Reviews

Encephalophonic – Psychopathological Entertainment
Man, I’ve got this guy all wrong. With X, the previous Freak Animal abetted racket, I was sure the Bonini had turned over a new leaf. Or if not a new leaf, had begun to mature. Or if not to mature, was evincing new respect for more drawn out, deliberate, musings. Or… well, anyway, scratch all that. Talk about Regressed Progress. Here the unwholesome ‘hole abuse picks up precisely where it left off x years ago with X predecessor Regressed Progress. Rapid-fire staccato bursts hacked slapped left right center, epileptic shudder-loop, raw junk bassburst, tightly pinched pinprick skewer, cascading machine-choke avalanche, momentary pause of feedback whine. That’s the first fifty-seven seconds. A merciful slow-down as whiney tone-drag meets twizzled knob slobber stop-pause. We are at 1:57 and large metal barrels roll onto the scene. The hammer comes out. Let’s get physical. Ka-spunge! Physical. Ker-splooge! It’s time to get- konkonkon-spunnnnng-nnng-nnng. Not so much the rapid fire more the purely violent, petite flecks of echo to dramatize the beating meted out on poor defenseless piles of junk, reverb extensions played into harsher static mass. At 3:38 it is berzerker mode, the hammering growing frantic, ripped junk chunks flying dangerously past the ear before the inevitable shudder-loop to close things out. The whole album does not much deviate from this model, the only clear consistency the studied avoidance of consistency. Constant schizo-frenetic movement, the pace alternately herked and jerked from lightning fast to more leisurely strolls through metal THWACK chambers, the rare occasion to admire the filthy work as sure to be violently choked off and ripped to shreds. This is most evident in the second track, which could almost be mistaken for meticulous metal junk study smashed to tiny, twitching bits. Here the source materials are more up-close and personal, but every attempt to concentrate is broken by borderline nutso packed to the gills with unsolved traumas, sent careening out of control. Audiophonically speaking, that is. Track the third leads off with pretty brutal docu-perv interview clip and then the more purely electronic molestation to kick in. Episodic bursts of sharp and pointed incision, coming back again and again, as though to condemn the listener to forever relive the trauma, throwing everything into the mix and really upping the harsh flavors through the most severe of screechy shriek-frequencies. Those are some sick sadofantasies there, Bonini-san. Another track another brutally trashed junk study, but now a more “live” sense of space, abrupt and uneven cuts as ready to favor squealing twizzle-action as to vomit out physical fits of ker-splungeing violence. On occasion, the surgeon seems dissatisfied with his scalpel work, trading in precision for haphazard, snarled, handsaw rip, pliers furiously pulling at frayed edges, sound bits ground down to crumpled pulp of near non-fidelity. That’ll learn ya. If “Hatred For The Human Body” is some kinda Dead Body Love tribute I don’t hear it. What I do hear is exceedingly well put together clusterfuck frenzy of raw and raging hyperspasmation. Hefty, burly, bass-burbles bulging with perverse exuberance, sweet tease-y ear-bleedings repeatedly blasted with overweight freight trains of very dense full-force full metal racket. The surgeon likes it so much he even gentrifies the close of proceedings with sadistic porn clip, tortured shrieks of pain echoed with equally tortured surge of total flip-out electro slather. A brief bit of respite as a full-minute’s oscillation precipitates jerk-savvy dialog of ruptured bass-burble and wrinkled, roughly-scraped, distorto-bash. 100mg of seroquel, much of it seemingly administered “live” and on the fly, still the eye for detail as astute as ever, the massed piles of junkmetals ever ready for smash-happy indulgences, every corner of the channel pan engaged. Getting close to the end here and more carefully spaced junk chamber deliberation. For the first minute or so. Soon enough the encephalo urges prove overpowering, the seroquel has obviously run out, and the tight-packed scrunchings of curdled, jerk-necked, epilepsy set the stage for the title track and main event. “Psychopathological Entertainment” is, simply, a pure and furious rager of pure scorching encephalo FIRE. I had some listening notes somewhere I thought might better illuminate. Let’s see now- “Psycho-spasty wack-a-jack-thwacky, mess-alophonic chugga chugger blung, cheeks prised open, slammed home screeching, Ruptured be thy bung” Well, perhaps not. What to say... the razors are just