#billybao

"Entre Butthole Surfers et Run The Jewels", c'est comme cela que Dean Roberts (White Winged Moth, Thela) décrit le disque.

Oui, il y a du rock mais il est tellement déformé que même la No-Wave ne vous aidera pas à lui donner un sens. Imaginez qu'un paquet de virus gavé de "fake news" et de saloperies contemporaines atteigne le cœur de ce qui fait l'intégrité de la No-Wave, du Punk et du Rock: l'authenticité. Il ne s'agit pas ici de dire que Butthole Surfers était le groupe le plus authentique du monde ni que ce disque puisse se hisser au niveau de production d'El-P mais tout simplement de présenter cette rencontre inédite entre quelques uns des musiciens les plus excitants du Berlin d'aujourd'hui; des musiciens qui interprètent les paroles de Mattin et essayent de faire face à notre époque troublée, voire à la surmonter.

Dire qu'il n'y a pas d'authenticité c'est tomber dans le piège du relativisme post-moderne qui est une des forces débilitantes à l'oeuvre dans la lutte contre la nouvelle vague du néo fascisme. En réalité ce dernier revendique lui-même une forme d'authenticité: le réalisme de race. Ainsi, il n'est pas surprenant que l'authenticité soit aussi au cœur de la doctrine d'Heidegger ce qui établit une sorte de connexion entre le National Socialisme et ses critiques français déconstructivistes. Même si pour certains ce disque peut sonner comme du rock déconstruit à travers de la noise électronique et des improvisations, il s'agit aussi ici de construire une sorte de Frankenstein, avatar du rock-comme-zombie: un peu comme si Lou Reed nous hantait depuis l'au-delà en connectant les cartes-mère de nos appareils électroniques à nos cerveaux, nous électrocutant de ne pas parvenir à arrêter ce régime fasciste déguisé en nouveau punk, tout en nous hurlant: vous avancez vers le danger, il faut reprendre le contrôle!

avec la participation de Farahnaz Hatam, Pan Daijing, Colin Hacklander, Werner Dafeldecker et Dean Roberts Enregistré le 6 Juin 2016 par Jeremy Nothman aux Golden Retriever Studios, Kreuzberg, Berlin

Mastering par Rashad Becker

“Butthole Surfers meets Run The Jewels”, this is how Dean Roberts described the record.

Yes, there is rock, but it’s so deformed that not even No-Wave could help you make sense out of it. Imagine if a bunch of viruses filled with fake news and contemporary nastiness would go straight to the core of No-Wave, Punk and Rock’s integrity: authenticity. Not to say that the Buttholes Surfers were the most authentic band in the world or that this record matches the production of El-P, but instead here you have some of the most exciting musicians in Berlin coming together for the first time; interpreting some lyrics from Mattin, dealing with our fucked up times and the search for overcoming them.

To say that there is no authenticity is not to fall into the postmodern relativism that has been a debilitating force in the struggle against the new wave of neo fascism. In fact, the latter also claim their own authenticity: race-realism. Nor surprisingly, authenticity was also at the core of Heidegger which somehow connects National Socialism and  its French deconstructionist critics. Even if this record for some might sound like deconstructed rock through electronic noise and improv, it is also doing something else like building a Frankenstein monster in the form of rock-as-zombie-avatar: as if  Lou Reed would haunt us from the other side connecting the motherboards of our devices to our brains giving us all electroshocks for not being able to stop this fascism-as-the-new-punk regime, while he shout at us: they got the traction on danger and you need to take it back!

featuring Farahnaz Hatam, Pan Daijing, Colin Hacklander, Werner Dafeldecker and Dean Roberts Recorded on the 6th of June, 2016 by Jeremy Nothman at Golden Retriever Studios, Kreuzberg, Berlin Mastered by Rashad Becker

Tracklist:

1. Die Form, Die Sich Selbst Formt 2. Jenseits Der Willkommenskultur 3. Die Kloake Der Gesellschaft 4. Einbahnstraße Des Selbst 5. Wie Können Wir Wirklich Wir Werden? 6. Laut-Denken (Wir Sind Schon Wir)

Reviews:

"Active since 2005, Mattin's Songbook project find the Basque provocateur embarking on a number of day long sessions in instant songwriting, using improvisation and collaboration as a means of shredding paradigms, upturning structures, etc. Mattin has a habit of letting concept smother results, but this Berlin session - featuring musicians including Pan Daijing, drummer Colin Hacklander and the New Zealand guitarist Dean Roberts - largely hits the mark. His barked vocals address contemporary political concerns (neoliberalism, the refugee crisis, the failure of Syriza) from a radical left perspective, with a soupçon of Auto-Tune to make the polemic go down a little smoother. Elsewhere, scouring no-wave guitars, sterile electronic noise and approximations of African pop battle for dominance, sometimes settling into an agreeably lopsided groove ("Einbahnstrasse Des Selbst")." - The Wire

"Descritta dal "manipulator" sonoro Dean Roberts come "Butthole Surfers meets Run The Jewels", la musica di Mattin ha innumerevoli pregi e qualche difetto. Pregio numero 1: l'imprevedibilita. Nelle sei tracce in scaletta di questo disco i generi trattati sono molti, dall'elettronica alla no wave/neue deutsche welle passando per il folk e la musica concreta. Pregio numero 2: non ci sono due tracce che si somiglino. Pregio numero 3: l'autonomia creativa di ciascuna traccia. Questi i pregi. Poi ci sono i difetti: lo sperimentalismo fine a se stesso, al quale si unisce una certa monotonio di fonda, perlopiu frutto della mancanza di una scrittura musicale solida. Non e un caso, forse, che alla fin fine sorga un dubbio: che Mattin utilizzi i suoni come un mero canovaccio?" - Rockerilla

"Severe warp and fuxx / Genre-free rock played like jizz / Don’t resist – give in!" - Radio Free Midwich

Stream / écoutez: https://sdzrecords.bandcamp.com/album/songbook-6

Billy Bao, Lagos Sessions (Munster, 2015)

First things first: police is a tool of oppression. The very existence of nations is the first cause of death. Where there is power, there is abuse of power. I hope 2020 is another step in the process to get rid of these murderous sycophants and the evil system they answer to.

As a white European, the racism I know is different from what happens in America. The history is different. The oppression, the exploitation, the silencing are different. Black culture is different as well, with European Blackness being more closely tethered to the African continent. But the most striking difference between Europe and America when it comes to Black-White relations is that, well, white Europeans know nothing about their Black brothers and sisters. There is no representation, no conversation.

This is where an album like Billy Bao’s Lagos Sessions comes in handy. The project of Basque experimental musician Mattin has always been capable to perfectly translate a concept into blown-out musical mindfuck. This time, similarly to what they had done with their 2012 masterpiece Buildings from Bilbao, the concept is a city—the city of Lagos. The band traveled to the Nigerian megalopolis and recorded the album with local musicians and local instruments, creating a patchwork of free noise, field recordings, Afro-jazz, reggaeton, spoken word.

The album serves like a diary of the time the band spent in Lagos, divided in four chapters, one for every side. It’s chaotic but intensely stimulating, with its bursts of noise juxtaposed to groovy, sweet, spontaneous and warm West-African rhythms and melodies—and its spoken word moments are fascinating and instructive. While the music world scrambles to offer their hypocritical faux-support to the BLM movement after exploiting Black artists and culture for decades (or centuries), this experiment creates exactly what European underground culture needs: a space for African voices.

Click here to listen to Lagos Sessions on Bandcamp.