ZGUN (USA, June 2008)

Billy Bao  Dialectics of Shit LP (Parts Unknown)
Billy Bao  Fuck Separation 10” (S-S)
Billy Bao  Accumultion EP (Xerox Musik)
Billy Bao shot to micro-stardom wit’ a bullet last year on the strength
of a stunningly powerful guitar-freakout 7” whose enormous sound was
only slightly mitigated by the virtual impossibility of tracking a copy
down. Well, here comes an appropriately apologetic deluge of what we
used to call in The Industry “sonic fuckery.” The mysterious
conglomerate that revolves around Mr. Mattin (no first names please) has
managed to hit all the marks, and not just on the level of mere vinyl
format (well, no 6” flexi releases … yet), while simultaneously
functioning on three almost totally distinct stylistic planes. In order,
from small to big: The 7” sounds like the EP that Harry Pussy never
released on the Bad Vugum label. It’s 10 short bursts of squall and
screaming that functions as the true successor to all those early 80s
hardcore EPs that packed a similar number of songs onto a single
platter; and it plays at 45 rpm! Apparently the theme of the record is
reflected in the title, in that the songs are supposed to pile up the
phlegm and sturm as the thing plays through but I have to say that until
I was told this it didn’t really register. Anyhow, it’s really fresh and
doesn’t get old fast, unlike “real” hardcore, soooo, next we have the
10” and here is something else entirely. Honestly. BB sits down in a
candle-lined, eggcrate-shrouded studio cave and just jams out two
sidelong modern stoner-metal-jamz that echo no band that I am currently
familiar with. I find myself glancing back over to my older Earth
titles, hell, their first couple of obscuro EPs, to find a similar
touchstone. I admit, I’m not up on indie metal moderne, but this No Wave
metal of Billy Bao’s is enough to make me think twice about my reflexive
boycott of Boris and Sun 0)))-- maybe I am missing something. If Greg
Ginn had heard this in 1984, we’d have yet another o/p SST product to
vainly scour the understock for, but this is available in the actual
here and now. And, upon closer listen, the title of the damn thing
starts to resonate, I think they are slowly combining and re-forming two
songs at the same time on this. Clever apes. Now I feel like I failed a
math quiz the first time a round, and now I’m going back over my
scribblings and spotting my errors in the polynomials. What-ev-er, the
concept is not as fascinating as the stuttering sonics anyhow, gimmie
another beer and fuck Mr. Whitaker-Connolly and his fucking geometry
proofs. Finally, their LP, of which the only truly negative thing I can
weakly conjure is that the title is kinda dum. On this record, Billy Bao
takes the No Wave that dominates the 7” and infects the 10”, along with
the metallic churn and the dead-lunged vocals, and adds another
dimension: They’re actually a noise band. A couple of tracks on this
have “imperfections” built into them, “skips” and harsh static and wot
not, that had me out of my stuporous languor and over to the rec player
in no time … fuckers. That’s way more upsetting than Whitehouse
instructing me to rape the next door neighbor’s 10-year old daughter
(purely conceptual critical trick there, since no actual children seem
to live in my neighborhood). But when Billy Bao isn’t making me blow
nonexistent fluff off my needle, they’re swamping my stereo with a
sickly twenty-generations-removed blues vomit that recalls nothing so
much as a Civil War-era hospital orderly absently humming to himself as
he gathers up hundreds of severed limbs for disposal. It’s violently
dissociative in the most life-affirming way, and the only rough
comparisons I can honestly make to are the much-missed Scando gorillas,
Brainbombs. All in all, these three releases are the early contenders to
make 2008 the Year of Billy Bao.  —RW