that extra shave sharper, the peaks just that extra prod pricklier, the hyperspasmations just that extra splerk spasmated. Occasional peeps of daylight squeak in here and there, only to emphasize the hefty physical force of bass-loaded turd-burgling crunchpunchers slamming on through. Call it the Ultimate Masobonini. Precision crafted incisions taken to a wide array of raw, junked, metallic, acoustic, crunch pinch n chisel, all of it on point, meticulously tweaked for maximal damage- to head, heart, and holes… hatred of the human body never felt so goood. Liner notes say the album on whole was a good year in the making, a year that apparently did the good Bonini’s head in, as commemorated in opener “Crazy”. But it wouldn’t surprise me if most of that year went into this one track. The attention to precision and detail is to be commended, as is the profusion of bass-loaded turd-burgling crunchpunchers slamming on through. Perfect and perfectly brutal. So in sum, get thee some. Crazed n deranged profusion of confusion, easily the most surgically crafted Bonini to date. Unlike the previous missives, earlier mentioned, space is not wasted with apparent attempt to draw the strands together, such that they cohere into semi-narrative whole. A few strategically placed docu-cum-porn clips, but serving more as texture than wapping the listener over the head with theme. Or if there is to be theme, it is thoroughly sound-driven. HARSH driven. Earhole abuse driven. You say psychopathological entertainment I say mydriasis is on fire. Time to break out the- CUM ALERT! The- SOUNDS FOR BUTTPHONE! The- PISS ANGE… Look, would you mind? Some of us are trying to write stuff. Jeez. The seroquel. Break it out, now, the seroquel. 100mg ought to do the trick. Regardless of the grip on scalpel, or sanity, the return to puritannical harshhead as ventured in Regressed days of yore is always welcome. As is the profusion of bass-loaded turd-burgling crunchpunchers slamming on through. (Special Interest '18)

Encephalophonic – Hurtcore
It sometimes feels like these surgical crafstman types need a bit of release. An opportunity to relax, if only momentarily, that tightest of grips constricting the poor, wound up, harshskull. Or maybe the filthy scalpels got left at the cleaners. Very live-to-tape feel here, no apparent edits, no bullshit. As if to prove that Bonini can twiddle knobs with the best of ‘em. And that he can! But with as much ear for brutal and pointed incisiveness as ever. Lots of hurt for your sorry ‘holes. Four pointed brevities on this c20, out the gate with all screeching force, not for a moment to kick back and plead for attention but simply to hammer away through amped up feedback strains. I hope I didn’t actually use the word “relaxed” earlier, did I? (Pause.) Oh, damn. Well, anyway the overall tone here is one of studied, frantic, tension, tightly squeezed pinched-til-it-hurts-to-the-core clench. Tense, clench-fisted, shriekage, with just the briefest loop percussive, reminding momentarily of transitional-era Pain Jerk, before falling back to frenzied, shriekus, interruptus, angular shards burnt to blackened ruin. Side second seems a bit more open-ended, even open-mouthed. Is that a molested screaming vocal I hear? Upper register squeaky-cheeks roughly prised open, through which crunchy frayed-edged chunkies are hacked. The closing ditty commences with total Pain Jerk worship before opening up to a much wider range of spastic attire, metal bashed excess fueling a spastic sputtering mess of scrunched seethe n stutter. (Special Interest '18)

Encephalophonic - X
With the choice blessings of Freak Animal deposited upon the name, Encephalophonic makes the quantum leap: from compulsive spasticator toiling in the shadow of the hallowed Pain Jerk-Sickness-Merzy tripartite – to out and out hero plumped for all due bunghole lashing upon the international noise stage. X marks the territory normally under Bonini jurisdiction- massed layers of metal-junk heaving and churning, rapid-fire plumbing of the aural cavities, frantic, manic, ever attentive, never settled – but lays claim to areas previously reserved for the cognescenti, with all the studio refinements, artistic tweaks and enhancements demanded from the Kingmakers. Simply put, the man has significantly upped his game. In two ways. First, and immediately apparent, recording quality. Punches really punch, piercings really pierce. A cleaner, brighter Encephalo emerges, burnished with glimmering coats of reverb. While the less forgiving might be tempted to doc points for the strategic retreat from filthier climes previously investigated, the forceful impact of such