oh, here's a rad review of the 7" on terminl boredom:
Black Pus "Down Down Da Drain" 7"
Is there anything Brian Chippendale can't do? Every side-project, spinoff, and solo outing by the skin-pounding half of beloved New England noisemeisters Forcefield is a revelation. If you see Chippie's name on a record, grab it quick but brace yourself good 'cos you never know what kinda sonic suckerpunch you're gonna get from this crazy motherfucker. Here's a partial list of the far-out shit I've seen this guy pull ever since I first started following his moves through the US noise underground: I was stunned when the sunnuvabitch stepped out from behind the kit to pop a wheelie in his biker-rock project Road Warriors, peeling off Foghat and Davie Allan licks on a circuit-bent guitar like Marisa Tomei peelin' off pasties in The Wrestler. He knocked my socks off and left us all with mouths agape when he delivered the hooks, bittersweet Merseyfied harmonies, and elegant Ringo-via-Charlie beats in Tafetta Block a couple years later. Fuck, I even saw him do interpretive dances for Bjork, replace the 100-watt GE lightbulbs in the men's room with environmentally-friendly "green" lights at Santos' Party House, and conduct an orchestra with his dick at the last Whitney Biennial.
So I was thrilled and -- I'm man enough to admit it -- a little nervous when I laid eyes on this new vinyl utterance by his latest solo project, Black Pus, on the adventurous and discriminating boutique label Corleone Records (a "fake indie" subsidiary of the monolithic Skulltones imprint).
Black Pus! With a name like that, you know there's gonna be some seriously dark, punishing shit popping outta these grooves. Needless to say, this little devil of a record peels away another layer of the sumptuous onion that is Chippendale's mind to reveal further new angles and unexpected approaches to contemporary experimental noise. It's not like he's abandoned the core aesthetic he explored as one-half of Mindflayer, Windtunnel and Corkscrew Wolfhunt, but imagine my surprise when I drop need on side A and out comes a mellifluous symphonic wash right outta the Curt Boettcher playbook! I listen for a minute or so, fully expecting Chipps' drums to erupt in a brutal 17/4 polyrhythmic barrage or some such thing but no: the man's got an ace up his sleeve. Just as the string section is stirring itself into a Pendereckian swarm of half- and quarter- tones, threatening to explode into chaos, Big B reins it in, brings it down a notch, and... WTF? That's when the ELECTRONICS kick in. And then: the voice. Is that Robert Wyatt dueting with himself? Holy mother of fuck-all. Mr. Day-Glo bowls me over with another sonic surprise from his unholy repertoire and delivers a lyric cribbed from one of Donne's "metaphysical" sonnets (I forget which one), teasing out the secret music from those centuries-old words...
The b-side is even weirder. Talk about a one-two punch! It's a fools game to spec about the maestro's listening habits, but it sounds to me like BC has been spending time with the first four Killed by Deaths and probably Bloodstains, too, 'cos this shit is punk as fuck. You always knew he had the pipes for it, but seriously, what were the odds that he'd really whip you across the face with that thing as he does on this bizarro refry of "I Don't Wanna Work"? It's about time this guy got more respect from peeps outside the weirdo-noise ghetto and believe me, if this doesn't turn the average Termbro on to the insanely eclectic noise of this Providence polymath, nothing will. If this is what tinnitus does to you, sign me up! I mean -- what? Can you repeat that? (AR)
(Corleone / Skulltones // www.skulltones.com / www.corleonerecords.com)