BILLY BAO "Dialectics of Shit" LP

The cover of Billy Bao's debut full length features a rather enthralled young human listening on headphones to a 7" whilst devouring the details on the back of the sleeve by Spanish punk band Las Vulpess. Las Vulpess (Vulpess is latin for 'foxes' or 'sluts' in Spanish) were a rather notorious 80's all girl punk band from Bilbao who once created a ripple in spanish 'order' by appearing on Saturday morning TV doing a loose fit, snarled up version of 'I wanna be your dog' entitled "Me gusta ser una zorra" ("I Like Being a Fox", or, "I like being a slut") ! On this track ze singer spits such gems as "I'd rather masturbate alone in my bed, than sleep with someone that talks to me about tomorrow. I'd rather fuck with executives, that talk crap and then forget you". Needless to say for the youth watching this way back when it would have been a thrilling 'fuck you' to the established order of domesticity and community Their sole release, a 7" "Me gusta ser una zorra" (I Like Being a Fox) b/w "Inkisición" (Inquisition) was a concise middle finger to all that attempt to direct an individual into a certain means of existence, a way of thinking, a suggested approach to life.



25 years later Billy Bao have paid homage to the band via their album sleeve and embraced the spirit within this microscopic event of human creativity via their release "Dialectics of Shit". A much needed antidote to the bong-psych noise set, the 'doom' generation, the nostalgic rock bullshit and the fucking dime a dozen drones that have dominated so much underground music in the aftermath of the Iraq stampede au-go-go. In recent years, we have had a plethora of aesthetically based 'evil' music. Whilst few seem comfortable confronting the cause of this anxiety.

On this platter: Catchy fuck melodies, scratchy feedback, anthemic punk, high spit, fierce pitch and exquisite oblivion.

Ghosts: Pussy (Harry and Galore)

Billy Bao sound desperate and foaming, most importantly - today (this is far removed from the Acid Mothers factory of cosmic quotation or the 1983 worship of Hospital etc).

Dialectics of shit" is unhinged, frightening and exciting. There's is a desperate air that is both and exhilarating.

"You get me, you get the kicks" packs in half way, old school vinyl skip style, built into vinyl pressed, a needle scratch and then:

"My Life is Shit
your life is shit
and you don't do
anything
Just
drink
fuck
sleep
and get killed
by a system
that only wants you as a
working corpse"

(Lyrically, NO-ONE escape's, the singer himself is a victim of his own venom)

Elsewhere:

Factory of Repression

"Give me work and education
give me health and civilisation
give me culture
and
i will shit on your nation:
factory of repression"

The abuse seems directed at the complacency, materialism, muffled awareness and dead-skull party mindset that is a cyst in the bladder of culture today.

The motive seems comparable with Cornelius Cardew's step away from the Avant Garde preferring to communicate 'en masse' via piano based worker songs.

With respect to this, we ask, who is this band? and where did they come from? And why, why, why are they doing this?

The official band bio refers to Billy Bao as an individual from Lagos (Nigeria) who discovered punk rock in Bilbao. This character subsequently hooked up with 3 fugged musicians and started creating songs which 'go beyond what rock and roll is and what it could be'. Billy sings with this band.

You Tube footage suggests otherwise with short footage of noise punk blat performed by 3 gents. Notorious art, improv, conceptual geezer Mattin fronts the band with 2 other maniacs thrashing away at their maligned instruments.

Mattin has been active for many years, constantly causing trouble in a variety of avenues. Many years spent observing, winding and stirring the very core of so called 'experimental', 'radical', 'progressive', 'intellectual' movements such as computer music, reductionism, 'songs'', improv and noise. His practise sits outside the chosen realm it explores. Poking and proding the form as an attempt to anyalise exactly what is being produced and what it is that is being expressed by the artists who posit themselves flat bang, square centre in their chosen parameters.

I have seen Mattin do an improvised computer music set which entailed him covering his ears from the 'noise' when in fact no sound was produced at all. My personal favourite being a 'collaboration' with merzbow video which featured regular noise fixture Akita doing his live thing with the 'collaborative' component consisting of Mattin coming on screen briefly to place a glass of water on the table for said performing artist. Genius! I have seen him do an improv gig where he turned a desk lamp towards the audience and proceeded undertake a 'spontaneous' interrogation of the crowd that choose to pay money for 'a gig like this' .