full-bodied, dynamic, “heaving and churning” is not to be denied. True to form established in 2013's Regressed Progress, a choice selection of docu-clips sets a central narrative focus. This time, however, thanks to the averred upping of the overall production values, the net effect is rather cinematic. I'd title it “Borderline Personalities: When Self-Induced Vomiting Is Not Enough”, a heart-rending – if rather tasteful! - portrait in the field of self-torture porn. The sonic-sensual drama that unfolds is surprisingly patient, exploratory, thoughtful, serving to up the game in the second manner apparent. “Patient, exploratory, thoughtful” are the clinchers. Here be perv in near voyeuristic mould, more than content to take his time, to feel things out, to massage and molest, to sit back and watch as he sets his playthings in motion, coaxing from each individual movement just the right dose of brutalized screech, trembling shudder. Connoisseurs of the cut-up species of harsh may perceive in this characterization the wholesale endorsement of a current trend, whereby the project progresses from fixation on unrelenting frenzied all-out assault to more measured deliberations of a decidedly “mature” persuasion. But where progression of this kind might once have taken years to realize, the plethora of recent benchmarks in the area has helped accelerate things. The liner notes tell us the materials were “de-composed, recorded & mixed during 2011-2012” then “edited and mastered in 2014”. Sounds about right. “Massed layers of metal-junk heaving and churning, rapid-fire plumbing of the aural cavities, frantic, manic”. That good hard EncephaloFILTHic. It's all there. It's just... spread out a fair bit: well-spaced, well-ventilated, with plenty the opportunity to pause, sniff around, get one's bearings, soak up the stench, wallow in carefully-considered (self-)defilements of the first order. Okay, so a little breakdown here. “As Thin As You Can” presents us with an agitated, smothering bass-line, somewhat low-key and dirge-like, before strep-throated gregorians gentrify an increasingly ragged pitch of rarefied scrunch and burble. Five minutes in and yet to shoot the wack, some classy shit there! As “Suicide Solution” slides them choice doco snippets into darkened wobba-wobba-wobba, we again await, patiently, the harsher incursions- which finally do hit, but with somewhat restrained force, at 1:30. By the time this sleekly presented little gem has run its course, however, we know we are in for a pleasurably painful ride, slow-mo metallic hack 'n slash shredding apart the otherwise rather sedate tapestry of bass-heavy loop-bludger. Thus the necessary power electronic synth-fart acceleration into “Accelerated Brain Activities”, again a good minute-and-a-half before the “metal-junk heaving and churning” gets the juices pumping. Still the wide-range of continuous angular blasting is carefully staked, as though to emphasize each decisive cut. Among the more spasmodic species of sonic-sensual assault, patience can be a virtue of questionable decorum, but the steady, junked-out, hammering of “Reverbered Pain” viciously shreds apart any lingering doubts. Stand-out track or brief acoustic interlude? Better, first bookend of the main course, the meat, as it were: and so to linger ever so lovingly over wonderfully full-to-the-brim outpouring of fulsome, filthsome, flavorings, several tracks worth of the shit, a densely composed concoction of all the brutal machinations to be suffered under the depraved deviant of Harsh Audio Perversion(tm), razored raw self-mutilations, psychedelic shots of searing thunder, tender throat-fisting, a good bit of ye olde herkily jerkily, rhythmic nipponistic shit-puke fetishism, and then, finally, the high-pitched, painfully burning sensations of “Infected Whore” giving way to “Baby Borderline”, a deliberate slowing of pace as the tone darkens considerably in meeting the second spate of even-tempered, junked-out, hammering, the perv setting his echoing shards of acoustic “Razor Blades” to task in quite stunning closure to a rather epic set. Deep breath. As the final cut lacerates the reverberant floor, a frayed, high-pitched, tone oozes into explosive, crunch-heavy, detonations of the inevitable “Nervous Breakdown”. Patience has paid off. The “Gun Threat” all the more threatening when the person cocking the hammer is your own sorry self. Grim, blackened buzz-tones underline spare, brutish, full-force discharge, fragments of distressed voice occasionally breaking through the densely compacted outbursts. But don't you worry. Down those pills, sit back, relax, enjoy the hurt. Blissful oblivion awaits.

