a r t o . a r t i a n

musika txikien katalogoa / catálogo de musicas mínimas

1. .

   COLLECTIVE ZINE by Stuart Schrader

   Heaps of noise and feedback, insistent arrhythmic pounding, and desperate hot screams coalesce into a textured, deeply layered wall of sound that is more compelling than any of its more-or-less revolting constituent parts on this new 7″ by Billy Bao. The concept behind the record is accumulation, as each track (uniformly 1 minute per track) adds an additional element–noise, voices, instruments. Accumulation is the engine of capitalism, and this record, which transforms accumulation into a sound, shows it to be as unpretty as one might expect. Perhaps the sound is meant to evoke the non-stop, bursting-at-the-seams chaos and disorder of Lagos, the place Billy tells us he began his journey. But of course no one, it is said, begins in Lagos; it’s a place where people end up. It’s a city that accumulates people and detritus, or people as detritus. If Billy managed to escape, it was only physically–because judging by this record, his spirit remains in the clinking, scrounging fetters of the megapolis. Less metallic than the recent 10″, though still rather throbbing, this 7″ is one of those uncommon records that you put on either to start or end a party, depending on what kind of party it is. Obscure referents: Demo-Moe, Z, Church Police, Agonia, SPK, Doden
2. .

   SILTBLOG by Tom Lax

   And while’s I’m on the subject of myths, the ellusive Billy Bao has hit for the vinyl cycle recently w/a lp, 10″ & 7″ all in the space of 6 months. I’ll be goddamned if he ain’t somethin of a modern day Matty Bower w/all that hoopla. But it ain’t just the line formin to release work what’s similar, to my ears Billy Bao’s soundin somethin like a latter day Skullflower. There’s also a bilge like fodderstomp that bring to mind Flipper or someone of that ilk too, ’cause on the ‘Fuck Separation’ 10″ it feels like they meatballed Ted Falconi’s guitar into a jackhammer & pulverized the Xaman lp into smithereens while the ‘Accumulation’ 7″ hoists ‘Brainwash’ onto a petard, detonating it into a billion sub atomic particles that seem so toxic, you’d swear the air was filled w/a sinister amphetamine powder. Guess what? It isn’t. Both of these most likely available from; http://www.s-srecords.com/ or if your just lookin for the ‘Accumulation’ 7″ try; xeroxmusik@gmail.com
3. .

   THE WIRE #291 by Byron Coley

   It’s been a few years since I heard this Nigerian expat guitarist’s debut and, checking out his Website, it looks as though he’s been pretty busy.
   From the sound of this session, it seems he hasn’t moved too far from his original artistic impulse, except in terms of refinement. The basic drive here is still fairly brutarian - a distillation of The Stooges noisiest essence into an aggressive, experimental perfume. There are ten one-minute tracks, each of howling slab of nada-hunch. Some seem to be sundered chunks of something bigger, others fester like boils. Either way, the screams are liberatory rather than oppressive, and this feels like a kind of genius.
4. .

   ZGUN by Ryan Wells

   Billy Bao Dialectics of Shit LP (Parts Unknown)
   Billy Bao Fuck Separation 10” (S-S)
   Billy Bao Accumulation 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.
5. .

   VITAL WEEKLY 622 by Frans de Ward

   The fact that Billy Bao is a band is something that might not have escaped you. It’s the man with the same name on vocals, Mattin on guitar, Xabier Erkizia on guitar and Alberto Lopez on drums. Ten one minute tracks on the 7″ ‘Accumulation’, dealing with excess richness and the growth of capital. Like a flow chart, the titles get longer and longer, until ‘While Watching Their Stocks Rise, Your Miserable Fucking Life Dies’ - welcome to politically inspired music. The band plays minimal strokes, but banging rather than introvertly played, but don’t sound like a punk band. Their recording seems to be of an even more lo-fi nature than what is common in this area. There is a very consistent element through running through this music, with is more like a piece of ‘art’, than a ‘political’ statement, despite what the liner notes try to tell you. Quite a nice piece of gesamtkunstwerk.
6. .