I have tried to fight back, once being chased out of a venue by Mattin with his computer held out front of him opening and closing the 'jaws' like some unbridled monster. Another occasion, after 'heckling' a gig, Mattin ran over and put his hand between my legs squeezing my balls, HARD! (cue: the sound of 1 human falling rapidly to the floor).

Mattin is the kind of cunt that likes to win. A smart-arse, but a curious smart-arse with the kind of nous that contributes to the success of a potentially insipid noiserock act like Billy Bao.

Billy Bao is no anyalitical study. It strikes the listener as sincere. An authentic call to wake up. A firm punch to society, to the powers that govern, to the interaction within ones 'community' and to those within the experimental noise/rock/improv set. Everything is infected, the systems in which you operate, the way you live your life, the means by which you pursue pleasure. An ongoing lack of concern for anyone outside 'your' agreed orbit. The rampant 'self' of politicians, corporations, artists, the old and the young.

The noise presented here is not macho posturing or sausage party back slap, the noise is a scream, a scream to intensify anxiety which is a by-product of an ever diminishing truth.

The noise is disgust. The music is release. The scream is human.

When once posited the question "What are you doing with your music?" for the publication "Blocks of Conciousness and the Unbroken Contiuum" (sound 323) Mattin responded:

"To fuck the structures that try to make me behave or use my instrument in a certain way. To open fields of possibility, bastardising any preconceptions of how a situation should be".

Billy Bao is a unique project in Mattin's output but the principles at work remain the same.

Amongst all this Billy Bao entertain, they provide a visceral thrill which is resplendent in the very best angst ridden music, a music for humans that refuse to accept the terms, conditions, lies and manipulations constantly thrust upon all of us.

Punk rock is dead, most certainly, but the disgust which fueled the fire lives to feed the "Dialectics of Shit". It thrives on disgust harnessing a balance between "noise" and "rock".

This record is the complete and utter fucking bomb humans and one of the only decent 'contemporay' release these ears have encountered this year.

Dusted Reviews Artist: Billy Bao Album: Dialectics of Shit Label: Parts Unknown Review date: Aug. 14, 2008

Billy Bao - "I am Billy Bao, Right Here Right Now" (Dialectics of Shit)

YouTube evidence seems to indicate that Billy Bao, ostensibly a four piece led by a Nigerian expatriate currently residing in Spain, is in fact fronted by improv-provocateur Mattin. Though a juicy narrative exists in the public version – Bao as third-world rage channeled through sloppy sludge protest-punk – the (perhaps) true story is undeniably the more interesting one.

Mattin’s work hits at odd angles, but is ultimately generous. Whether exploring sheer noise or deconstructing singer-songwriter conventions, he trusts his audience to receive and judge the work appropriately. It couldn’t be otherwise, really. The work is predicated upon audience interaction. This can sometimes be obvious: in performance, Mattin may record the sound of the audience and play it back live or may set up a pure inquisition to prod attendees’ motivation for bothering to show up at a concert of his sort. These might sound like stunts, and they may be, but they’re far from apolitical; if we’re to believe Mattin’s assertion that ease of exploitation constitutes a major flaw of “experimental” music (commoditization of its breakthroughs), shifting the focus from the product/producer to the site of reception allows for a more direct negotiation, not to mention an increased focus on the world outside of the art itself.

If Mattin really believes this, how and why does he incorporate the Bao bluff? Even if the Bao tale is true, it’s still being employed for Mattin’s ends; he hosts the Bao website, for Pete’s sake. Is his philosophy by itself not enough to engender action (assumedly the goal of political art)? Punk rock certainly doesn’t have much to brag about anymore. The young child listening to the Vulpess 7” on the album cover might co-sign that group’s feminist message, but did Vulpess change the world? To that end, has Mattin? Punk has undeniably been exploited and has arguably hit a political dead-end. Mattin is marginal. Dead-on philosophy or dead-on punk purity: either way, we’re fucked. Put them in conversation with each other? Dialectics of shit.