Kazumoto Endo And Emanuele Bonini ‎– Rumore Da Ritorno Audio Metallico
Quite a coup there, Audio Dissection-san, quite the fucking coup. Endo back and all so wonderfully coy you sly bastid. HOLY FUCKING- “Endo back?” For more? Of the same? Not quite. For starters, the ubiquitous dead air is largely snuffed out. For continuers, plenty of feedback hanging around. This is not a coincidence. Or let me re-phrase: brutal blasts of balls-out harshness punched into hanging feedback slide, a slide that might in more lengthy incarnation verge on drone application. So go the first five tracks, to which Endo is accredited final mix-dibs. And so they go, and go. The variation here is minimal, or better: very cleanly delineated. Tight. The Soddy in me is at pains to assign a score for spasticity, though the excreta is of course shitting all over the place.
What we get from Endo is this: well-constricted range of sound, fed with a hefty helping of cantankerous scrap metals, artfully arranged for a maximum of earhole annihilation. Any questions? What makes it for me are two things: the depth of texture, a crucial element lacking in a surprisingly high proportion of hard panners, and the beauteous junk metal sources repeatedly poking up for air. More on the texture. What we are talking about, texture wise, is scrap-metal'd crunch-bilge, ripped to shit via blown out harmonics a la Sickness, Corrugation-era TEF, Ahlzagail, and, of recent note, Vanhala-san. Is a score for harmonicaness then in the making? Could well be, who am I to say.
I should hasten to add that, as the first five tracks represent the combined collaborative efforts of Masters E and B, it seems a tad lazy of me to arbitrarily ascribe all the textured abundance to a single, sick, genius. In fact, judging from said chaps' elsewhere heard, a fair score of the harsher acoustic inclinations are most readily attributable to Senior Encephalo. Regardless, the aforementioned well-contricted range of sound is worked through so skillfully that, ultimately, spasticity gives over to craftsmanship. If it weren't already apparent, this is the work of a master crafts-smith absolutely in the comfort zone and I, for one, am rooting for the Overdog. Hail! Okay, then, Bonini, what you got? Tracks 6 through 10 are the Bonini mixes. Track 6 is a bit bashful. For one, the mix presents itself a fair bit quieter, as though still recovering from Endo-worship (or so I would project). For two, Endo it ain't- but it tries. More musty butt-air in here than in all the previous 5 tracks combined- but perhaps only on the sly. (Cue sly bastid.)
Rapid-fire, spasmodic, full-on, full course, one waits impatiently for things to pick up- and they do, but not to the extent one might hope. THWACK! Endo be whooping some Bonini ass. This anyway would be the lazy conclusion. As averred (above), correct attribution of perceived buttdom administration is a slippery sloppery SLAP! And, er, vice versa. Things improve dramatically in Track 7, in which the Bonini tosses all his cookies into the mix, vomiting up everything spew forgot onto track 6... or at least, the junked shitemetals are offered much needed room to breathe. One thing that certainly sets the Bonini mixes apart: the much wider range of sound particles indulged. Not at all the constricted field, more blinding field of multitextural radiant devastation. By track 8 the Bonini-ster be plain fucking with your deservedly abused aural passages (well, you did ask for it). Very restrained, very nicely spaced out, a well-crafted five minute fit of pure epileptic bliss. In track 9 the acoustics gain ever more definition, all neck-jerk. whip-lash. thugga thugga thugga. ass-slap. All to set up the main course, the grand finale, so to speak. This, track 10, I would suggest as the most Bonini-esque, a genuine attempt at resolving the stresses between the most untethered of capacities and the most finely tuned of structural design. The last minute: pure vicious godhead. (Special Interests ’14)

Kazumoto Endo And Emanuele Bonini‎ "Rumore Da Ritorno Audio Metallico" CD
Great CD!! It delivers all it promises and maybe even a little more. The cut-up action is great and craftmanship superb. I especially like the moments where you can hear that there are clearly two artists doing this, reacting to each others' sounds. Also, it's not just abrupt cuts and hard panning, but they know when to step back a bit and just let the sound flow. Some of the individual sounds used are among the harshest and most brutal I've heard. Very rewarding listening and I'm looking forward to many more spins. (Special Interests ’14)

Kazumoto Endo/Encephalophonic “Quattro Pulsanti Bomba / 終身性的虐待” 7”
