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
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.
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