Dialectics of Shit can’t not be a frustrating experience. I don’t really buy the above nihilism, and I don’t think Mattin does, either. It’s a despair that an artist with his leanings and thoughts would necessarily encounter, and he can’t really be blamed for wanting to change the site of reception, even if a tired punk-rock sneer must go in tandem. Fortunately, Mattin compensates for simple attitude. Speaker channels fizzle and die throughout, static gradually overpowers a few songs, bits are looped to suggest a skipping record, and the album eventually devolves into junk noise. If anything, the record gets your attention.

Billy Bao hit all the bases that Pissed Jeans do, but the difference is that Mattin isn’t joking. Like sonic brethren Brainbombs, he actually has the courage of punk convictions, even if the Bao alias turns out to be a hedge. I’m a Pissed Jeans fan, but if the lyrics of “My Life Is Shit” (My life is shit, / your life is shit / and you don’t do / anything / Just / drink / fuck / sleep / and get killed / by a system / that only wants you as a / working corpse) were theirs, I probably wouldn’t be able to shake the feeling that they got a beer after recording the track. Bao keeps the straightjacket drums and dirty fuzz riffs, but recognize that the child listening on the cover deserves better. I’m not fully convinced that the Vulpess or Minor Threat tack isn’t the more honest or effective one, but Dialectics of Shit is to be applauded for putting the ball firmly in the listener’s court.

''When I came from Lagos (Nigeria) to San Francisco (Bilbao) life was tough here or there. I did not mind, I had a purpose in my life: to fight the system that fucks up everyday of our life. Back in my hometown, I was an unknown songwriter but, as soon as I arrived to the streets of Bilbao, I discovered Punk Rock. It had energy and attitude and was exactly what I needed. Next thing was to get a band. I found out the most primitive drummer in Bilbao, Alberto Lopez (ex-La Secta, ex-Yogur, ex-Atom-Rhumba), and the noisiest guitarrist around, Mattin. The band was formed under my name, it could not have been any other way. These songs go beyond what rock and roll is and what it could be, in fact they are the degenereation of Rock&Roll against the regeneration of Bilbao''.
έτσι αυτοσυστήνεται στο site του ο billy bao και τραγουδάει my life is shit σε ένα από τα κομμάτια του πρώτου κανονικού άλμπουμ του που κυκλοφόρησε την προηγούμενη εβδομάδα. έχει τίτλο dialectics of shit. δεν εννοεί αυτό ακριβώς που λέει ο τίτλος, γιατί το shit δεν έχει μόνο την κυριολεκτική έννοια, αλλά δοκίμασε να τον ακούσεις και θα καταλάβεις...
μόλις ξεπεράσεις το αρχικό σοκ αντιλαμβάνεσαι ότι έχεις μόλις ακούσει ένα απ' τα άλμπουμ της χρονιάς.
tight ass bleeds


Pretentious Asshole


BILLY BAO Dialectics Of Shit LP

Non non, c’est pas un problème d’ampli, y’a pas d’orage dehors. Ca gronde, ça fait du bruit, ça crisse mais ça vient bien de ton disque. C’est marrant la première fois. Ca saoule au bout de la seconde. Un exercice de style qui fait du bien quand il s’arrête. (Parts Unknown)



Ruta 66 #251 Julio/Agosto 2008 (Barcelona)

Josetxo Grieta, Sonrisas vendo (Tgmt) / Billy Bao Dialectics of shit (parts unknown)

 

Atormenta pensar qué pasaría en la cabeza y sentimientos de Josetxo Anitua, ahora que sabemos de su trágico fin. Añade esas desaparición una siniestra dimensión extra al tortuoso grito elemental que fueron Josetxo Grieta. "! No siento nada!" , brama con todas sus fuerzas Anitua, y un escalofrío me hace comprender. Grabado el año pasado en Galicia, durante su única e incloncusa fira, SOnrisas Cwnso, el primero de los títulos postumos que están previstos del dúo, a los que cabrá sumar un DVD de su último concierto, cierne una sombra inquietante porque, por fin, tanta desesperación parece tener sentido. Caos primordial, todo lo excluye la dantesca kermesse aquí capturada, como si el resto del mundo, y con él la humanidad entera, se hubiera quedado  petrificado en un grotesco rigor mortis. Queda de Josetxo Grieta su otro 50%, Martín, absorvido  últimamente en exclusiva por uno de sus muchos proyectos, Billy Bao. Asunto extremo, también, en apariencia como una descarga de Stooges en el hipotálamo de la niña de El Exorcista, en realidad un sabotaje de la experiencia rock, que tergiversa, subvierte y pervierte códigos bajo un monolítico rodillo. Gozan los muy cabrones practicando sadismo con el oyente, recordándole su vida de mierda, simulando que la aguja se ha atascado, despedazando esquemas al tiempo que los subliman cual carga de caballería cosaca. Ponen a prueba nuestro temple, pero por si les sirve de algo, es disco del mes en mi agenda personal. JAIME GONZALO.