Damn! Started today by listening ENCEPHALOPHONIC / KAZUMOTO ENDO split 7", and haven't reached to move away from it. Just replaying side, and flipping once in a while. I don't know why, but I feel this is the best Kazumoto Endo for long time?! Everything about it, is faithful to Endo style, but lacking all those dramatic silences I dislike, and focus on fast, loud, ultra distorted harsh noise that is sliced into quickly changing cuts of noise, sometimes one thing happening at the time, sometimes little more density added in form of multiple layers coming and going. However, ENCEPHALOPHONIC remains still little bit more tastier. His style of composition, sounds and most of all ability to blend the transitions little better than simply razor sharp abrupt cut. Smoothly running solid harsh noise piece is something you could mix 94 Merzbow, 95 Pain Jerk and Sickness of 2000's, yet I feel artist operates in such a timeless approach of noise that comparing it to all the famous hardly does justice. I also feel, that as much as 7" vinyl might limit the forcefulness of loud harsh noise (compared to flat 0dB digital release), it actually made this material better than it digitally was?! Maybe that's exactly reason why Endo sounded so good too! Color vinyl, full color glossy cover. Small edition. And because of these qualities, little pricey. But for me, it already has rotated so many times it's well worth of money! (Special Interests ’13)

Kazumoto Endo & Encephalophonic – 7” (Audio Dissection)
Great to see some new material on Audio Dissection, a label searching hard for ‘90s harsh noise nostalgia. Kazumoto straddles the line between his earlier self-named work and that done as Killer Bug, the jagged cut and comforting analogue profile of his nom-de-noise running headlong into the writhing jump-cuts of his au naturel recordings, although with barely a sliver of dead silence to show at the moment. The noise is raw, without a trace of studio malice, and strikes me as a supercharged live take – although if that’s the case the intensity and constant shifting of serpentine, venomous, noise electronics and bursts of coarse junk blows is a superhuman effort. Even if multi-tracked it’s still a brave barrage from someone who obviously had some hostile and fervent noise looking to spray from the next arterial cut. Encephalophonic’s take on the same time period of Japanese noise (perhaps fed through the same impetus which charged Sickness a decade ago) has reached its epiphany on the other side to this 7”, hyper loops a la meth-fuelled Pain Jerk meeting junk-through-effects crispness and roaring electronics agility, all thrashed several times through some tight, almost whiplash-inducing, editing. It’s the typhoon in comparison to Kazumoto’s electrical storm, a more urgent and implacable maelstrom where relent takes charge and elements never really lodge – in comparison to Kazumoto’s side where you feel every sound like grasping a sharp knife in the hot water of the kitchen sink. Both approaches are valid, and the work from each will please anyone missing these types of bruising split 7”s – think Endo meets Incapacitants, Merzbow meets MSBR or Pain Jerk meets Skin Crime – which seem a rare event this century. (Night Science ’14)

ENCEPHALOPHONIC “Regressed Progress” CD
"Encephalophonic has been lurking in shadows of international noise for some years and now presents its debut CD album. Step by step improving and challenging himself to rise to new heights, album culminates years of work. Taking influence from masters of dynamic Japanese pedal noise and harshest American units, but creating timeless and trend free harsh noise. It's at the same time super distorted and noisy as it is high fidelity and crispy. Echoes of 90's Merzbow, Pain Jerk, Kazumoto Endo, Sickness, Skin Crime,etc., but with additional dark and sinister quality." (Mikko A. - Feb. 2013)

Encephalophonic‎ – Regressed Progress
According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 13th edition, “Encepalophonic” is an adjective referring to the “studied and careful composition of fucking harsh noise”*. More specifically, Encephalo is a deservedly rising star by virtue of Commitment. Commitment to all the things that matter. For starters, spasticity. This is the shit that has spasticisms all over the place. For seconders, harshness. A ever ready assortment scrap-metal sources scours this point home with excruciating precision. And for thirders, well I'm coming to that. First, “Growing Paranoia”, a mostly muted entry into the perverted probings of The Bonini: laying out uneasy synthwave atmos, tension ratchets up in slow sweeps and whispered washes. There is an aggression here, bubbling just below the surface, never really allowed to break through. We know we are just being fucked with and thus simply wait expectantly for the inevitable shooting of the wack. Cue title track. Looped knob-bobbing hastens the outpouring of pinpricked l-r panned incision, stop-pause knee-jerk, well-aimed butt-stab. A constant back-n-forth between the bobbing slobber and just plain... slobber.