   ROUGH TRADE

   billy bao are a gorgeously noisy rock-aktion combo lead by a nigierian expatriate and two spaniards. guitar, drums and vocals create a most primitively disturbed, overtly political kind of punked-out spectrum-dodge that will appeal to anyone who is interested in what billy calls ‘the degeneration of rack ‘n’ roll’. there’s feedback, scuzz and insane trumping and screaming for all. you’d have to place this on a virtual level with early boredoms or the brainbombs and that’s one heckuva magnificent achievement. 10 one minute track 7″ on new label xerox musik. the a-side is mono and the b-side stereo.
7. .

   DUSTED MAGAZINE

   Pretty irritating little platter courtesy of our man from Lagos. Ten one-minute tracks, with side one only feeding into one stereo channel. Each successive track adds an element to the mix, until the end the “song” in question is completely obscured. Other of Billy Bao/Mattin’s output has had at least the essence of listenability. He/they don’t give a shit with this one, and I’d almost say it’s to their credit, only this is not the type of single you’ll want to play more than a few times.
8. .

   Volcanic Tongue (June 2008, by David Keenan, Glasgow)

   Ferocious 10-track EP from this amazing new European free/garage/noise/punk quartet featuring Mattin and Xabier Erkizia on guitars, Alberto Lopez on drums and Billy Bao on vocals. Every track last precisely one minute and accumulates into some brutal car crash sonics. The kinda scorch these guys deal in seems to owe as much to Black Flag, The Germs, The Butthole Surfers and Half Japanese as it does to Hijokaidan/The Blue Humans et al. Totally mangled non-stop non-recognisable string burn is topped by explosive machine gun drums and lung-scraping vocals for ten pro-freedom torrents that re-connect your brain to your ass. Totally excellent.
9. .

   MASS MEDIA DISTRO (USA)

   Truly evil and chaotic “music”, mind blowing improvisational hardcore noise. This is more scathing than the new DYSTOPIA more brutal than any grind I’ve heard, BILLY BAO puts it well…”there is no rewind button for your desperation”. Brutal and downright frightening.
10. .

    Etrange Ressac

    Le compagnon idéal du disque de Minitel est à mon sens le 45t de Billy Bao “Accumulation” sorti sur Xerox Musik. 10 titres d’une minute, 5 par face. Une pochette noir & blanc qui dit tout sur l’absurdité de l’accumulation (tous les 45 tours chroniqués ici par exemple…). Dès la face B c’est la loi martiale, les bottes, le bitume, un grognement à peine étouffé dans un silence étourdissant. De plus en plus de bottes. Des tambours. Mais les grognements se font plus insistants. Face au mur. Au mur de la face B où le chaos est là. Les flammes, le désordre, la confusion sourde. Les voix graves, happées, criantes, se mélangent comme lave en fusion. Puis coulent, s’arrêtent, recoulent. Incandescence. Destruction. Billy Bao.
11. .

    RUTA66

    Archienemigos del tradicional 4×4, los bilbaínos BILLY BAO aportan su pedrusco a la deconstrucción del rock con una seguna y sañuda entrega, esta vez Accumulation, single con diez temas de un minuto cada uno, cinco en mono y cinco en estéreo, en el que el ruidista cuarteto arremet con metódica ira, celebrando tupidops aquelarres que cual proclamas tribales taladran el córtex cerebral como Can en los momentos más enajenados de Tago Mago. Para muy pocos públicos.
12. .

    FOXY DIGITALIS (USA) by Magnus Schaefer

    8/10

    In their music Billy Bao, a Bilbao-based band consisting of the singer of the same name, guitarists Mattin and Xabier Erkizia and drummer Alberto Lopez, blend harsh rock-informed noise with an explicitly political approach and rigid formal interests. This 7” on the Xerox Music label from London is concerned with the concept of accumulation, both as one of capitalism’s central principles and as formal principle that structures the release as a whole, its visual and acoustic aspects.

    Each of the ten tracks, titled “1” to “10”, is exactly one minute long, with the music getting denser from track to track, just as the recording quality changes from mono on side one to stereo on side two. The first track presents a highly reduced repetitive structure and with each track a new element is added, so that the music gradually grows into dense blasting noise that ultimately drowns all structural remains (although supposedly still repetitive) in feedback and seemingly out-of-control guitars, percussion and vocal howls. Billy Bao’s vocal style is vehement, yet not outright aggressive but rather developing an effective theatricality with prolonged vowels and choked screams that render his grim statements even more urgent. He offers harsh, condensed prose, that drastically exposes capitalism’s (mal-)functioning, and crosses fatalism with imagined acts of hostility. By track three or four trying to understand the lyrics is futile, but they are printed on the cover, arranged in a chart, which illustrates that the number of words increases by one with each line and thus, of course, recurs to the principle of accumulation once more.

    The musical intensity and conceptual coherency that distinguish this release as a whole result in remarkable energy. While totally occupying the listeners’ attention and flooding their perception with sounds it also allows, or even demands, the distance necessary for reflection. Billy Bao’s work is a noteworthy exploration of the possibilities of politicizing sound – drastic beyond fashionable signs of criticality (which of course doesn’t mean that fashion cannot or will not change).
13. .

    THE SWEDISH NURSE (London)

    The ACCUMULATION 7-inch on a mysterious London label, XEROX MUSIK, is even more intense! Like it’s bigger brother, this has five songs per side of an equal length. At first, wearing my blogging hat, I was impressed enough to think TEENAGE JESUS AND THE JERKS! URINALS! but it weren’t long before I was steeling myself, thinking “It’ll only take a minute, then it’ll be over”. Sex! Vampire! Horror! Bat!!!
14. .

    BLASTITUDE BLOG
    (USA)

    BILLY BAO Accumulation 7″ (XEROX MUSIK) I already have mp3s of this but when I saw it at Reckless I had to buy it in order to complete a Bao trilogy of sorts along with the Fuck Separation 10″ and the Dialectics of Shit LP. All three records are great. With each one, the titles alone begin a manifesto that continues throughout the design and concept and words and is finished by the sound itself. Look at the way the Accumulation concept presents itself: 10 tracks, 10 titles, each title a little longer than the last, the titles printed down the front cover as a concrete poem (see below). Each track is exactly one minute long with a short break in between, and the music is wholly appropriate to the increasingly harsh imagery in the song titles. At first it practically sounds like Bao is bellowing vocals over a single pounding drum, but each track gets progressively denser than the last one, bringing in more and more guitars and noise and especially tormented vocal overdubs, you know, a succinct and visceral illustration of the process by which industrial and/or consumerist accumulation leads to self-immolation. (Alternate title in my head: “The Ballad of Malachi Ritscher.”)
15. .

    
    GAZTEZULO (EUSKAL HERRIA) Julen Azpitartek

    Bilbotik dator Billy Bao. Disko kontzeptualak egiten dituen R&R talde zaratatsua da. Gitarrak muturrera eramaten dituzte, bateria erritmo minimalekin lagunduta. Hala, Accumulation binilozko singlean, grind core-tik hurbil dagoen minutu bateko hamar kantu bildu dituzte, eta doinu guztiak bata bestearen gainean metatzen dira. Fuck Separation, binilozko hamar hazbetekoak, aldiz, diskoaren bi aldeetan banaturiko kantua jasotzen du. Gitarrek intentsitatez beteriko kantu amaigabea josten dute, mugak suntsitzeko.
16. .

    RADIOACTIVOS #11 zemos98 podcast

    Si existiera la música situacionista su máximo representante en el estado español sería Mattin. Vamos a escuchar uno de sus proyectos: Billy Bao que forma junto a otros músicos de euskadi como Xabier Erkizia o Alberto López. En su 7 pulgadas Acumulation hacen un trabajo sobre la lógica del single. Adaptándose al formato single componen 10 temas de un minuto cada uno. Vamos a escuchar el último track del disco, porque como su propio nombre indica los temas se van sobreponeniendo, en el track “2″ se superpone la “1″, en el track “3″, la “2″ y la “1″ y así sucesivamente hasta la “10″ superposición total de todos los tracks. Así que un acto de expresión máxima de radicalidad, intensidad y mala hostia queremos dedicar esta experiencia sonora a Mountazer al-Zaïdi que ha protagonizado el zapatazo a Bush en Irak.
17. .

    URSONATE #000

    Punk salvaje y destroyer de la mano de Mattin, Xabier Erkizia, y Alberto lópez a la batería, 10 cortes de 1 minuto con energía, caos, intensidad y jodida mala hostia ,que se van acumulando creciendo y pillando consistencia a medida que avanza el disco. Está editado por este nuevo sello Londinense , (sub sello de la Vida es un Mus) dedicado a editar trabajos mas experimentales dentro del punk.

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