Bacillus ‘Anti-Vaxxer’ C-30 (Glossolalia)

Bacillus’ 1990s tapes hold a unique place in the American noise lexicon of that time, raw in a way which Macronympha and Richard Ramirez were not. The works created – a largely unchanged process, it seems – from mangled and destroyed records and tapes, broken consumer electronics, and strangling distortion derived from pushing levels to the maximum, but off-set against that dumpster diver creationism was a studious fascination with microbes, pathogens, and danger lurking in minutiae: a (literally) unhealthy death fetish far removed from the familiar violent tropes of harsh noise.

It’s no surprise that in this year’s pandemic Bacillus should re-(re-?)emerge, another viral wave to contend with on the cusp of the world retreating into self-isolation. The cassette documents recent measles outbreaks and the anti-vaccination hysteria which fuelled them, but its timing in relation to the current pandemic – not to mention the protests currently looking to undo social distancing and related protections – makes ‘Anti-Vaxxer’ unavoidably relevant as I stay at home to avoid a virus which is wreaking havoc in many corners of the globe.

In 2020 the works are often longer and less mercurial than the early Bacillus particles, tracks such as “Misinformation Spreads, Taking Disease With It” and “Fatal Risks Of Persistant Myths” dwelling on single or small groups of pathologies and “The New Rise Of Preventable Diseases” melting into a self-perpetuating spread of unchanging viscosity which reflects Peter Keller’s recent works of stasis more than the unsettled fearmongering of his old Clotted Meat Portioning cassettes. The noise is as nasty and rough as ever, but its agility is significantly declined, strength in self-generation favoured over unexpected jumping between patients.

“Outbreaks Of Disease Once Conquered” is a highlight for reverting to Bacillus’ familiar structural instability, jarring cut-ups, and stereo spectrum severance, but the nervousness invoked on earlier works is much harder to find on ‘Anti-Vaxxer’ when it settles into a pleading grind, that lurking fear replaced instead with a more suffocating insistence – periodically broken by samples which drive home the thematic masthead and also serve to break up heavier chunks of noise as in “Complacency Leaves you Exposed” (a technique which can either distract or dissect depending on timing and use). “ImmuNoCompromise” goes further in instead constructing itself from sampled material, swerving its gasping noise around what sounds like a high school argument, its loud voices competing in urgency with the constrictive noise for an unexpectedly memorable diversion.

While of the same strain as what came before it ‘Anti-Vaxxer’’s looser construction hints at the heavier end of the type of manual noise Expose Your Eyes and Dogliveroil realised – while still firmly mired in an mid-1990s Americanoise blown-out saturation informed – but informed by noise wall stasis and with samples almost a little too clean in their execution, as the main updates to Bacillus’ previously squalid but highly-strung noise vignettes.

The update in packaging is even more noticeable, Glossolalia using plenty of laser printer paper to deliver a folded A5 cover and a swag of research materials and collage materials, as well as an ampoule of vaccine so you or someone you love isn’t the next victim. It’s an extensive and acknowledging provision of space and resources, and a worthy addition to a discography which – even with a recent upsurge in cases – is still one of the rarer Americanoise of the last 25 years.

https://bacillus.bandcamp.com/album/anti-vaxxer

Kadaver & Vomir 'Kadavomier' CDR (Inner City Uprising)

Vomir has spent over a decade creating works of immersion, a celebration of stasis with which to shut out the world and be consumed by sound. Into that ideal Romain Perrot has this time allowed Kadaver’s Michael Zolotov some space to merge his flayed noise electronics, the two realising ‘Kadavomier’ as a single extended track on Australia’s Inner City Uprising label - or split across two sides of a cassette pressing on The Hills Are Dead Records for those needing a breather and a walk across the room inside their 68 minutes of listening. In addition to realising the collaboration in its unedited form the CDR adds seedy collage art from Cursed Earth Cassettes’ Ben Schmidt which I prefer to the cassette’s somewhat hastily realised cover, making the disc the preferred version (other than for analogue format snobs, of course).

After an opening grab of movie dialogue – the importance of which is lost on me – as expected Vomir sets up a dominating central deluge, a resolute current with a hefty mid-range span and peaking surface which runs the entire length of the hour-long piece. Kadaver then forms and moves shapes under the surface and slotted into Vomir’s strong current, strewing bubbles of flange, low-end shadow, and smaller distortion deviations through the choppy Vomir singularity, eventually building to add a rotary blade insistence, contact microphone creasing and unrestrained effect pedal squall in its closing maelstrom.

As its strongest the piece almost vibrates as Kadaver’s intrusions filtrate through Vomir’s central contribution, the final quarter of the piece swelling in size as violently created noise electronics are layered as much as possible over the mainstay timbre (still never fully obscuring it), but earlier subtler infusions cloud or even obscure Romain’s smouldering texture in a more cautionary way, as if probing for weaknesses before ultimately deciding that only an all-out assault is capable of taking down the Frenchman’s construct. Those earlier forays are difficult to catch but cleverly shape the bulk of the lengthy disc, giving ‘Kadavomier’ hints of life and movement even as one of its architects wants to smother all of that with a black garbage bag.

From afar ‘Kadavomier’ seems immobile but the collaborative injection scatters plenty of finely adjusted detail through the piece, creating a track which on close listen is far more turbulent. I struggle to fully appreciate truly minimalist and unchanging harsh noise wall creations, but ‘Kadavomier’ only takes what it needs from that subgenre, testing its capacities with finer perforations before pressing a major morass through; and giving unsettled home listeners like me points within the piece to locate, extract, and chase in development – all without compromising the focus of Vomir’s missive.

https://innercityuprising.bandcamp.com/album/kadaver-vomir