This shit refuses to sit still and verges on fucking irritating. The worst (best!) kind of fucking irritating, natch. Okay, then. Spastics, check. “In & Out Of Reality” is when things really begin to pick up. When the manipulation of sound palette is so overdone as to verge on pornographic. When I decide that Encephalo is The Shit. Concentrated knife action. Sudden ultra-brief shrieking vocal spasm. Heaving, hacking fits. A slowing of pace. Screaming rippus interruptus. Collapsing metals. Pulling and tugging from one extreme to the next, angling in from this that and every whichever. Spastics, double check! Next, out come the scrapped junk sources, most apropos of “Scars Collection”. Rabid slashing fit ensues, frequently settling on a near-percussive regularity, the hacking occasionally opening up to wider acoustic detail. Okay, for fucksake Bonini, I get it. I've had enough! And so we would seem to conclude our first half, making way for “MaximumHeadPressure”, which is, of course, exactly that. Heavily distorted pressures snuffing out all surfaces air, vapors escaping in a reverberant hiss... for the first thirty seconds anyway. Then it's more of the same. Distorto-spasti, wacky-jacky, blasting through the fray. Buried again under masses of heavy-handed crunch overload. The “dialog”, as such, is great- particularly satisfying when metallic junkpunches slam through, and through. Jump ahead one track to the climactic “Self Destructive Behavior”. Here the acoustic iron-filing armada is out in all force, but so too are all the other elements, each competing, in turn, for attention. Agitated synthetic epilepsy. Glittering glass shards. Frequencies seemingly burnt to a crisp, stereos in stuttered decline- exploding back to a perfect, steely, glint. Slow throb out, to make way for extended docu-clip of sweet little girl explaining why she sticks pins in baby brother's privates, the answer unnecessary but provided anyway, thus to cycle, viciously, to the raw, didactic, extremity of closer “Product Of Violence”, and HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES? Regressed Progress indeed. A very well-composed piece of work, start to finish. This is the thirder, abovementioned, whereby a work may satisfy both in individual chunks and in whole. HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES? *pending approval

Mo*Te / Encephalophonic‎– Broken Stone Glass / Spastic Emotions
For a project so short-lived, or at least, so unproductive, Mo*Te is certainly versatile. From the minimal, understated, even grim, murmuring creep of Needle Freak (with Government Alpha), to the wacked-out, barely describable, epic, tribal-ambience-or-something, of MeltingPlasticHeadCore (with Crack Fierce), to the sheer brutal awesomeness of Rest Stop Entrapment (with Humectant Interruption). Certainly unpredictable. And almost as certainly, every time, killer. I'm not quite sure what it is that so readily renders the killer possibilities. But thirty seconds into “Broken Glass Steel”, the Mo*Te side of this split, and I'm immediately reminded of my very first sexual experience: the abovementioned and still sexually charged Life In A Peaceful New World. This latter tape is easily enough described: layers of deep, rumbling, almost ambient, envelopment, through which quite harsh intensities attack with consistently pointed exactitude, cycling into stratospheric heights that approach veritable psychedelic permutation. Now, nearly twenty years later, what do we get? Layers of ambient envelopment through which harsher intensities build with persistent, if not exactly pointed, rigor, cycling through a reliably earthed minimalism that could, from a distance, suggest the possibility of psychedelic permutation. Perhaps here we may identify one area that occasionally sets Mo*Te on the road to killer-the expanded role he allows the more ambient flavors to play, occasionally to the detriment of harsh noise proper. The ambient flavors here played cycle from near drone-harmonization to an increasingly recognizable rhythmic throb, but all the while the Harsh Proper seethes, principally in the background. Matter of fact, there is no foreground. These are, plainly speaking, some well-grounded sonics. Okay then, let's flip this boy over, I crave me some Encephalo. Hmm. “Spastic Emotions”. Pregnant pause. Slow snowball into this