 

 

Ox-Fanzine / Ausgabe #80 (Germany)

Eine echte Herausforderung, die harmoniebedürftigen Menschen in etwa so viel Freude bereiten wird wie eine Wurzelbehandlung. Wer es gerne extrem mag, seine Nachbarn nicht leiden kann oder noch am Überlegen ist, ob es mit dem Wahnsinn klappt, der kann hier zugreifen. Pendelt zwischen FLIPPER, primitiven ANTISEEN, DRUNKS WITH GUNS auf schweren Drogen, PISSED JEANS (ohne deren Songstrukturen), den BRAINBOMBS purer Bosheit und Irrsinn mehr oder weniger munter hin und her, stets das Ziel vor Augen, dir so gut es eben geht auf die Nerven zu fallen.Ich muss zugeben, dass es sogar mich fordert, denn sie machen ihre Sache wirklich gut. Inmitten von erkennbaren, wenn auch primitiven Songstrukturen schlägt einfach eine Bombe oder ein fieses Rauschen ein, das alles zerhackt oder wie ein dichter Teppich zudeckt. Beim Mastering wurde offenbar besonders Wert darauf gelegt, dass die Lautstärken der einzelnen Stücke extrem unterschiedlich ausfallen, so dass man instinktiv erst einmal lauter macht, bis einem die Boxen um die Ohren fliegen. Vielen Dank auch! Wenn's dann mal tatsächlich wie ein richtiger Song klingt, kommt aus dem Nichts die Keule. Harter, wirklich harter Stoff, auf dem ein unsichtbarer Sticker prangt: Garantiert harmonie- und melodiefrei! (9) (Kalle Stille)



Sound Projector # 17 (UK)

The title of this one may tell you all you wish to know about this harsh noise-rock project. The city of Bilbao has perhaps been under-documented in music, with only the famous work of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill springing to mind. Mattin plays the guitar as part of a four-piece which also includes Xabier Erkizia and Alberto Lopez, while Mr Bao contributes his shouted vocals, bellowing at the top of his voice and threatening to shatter the delicate parts of his microphone (and your hearing organs to boot). The trio play a strange musical chimera resembling a contemporary update on punk rock fused with primitive heavy metal, with a sound that's been compressed into a matchbox; each track is curtailed and edited to last precisely three minutes, which may be another Mattin conceptual device (another CD release from him this season exhibits the same tidy-minded concern with equal-length tracks). Three minutes is also the duration of a 'classic' pop or rock and roll song, a music-journalist conceit at which someone here may be having a dig. Bao's lyrics are incendiary, filled with punky adolescent hate; also extreme violence, misogyny, egotism, and bitter despair. At least two of the songs turn that despair (and that violence) towards a familiar Mattin target, Monopoly Capitalism. In this Marxist-inspired diatribe of metallic noise, Billy Bao may be an alias; one of the songs is set in a sordid part of Bilbao and takes the time to point out the joke by informing us that Las Cortes is a red light district in this Spanish city. The Brecht-Weill allusion above may not be too wide of the mark here. Every other line of these songs goes out of its way to indict and implicate us listeners in some way, or just plain insult us. A repulsive and toxic record.
ED PINSENT 22/09/2008

lydfrabaksiden

Billy Bao bråker så du slipper

Billy Bao - Dialects Of Shit (Parts Unknown LP 2008)
Billy Bao - Fuck Seperation (S-S Records 10″ 2007)
Billy Bao - Accumulation (Xerox Musik 7″ep 2008)

