Thursday, April 25, 2013

Borbetomagus and Friends-(Kowald,Honsinger,Kondo,Fine)Industrial Strength-1980




The all out inventive pure acrid belch ego less sensory assault produced almost unfailingly by long lived hard core free noise trio,Borbetomagus (who are still actively making music) , was an experience i cherished highly as a young man  , coming out of an adolescence largely musically informed and pervaded by heavy metal, hardcore and post punk,

 their more typical noise trio was probably as near to what we now recognize as classic free jazz, as i aurally ventured. in those fondly remembered far away, days.

they were where a band like last exit  seemed to want to go in  their more blissed out freest moments, but never quite did, except Borbetomagus were there relentlessly all the time
.
i certainly heard their early records on Agaric before any incus or FMP album.

The roots of their more typical trio sound though grounded in free jazz, also seems to draw equally on noisy concrete music, and the aggressive propulsion of , no wave garage rock...and has more in common with today's Japanese noise bands like  say,incapacitants.

This Lp and the wonderful Borbeto Jam recorded in the same month of october in 1981, are about the most bucolic , spacious classic, plinky scratchy 'Euro' 'Free' these guys ever got.

The Fact that their musical interlocutors here are Masters of free Improv in that sense probably mitigates what might be seen by some, though not me as their worst excesses..... anyway enough prattle

 Click on the cover...  you have 4 improvisations  untitled... by

Jim Sauter & Don Dietrich saxes, Donald Miller-G, Toshinori Kondo- trpt
Peter Kowald -db, Tristan Honsinger-VC, and Voice..& Milo Fine-Piano 
recorded in NYC, on the 18 oct 1981..
Leo LR ,LP 113.

the other record by this exact grouping, Borbeto Jam can still be seen on the Cadence Klompfoot catalog site, at least it could for as long as i can remember , maybe they have finally sold out... (worth checking!!)

This one sadly (Cause its so good!!) is unlikely to be one which Leo resurrects in a hurry.

Agaric BorbetosM's own label is reissuing systematically everything they have ever done as a trio.

if one needed only one 'Snuff Jazz' , circa 1990 is a very fine example, i was going to write" a devastated, denuded mental topography full of demons in heat.... lots of kinky demonic ejaculations of pure sulfur". but that would obviously be a very personal psycho sexual interpretation which would be inappropriate...So lets just say, the most turbulant passages of Alan Silva's the seasons stretched out to 40 minutes, played by a trio of punk arsed hardcore dudes.
Agaric Records @ Discogs (i,cant find their actual web page at the moment)

Enjoy!!!





19 comments:

SOTISE said...

FLAC, PICS
Will add another mirror later, i would appreciate anyone chipping in with mirrors
https://mega.co.nz/#!xdFFnLSI!fcPBRlXKEpppIzD_TjfX8lb4q6ojzNT8JBSRsX6zSbI

Nick said...

Thanks Sotise - mega works much better for me - on Chrome

glmlr said...

Interesting commentary Sotise. I wonder if (or if and where) these guys draw a line between music and masturbation. Or could it indeed be true that all art forms are ultimately an exercise in masturbation?

SOTISE said...

Are you saying Glmlr, that this music lacks substance, you and i are on opposing camps aesthetically, i fear.

i like the implicitly anti virtuosic stance of this music though of course theres a lot more to it than that .

to me someone like John McLaughlin, who once had a great tone and made a few great records in the late 60's early 70's , has been masturbating ever since, floating point , industrial zen , just to name a few recent things , and virtually everything he's done since 1972,for me exists in the realm of vacuous, completely vapid masturbatory excess.

so you see one mans meat really is another's poison!

glmlr said...



“Am I saying … “? No. I didn’t even say if I liked this or not. It's neither meat nor poison to me.

(A comparison with McLaughlin wouldn’t have occurred to me).

What did occur to me was Paul Bley’s philosophical comment, that “the only challenge facing an improviser is what note to play next, after the one you just played, and WHY”.


SOTISE said...

Free Improvisers, don't actually think about what note to play next, certainly not in the moment , , in fact who says music has to be comprised of notes... you can assign relative pitches to non tempered sounds, and call them notes , but they are not notes in any sense J.S.Bach would have understood.

Bley doesn't take risks in his playing , not since the mid 70's, listen closely and see just how little he improvises,i listen to even a supposedly free record like 'time will tell' and quite clearly hear familiar cliches and even whole tunes 'quoted' from earlier records, , he is very often retreading familiar ground, even in 'free' improvs.

In your quote Bley is really talking about improvising on changes, in a specifically jazz context, not playing free.

I'm Not comparing Borbetomagus to McLaughlin, i use him as an example because i know you love his work and i on the contrary find it sterile and masturbatory.

i'd rather hear a scratchy back porch fiddle tune played by a folk musician who has limited range and technique.

in any case who among us is not a wanker, wanking is all part of the grist.

glmlr said...


From what I understood at the time, Bley’s comment was in fact a tongue-in-cheek dig at his old friend Cecil Taylor, implying “If a solo concert of yours had one note less, what nature of a difference would it make?”. The implication being that it would make an perceptible difference to a solo Bley concert.

SOTISE said...

yeah i remember Bley saying they were friends but didnt like each others music, Taylor also said Bley had been playing the same blues lick for 30 years.

jim said...

SOTISE, just wanted to thank you for this also, above reminded me of something I read a long time ago of a conversation Dave Torn had with Don Cherry about musical direction.Dave stated that Don asked him do you want to be a guitar player or a musician? I thought that was a profound statement.

Anonymous said...

Hot shit !

Anonymous said...

mind-blowing stuff, thanks much, Sotise!

Igor

Unknown said...

Thanks Sotice for a great post once again. Im a relative newcomer to Borbetomagus and have never seen this before.
Agree with you that these guys successfully went where I always hoped Last Exit would get to but they never did.

unitstructure said...

thanks for sharing this.It made me go out and order some of their other recordings.I especially like Don Miller's contributions.Have you heard the disc Sauter made with Rudolph Grey and Rashied Ali?

SOTISE said...

@unitstructure, no i havent , whats it called?

SOTISE said...

ah .. found it, Mask of light on new alliance... no I've never heard that!

Anonymous said...

This is a unholy f*ck*n noise -love it. thanks man you rock
here is a mirror like you asked
http://rapidshare.com/files/496441231/BoBmGfR.rar

unitstructure said...

"Mask of Light" is worthwhile listening.Ali is well recorded and it's a rare chance to hear Sauter play with a percussionist.Check it out!

Anonymous said...

Hello, would it be possible to re-upload the Pijper and Badings link?
http://ninegreychairs.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Henk%20Badings

Anonymous said...

I bought their first two LP's when they originally came out and was quite satisfied with that amount of "noise content" in my life for a long time. I have since discovered the greater world of noise and free improvisation and it's time to go back to "the source". Looking forward to hearing this. Many thanks.

-Brian