well-intentioned slobber-fest. Slow in the Encephalo sense of the word- at least half a second or so. Then things get plain ugly. Dude seems to be chucking shit all over the place. Tinpot shit-pails hurled all over the room, ripping holes in filthed-out distortion walls. Pull back, wait, metal spokes hammered at irregular intervals. Full-force all-cylinders KA-BLOW! Hard-right zing. Crinkle. Stop. Crinkle-snuffle. If the intent is to achieve a maximum of listener dis-orientation, then I would call this success. “Spastic Emotions”. Repetitive rumpty pumpty, stop-pause, lurch. Shudder. Sricka-cracka-crunk. Distinct slowing of pace. Classic Encephalo, you might suspect. But then things get interesting. Through the relative calm a tingly little electro-crackle sizzles into the field, farting, fizzing, agitating. This is it, this is fucking it! you shriek with triumph, here comes that megafrasticspastic assault... and then- thumpa-thumpa-thump. Bass out, end. Talk about anticlimatic. Not your classic Encephalo, and one I'm probably going to have to play back several times before I get my few remaining befuddled braincells around it. Frazzled, that's the word I'm looking for. “Spastic Emotions”. No idea whatsoever.

Kazumoto Endo / Encephalophonic‎– Quattro Pulsanti Bomba / 終身性的虐待
Perhaps Endo has always been a bit of a gear fetishist. Back when he was performing as Killer Bug he would literally “play” his signature springloaded-washboard-thingy, AKA Killer Bug. The Killer Bug – the gear - as performer, Kazumoto Endo - the man - as the, um, low-paid techie? When the name changed to Kazumoto Endo, the Killer Bug left the stage to be replaced by... laptop. And, it ought to be said, a significantly diminished stage presence, to go with a significantly diminished interest in earhole destruction. Not a lot of recorded output released in the laptop period, and when he would return to the stage in all-analog mode it was as... Killer Bug, with Killer Bug center stage. (Subequent performances as Kazumoto Endo would feature something rather Killer Bug-esque but we'll ignore that for the moment.) Now here comes Endo or should we say, here comes Quattro Pulsanti Bomba. A straight-ahead piece of gear responsible for a straight-ahead piece of work. With the four pulsanti in action, this is as frantic as anything released via the cut-up workings of the earlier Endo; but without apparent studio editing/trickery, this is much more rough, unrefined, rugged. Ragged-edged. I could very much imagine Endo delivering the exact performance here recorded live, on stage: the man, the gear, the new legend to be born? Well, I suppose it depends on what your expectations are of your Endo at this, um, stage. Yes, the edges certainly, are ragged, which is, of course, great! But persuasiveness comes via the very raw materials proffered: blistering sharp, bristling fury. Never has Endo sounded this brutally harsh. And never, not since Killer Bug, has dead air been so violently cleared. Straight-ahead blast, exploding momentarily across channel pan, crinkling into near null-fidelity... very hard to offer a play-by-play without sounding like a fucking spastic. Still I'd hesitate to call this random: each abbreviated event feeds directly into the next, the barest hint of subtle manipulation betraying a tell-tale care, and control. Erratic, certainly, as erratic as fidelity proper is shredded, with heavily percussive cut-up-ish textures achieving a kind of constantly unsettled, er, shreddus interruptus. A bit of a strain; re-strained, even. Net impact: as frenetic as one might hope, if not all that fast-paced, and never straying far from the essential quattro-layered attack, fenced in, finally, by a consistency quite well-defined. In any whathaveyou, those unpersuaded by the Endo mixwork gracing the recent full-length Bonini-Endo collab, to which this is to be regarded as a prelude, will not be won over by the raggedy Quattro-textures on tap, and may I therefore direct the sagacious seeker of sustained sonic-sensual satisfaction to the satiation to be derived on the flip-side, courtesy Encephalophonic. Encephalo hits immediately, hard, with tightly focused fits of metal-pronged stabbing. Buttloads of painstakingly edited fragments compressed into the most fleeting of spasms. This was just in case you thought the Endo side wasn't spastic enough. Very little deviation from the subject at hand: that of acoustic junk sources punched in stuttered, arrhythmic, fashion to splat out a net, crunch-filtered, epilepsy.
Repetitive, crunch-filtered, epilepsy. Sounds like someone's been listening to way too much Pain Jerk, staring at Retrogress-ive album covers, and has somehow drawn all the wrong (right!) conclusions. Repetitive, crunch filtered, epilepsy. Muttering to himself in frenzied self-reassurance: “Sounds For Buttphone. Sounds For Buttphone! G-G-G-Gomi-s-s-s-sss-ssan had the right idea, the right idea.. ye-ess – CUM ALERT! - but never quite realized, NO!, his true, his true, his TRUE potential. The fu- the fu- the FOOL! Yes, yes, it's okay my little piss angel, yesss, you know you want it...” Ahem. Pardon me there. May I say something? I mean, look mate, the shit does not necessarily have to sound like this, okay? Not necessarily. But how can one assign blame when the vision is so purely, so convincingly, staked? Repetitive, crunch-filtered, epilepsy. No doubts at all, I am a convert. Hook me up to my Electronomicon and be done with it. FUCK! Massed junk armada: unload. Smash in. Smash through. Smash. Smash-smash-smash. This was in case you thought the Endo side wasn't percussive enough. A thousand shards of scintillating textural rrriiiiip.

Encephalophonic‎– Alone
Geez, this boy is fucked. Fucked raw. Raw. That's the fucking word, you fuck. Wonderfully blown-out sonics from A to B. A to Z. Whatever, you fuck. It's three in the goddamn morning, the earholes are absolutely mangled and here I am flipping over again, and again, you fuck. I did say raw, right? But I could have been letting the essence get to me. The stench. Encephalo has certainly expanded his sound. Or upped the gear. These are surprisingly full-bodied workings-through of fantastically flavorsome fudge-punchies. And surprisingly bereft of the more spastic inclinations of yore. Y'know, like, way back in, what was it, 2013? Yeah, those were the days, lemme tell ya. In them days, Encephalo was more noted for, well, how shall I put this? YOUR MOTHER SUCKS COCKS IN HELL! Now, he seems to have settled down to a more focused brutishness. SOUNDS FOR BUTTPHONE! For the moment, anyway. Side Peace-Signing Asian Kid starts with the familiar looped stuttering, slams into the familiar acoustic hacklery, dips into the familiar pincer grip, then rasps in fits and starts through unhealthy hawking splurt. Then he breaks out his surgery utensils and gets down to a pointed, business-like, needlepoint seethe. Come to think of it, this was just about as spastic as ever, but perhaps the clarity of elements set in motion renders a different species of perversion. Less agitating to push the shit out, more plain grim. Side Pierced Chick With Handsaw In Mouth is perhaps the more settled, thus to be second. Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk. Ground-up propeller fizzle. A seemingly undercooked shit-bed acquires a threatening quality by successive increments. You'd think we were going to launch into the wacked-out Encecphalo we know and crave. And we do- almost. The knives are out! A few glinting spasmodic incisions threaten to rip the fabric apart before heavier densities roll into view, start to encircle the periphery, come into focus, then to escort proceedings to an impeccably subdued denouement. Nicely crafted bit of faux drama there, really had me going, think I'll flip over for more Peace-Signing Asian Kid.