Det er nesten ikke grenser; det formelig flasser på med ny, god rockmusikk! Rockmusikk fjernt fra indiesuttering, klisjebading og latterlige posørtakter. Det er som om postpunk/DIY-kulturen fra tidlig åttitall har blitt parret med SST og Guided By Voices ca 1995. Ut av dette kommer det en bråte band og artister som gjør gitarbasert musikk mer interessant enn på mange år. Jeg nevner i fleng The Hospitals, Eat Skull, Little Claw, Blank Dogs, La Otracina, Nice Face, Tit Machine, US Girls, Nothing People, Factums, Wild Gunmen, Pink Reason, Psychedelic Horseshit, Sic Alps, Times New Viking, A.H. Kraken, The Bad Trips - lista er vanvittig lang. I tillegg har vi stabler av band som dyrker en oppdatering av minimal synth/Suicide gruff som Bad Party, Fabulous Diamonds, Pink Noise og alle artistene på den glimrende samle lp’en Festival Der Genialen Dissidenten på Enfant Terrible labelen.

Hva har skjedd spør du ? Ikke om jeg vet, men deilig er det.

Og ikke nok med de ovennevnte; Billy Bao er nok et storveis orkester som har rammet hardt den siste tiden, snakk om balltre midt i planeten. Billy Bao spiller blytung, punkete rifforamma ala SST/Big Black parret med tunge noisedykk og skurrete, elektronisk mishandling med glitch og cut-ups. Bandet består av Billy Bao på vokal, Mattin på gitar, Xabier Erkizia på gitar og Alberto Lopez på trommer. Billy Bao har blitt beskrevet som den mest perfekte kombinasjonen av “art and threat” siden tidlig Pere Ubu. Et til tider svært originalt lydbilde gjør at du tenker; hmm, må lytte en gang til!

Det synes å være avantmystikeren og noiseduden Mattin som er lillehjernen i Billy Bao. Hans skjeve smil og “prankster”-ånd hviler over prosjektet. Ikke minst er den grunn til å ta røverhistoriene om vokalist Billy Baos bakgrunn med en klype salt.

All de tre utgivelsene som nå er tilgjengelige er mer enn nødvendige;

Fullengderen Dialectics Of Shit er en ramm reise i ti tre minutters (på sekundet!) låter, brygget på knirk, noise og punktrøkk med hysterisk vokal på syke tekster. Dialectics Of Shit fenger, fengsler og brenner lenge. Åpningssporet I am Billy Bao, Right Here Right Now! setter tonen med fullt øs før en tykk noisetåke stiger frem i lydbildet og voldtar hele sullamitten. Deilig. Første spor på andre siden You Get Me, You Get The Kicks! fikk meg til å sjekke om det bokstavelig talt var hakk i plata. Det var det selvsagt ikke, bare en endeløs repetisjon inn mot slutten av sporet.

Titommeren Fuck Seperation er enda bedre. To ti minutters spor som banker på det samme to akkorders riffet gjennom tyve samfulle minutter. Som om Spacemen 3 egentlig spilte punkrock og ønsket å drite seg ut så godt som overhodet mulig. Tung, insisterende, mantrarock som pirrer den ene hjernecellen du fortsatt har i behold.

Vi avslutter med syvtommeren Accumulation. Ti spor à ett minutts varighet. Totalcrash mellom punk og noise, full vernesko størrelse 46 rett opp i baken. Accumulation tar oss tilbake til virkeligheten etter Fuck Seperations audiofile mishandling.

Billy Bao er nødvendige.

Seven Ten Twelve

Seven Inch! Ten Inch! Twelve Inch!

