010s. Wrecked, a full-length featuring guest vocalist Moor Mother, appeared in 2019.

Broadrick and Martin first met at the end of the 1980s, and began working together as part of the band God. They formed Techno Animal in 1991 and released Ghosts, an album which merged bleak industrial soundscapes with dub and hip-hop influences. Continuing this collaboration throughout the decade, the project was a major influence on the illbient movement, as well as numerous experimental electronic and post-rock artists. Broadrick and Martin worked together under various other names, including the Sidewinder, the Curse of the Golden Vampire (initially a collaboration with Alec Empire), and one-off drum'n'bass alias White Viper. The Quatermass Project, Vol. 1, a limited CD-R credited to Zonal, appeared on Broadrick's Avalanche Recordings in 2000. After the release of Techno Animal's 2001 album The Brotherhood of the Bomb, which featured guest rappers such as El-P and dälek, Broadrick and Martin discontinued the project. Apart from an occasional guest appearance (Broadrick played guitar on the Bug's 2014 album Angels Devils, for example), the duo properly reunited in 2017, performing a single reunion show as Techno Animal before continuing as Zonal. Joined by confrontational Philadelphia-based poet/performer Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa), Zonal performed at the Unsound festival that year, as well as Roadburn in 2018. The project signed to Relapse in 2019 and released the digital single "Cage Version"/"No Version," which preceded full-length Wrecked; Moor Mother guested on six of the album's tracks. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi