Various– Viva Negativa! A Tribute To The New Blockaders Volume IV: Japan 2xcd
The most remarkable thing about this 2-disc comp is that it manages, literally, in the first second, to do everything I'd hoped: to clearly pay tribute to the anti-genius of TNB; to clearly fall within the signature style of the given contributing artist (in this case Kazumoto Endo); and to sound absolutely awesome. To the question, do the full two hours and twenty-five minutes measure up to that first 00:01? Well, of course not. There are moments. The remaining 06:01 of Endo's "Ne Changez Rien" for starters. Rust-shredded Blockeur'd junks spasm'd across broken Endo'd gaps, jagged, toothy, incisions plunging into the empty breaks, tightening up, gathering steam, verging in the closing minute on wallish bilge, to serve up very tense concoction of rough 'n ragged flavors that go down un vrai régal. I will confess- Endo is THE reason I picked up the comp. It would be hard under the circumstances for a born sucker such as myself to admit anything short of worshipful praise, but still. For years, up until the release of the Endo/Bonini split 7inch on Audio Dissection, I'd entertained fantasies of what Endo might sound like if his highly stylized spasticisms were to indulge more filthinated tastes. Hearing is believing. Other Viva moments are perhaps fewer than I would prefer, especially given that – just to confirm my eminent suckerdom – I've already got the ridiculous vinyl box version. In the bonus Japanese insert accompanying the discs, a list is helpfully provided of the Japanese contributors appearing on the original vinyl, released in 2006 (Art Break, Aube, Bloxus, Embudagnn 108, Government Alpha, Incapacitants, Merzbow, MSBR, KK Null, Plexia, Spiracle, Violent Onsen Geisha, Nobuo Yamada), and those exclusive to the cd set, released in 2010 (Endo, Astro, Cracksteel, Defektro, Guilty Connector, Imustak, K2, Kohei Matsunaga, Thirdorgan, Veltz). Hold on a sec. Cracksteel? Crack-FUCKING-steel? That's a surprise, and, second confession, probably the THE OTHER reason I picked up the comp. Appropriately enough (re- suckerdom), Cracksteel delivers another of the averred moments, though for whatever reason it is mastered a bit shy of appropriate. A little generosity on the volume knob and... mmm... that's right... right there... fuck yes: easily the heaviest submission on offer, overloaded with somewhat hollowed-out, near-ambient, densities as they negotiate a fluid range of motion, rumbling through underground express tunnels and shrieking with caustic, windswept, rage. Others worthy of note? Astro, no question, sounding like monstrous, sheet-metal-loaded, psyche-scorch. Rather CCCCish, in other words, quite nice to encounter, a bit like an old friend. Kohei Matsunaga diddles low-key, close-mic'd, acoustic distortions, finely textured scrape dragging slowly across a spacious, wide-open, borderline academic, field. Veltz was a new one for me, but funnily enough very much in tribute to old-school, industrial-strength, homemade (consumer) electronics – TNB & Organum leap to ear - very pleasant, well-layered trip through rusted trash compaction, vaguely grim atmos of solidly junked murk. Defektro's rumpled, rhythmic, curdle rattles and clanks through hectic r/l channel panning, rather inoffensive and no worse than we get from K2. The last time I heard K2 reworking Rupenus sources - via the Oozing Ruin tape - I was highly critical. At twenty-five minutes the rather limp-wristed affair overstayed its potential. In the comp format, "Oozing Ruin Part 3" sounds better: more active, tighter, at least as spastic as one might generally expect, but at 6:43 perhaps of a length more amenable to the easily wearied attention. If Guilty Connector is noising in tribute to anything, I would judge that to be a seething swarm of seering cicadae. Not all bad, but a bit out of place here sez me. In sum, most of the contributions exclusive to cd have merit of some kind. How do they stack up against the original twelve on lp? In short, way better. There was a time when a comp with names like Incapacitants, Merzbow, Government Alpha, Thirdorgan and Violent Onsen Geisha would be a no-brainer... but that's about all I'm going to say on the subject. Well, okay: Govt Alpha, at least, has some classic Alpha-esque moments of full-on analog brutality, though some of the effects employed in between brutalisms are a tad cringe-inducing. KK Null, he good. Sitting comfortably outside the box, reverb-reliant slams of metallic thwack are served through agitating rhythmic pulses to create a strange and affecting medley of analog electronics fighting acoustic sources to somewhat other-worldly, far from TNB-ish, effect. Then there's Nobuo Yamada with two tracks, what a hog, one under his own name, one under the name Art Break. Both very well composed, the first near glittering in its screechy mass of pointy-headed, acoustic junkpeaks, the second channelling Organum in a near-droning hell-hole of dense factory slam-crash-budda-bong. (And both appearing in long form as tracks 1 and 2 on the Nobuo Yamada cdr Empty Time Of TNB.) Hitoshi Kojo with no less than three tracks, oink oink, under the names Spiracle, Bloxus and Plexia. Spiracle's "Kundearistruct" is very good for what it is, warm, spacey ambient walls, perhaps singed with bowed metal of some kind, just the thing to spice up a boring school trip to the local planetarium... but sounding plain weird on a TNB tribute comp. Bloxus could be more in line with the intentions of the comp, for here the warm ambience is cluttered up with some nice shards of jangly scrap, sometimes threatening to overwhelm before settling back into the warm blanket. Plexia. Good name for the close mic'd plastic-cutting textures scritching and scratching about the channel pan, satisfyingly epileptic anti-tribute to anti-genius. In a final touching gesture, a generous edit from the wonderfully full-bodied "TNSBR 1", which originally appeared on MSBR's Dedicated To Richard Rupenus. Here it is re-titled "TNSBRupenus", which seems appropriate enough: tributes within tributes within tributes, thus to complete the cycle and circle of the eternal butt-kiss. <Smooch>