Label: Parts Unknown Records
Buy: Parts Unknown Records
Listen: Sarcastic Sunrise (full album link but he links to here from his own site anyway)

I’ve gotta say, for the past few years, I’ve shied away from music with heavy political content. Why, you ask? Hey, not like I want my music to deny what is going on in the world, but most of the aforementioned either came off being trite, just plain stupid, or from musicians who are probably too privileged to “smash it up”. However, one record I’m glad I didn’t ignore is Billy Bao’s Dialectics Of Shit.

What is known about Billy Bao? He was born and raised in Lagos before relocating to a newly-democratized Bilbao, where the man supposedly discovered punk rock. His band includes Alberto Lopez, Xabier Erkizia, and, most notably, experimental guitarist Mattin. In fact, there are rumors that Billy Bao is Mattin himself.

Whether Bao is a real person or made up by Mattin, there is an undeniably real streak of anger running through this very heavy monster of a record. Whereas lyrics on past records such as his Fuck Separation 10-inch on S-S had more explicitly political lyrics, this record shows Bao spouting barely intelligible, misanthropic lyrics such as “I am a mirror/every day I have to take a look at all those disgusted faces” on the track “I am a Mirror/Putrefied Egos”.

The politics come in through Bao’s approach to form. Like Fuck Separation, which had Bao on a single track across two sides of vinyl, Dialectics Of Shit is another record which takes form as seriously as content. Comprised of ten tracks each exactly three minutes long, the music on this record is thoroughly mangled. Whether it is the fucked up splicing on “Tight Ass Bleeds”, the skipping second half of “You Get Me, You Get The Kicks!” (a track which opens the B-side, it’s actually just a deformed version of the album opening track “I am Billy Bao, Right Here Right Now!”), or the left-right channel jumping on “Putrefied Egos/Broken Mirror”, there is a definite sense that this is music meant to provoke, or even disgust, the listener.

Even if you disregard the politics that run through the record’s context and form, this is simply one of the heaviest sounding records of the year (gotta love when the bottom end kicks in on “I am Billy Bao”). I hate to rehash the same reference points as everyone else who has touched upon this record, but the Brainbombs comparison is undeniable. Take those lovable Swedes, take away most of their sex drive, and add a small pinch of Whitehouse’s noise fuckery and pure hate. That is Billy Bao’s Dialectics Of Shit.

Utopian Theorist (August 2010)

Hardcore music is usually total shit, recycling various sounds as if it was some sort of “Remember the 80s” tribute. Instead of that rubbish, we hear something about a pissed off Nigerian who came to Spain to front a punk band. Whether or not that’s true (it isn’t) you get the feeling that these guys know exactly what sort of seedy sounds need exploring.

Every track is exactly 3 minutes for reasons that only they know. For the first track, it starts off almost like rock before an absolutely suffocating bass comes in and slowly the track dies due to static noise. “Tight Ass Bleeds” goes through almost fully normally, and “you get me you get the kicks” skips away for half the track.

Nothing here is polished. The lyrics hate everything, everyone. The first half is easier to digest than the second half. For the latter half of the album, the noise becomes even more prominent and basically becomes the new groove. I’m a sucker for bands that make “noise rock” sound genuine, but these guys know exactly what they’re doing…

Aquarious Records (California)

We made the brand new record by Spanish noise rocker and audio experimentalist Billy Bao our Record Of The Week last list, a dizzying collision of sludgey filthy Brainbombs like dirge, howling Whitehouse styled invective, and weirdest of all, a flurry of Fela-ish highlife horns, all tangled up with sheets of feedback, squalls of effects, and whatever else BB could whip up. The result was transcendent, and well worthy of ROTW status, managing to be punishing and heavy as fuck, but still catchy and blown out and super fun.
So here we have BB's preceding release, the wonderfully titled Dialectics Of Shit, and we're happy to report, that while the horns seem to be M.I.A here, everything else is present and accounted for, BIG TIME. A gloriously filthy, in-the-red, sludge fueled noise drenched monster. Weirdly produced, super chaotic, rife with sharp angular skree, pounding Neanderthal drums and a growled phlegmy vocal that seethes maniacally. All that stuff is locked around single, KILLER riffs, each track, a looped hypnotic crush, that riff pounded out over and over and over and over, while the various other elements swirl and careen all around it.
Insane bursts of grinding crunch, thick sheets of Merzbowian hiss, long stretches of brittle jangle and thump that will suddenly get swallowed up by a blown out wave of sub sonic low end, or a cloud of white noise will well up obliterating everything in its path, all the while the bass and drums 'groove' churns away, often emerging from one of those disruptions a whole different beats, a sort of muted murky bit of surf guitar, some weird twang, everything off kilter and woozy and noisy and INTENSE. The guitars are sharp and jagged and rough edged, slippery and warped, the riffs seem to be melting, or crumbling to pieces before your ears, the whole record a stumbling, lurching, blackened dirge noise behemoth. All the while, little hooks, and insanely catchy flourishes surface here and there, keeping the record weirdly catchy, and almost poppy occasionally, the sound is schizophrenic, about faces all over the place, sudden edits, overlapping sounds that don't seem to fit (but somehow do), voices all tangled up in guitar melodies tripping over struggling drum pound, everything on the very edge of total collapse, somehow held together in one massive speaker destroying chunk of tweaked and twisted heaviness.

MPEG Stream: "I Am Billy Bao, Right Here Right Now!"
MPEG Stream: "Tight Ass Bleeds"
MPEG Stream: "I Am A Mirror / Putrefied Egos"

Testcard #18 (Deutschland, by Magnus Schaefer)

Recensione scritta da sfascia carrozze per DeBaser. (Tre dì orsono in seconda serata)

DeRece Live all'ascolto (live) del disco.
Quel che ne esce, ne esce: cavoli Vostri.

Ma anche miei. Soprattutto miei.

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Plei--->

Si prenda un frullatorone di quelli davvero molto capienti.
Un modello da 20-30 tonnellate dovrebbe bastare.

ProcurateVi la guida telefonica cartacea della Sip (perchè sull'internet non ce li trovate quei numerini lì) dei vostri nonni: quella con i nomenclativi fitti-fitti che ti facevano perdere 15 diottrie su 16 (un po' come YouPorn ma meno divertente) per cercare il numero del salumiere per ordinare i panini con la mortadella, che alla fine chiamavi direttamente l'oculista che era anche amico del salumiere: classico caso di dodici piccioni con mezza fava.
Spesso i panini però se li mangiava il dottore, perché il salumiere alla fine non aveva capito a chi è che doveva consegnare il fagotto.

Dicevo.
Mi sono perso.
Ah, sì.
Il frullatorone.

Poi.
Nella guida cartacea si cerchi la più vicina cava di inerti e fatevi consegnare al domiciliuo casalinguo sei/sette camion(s) di detriti da frammentazione varia (dicesi "Tight Ass Bleeds").
Nè troppo fini, nè troppo grossi.
Che poi s'inceppa.
Il frullatorone.

Ora.
C'è un autospurgo nelle vicinanze che ha appena assolto al proprio vitale compito?
Ottimo!
A casa anche quello: tubo grosso e tutto giù nell'ampio caveau del maxi-frullator (dicesi "Factory of Repression").

Un pizzico di sale e una spolverata di bacche di Loretta Goji.
Per amalgamare, si sà, sono un bijoux.

Paranoia a palate ("My Life is Shit").
Pece ("Putrefied Egos - Broken Mirror"). Nera sarebbe l'ideale.
E tanta schiuma dalla bocca.
Anche ettolitri ("Basque Blues").
Anche di lumaca va bene.

Se si vuole, nell'improbabile mèlange è concesso il salnitro.
Raffina, ma non è propriamente necessario.

Orsù: mi si frulli il tutto per benino e lo si lasci addensare quella sana mezzoretta-e-mezza (che dura così, mica era per dire).

Non resta che citofonare all'onnipresente bisonte catodico in salmì Canna Vacciuolo e servirgli ancora ribollenti le autentiche, uniche, inimitabili, inscalfibili "Dialettiche della Merda" prodotte dai Billy Bao nel recentementelontano 2008.

Fatemi sapere.
Eventualmente.