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INSANE DRUMMER & EXPERIMENTAL LABEL MAKER
 

Kikanju Baku plays drums in many grindcore/ jazz/ experimental projects such as Bollock swine, Nabeg, and also runs a couple of underground labels (including Jigokuki and lofi or die) that release weird grinding sounds. Here's an intie to learn more about it all.

  

    



1. Hello, how are you? Can you introduce yourself and your grinding musical creations?

The bucket list! The bucket list! All is swell – guts in a hesco. Hassock. - Rescue worker, truth terrorist, intellectual-seditionary, 修験者, intuitionist & pariah prelate.

 

2. How long have you been playing drums? Your playing sounds quite technical and skilled, in an unusual manner.... Do you agree if I say you play grindcore and jazz beats at the same time?

Since six, perhaps prior? Surely! Assessment affirmative, but “grindcore” & “jazz beats” are but a morsel - albeit focal – the 10% stodge. Much' much' much' much more crammed, cross-hatched & crenellated into the flux, the fusillades, the floridity, the fuckey...

 

3. You were involved into many projects in the past, including ASHIAP, BOLLOCK SWINE, NABEG, Menstrum Maelstrom, Yab-Yum, Citizens Of Nowhere, Foju Frequency, Law Facilitates Crime, Menstrum Mantics... (I think even the hardest works of the meticulous info-suckers from Discogs didn't help to gather your full discography AhAh...)... Most of it is either about noisy grinding stuffs or jazz infused matters... Could we say grindcore and jazz are your main tastes in music?

Belting Gabbar! Might we add - Reforester, Piscatorial Boat Herder, Law Facilitates Crime, Percussion Projectile Trio, Condign, Pseudoku, Toff Stabber, しぬ マザーファッキング うじむし, Melanin Momentum and the Moral Militia, 极剧动, Conversations Trio, Down With the West. & it's Foju 浮遊 (“Fuyuu”) Frequency …

Aye! - Discogs is dutifully deficient, only covering like 26% of my confirmed/in-circulation work or some-such...what else can we expect from a commercial platform but inaccuracy, inadequacy & insincerity?



Could we say grindcore and jazz are your main tastes in music?

Both feature prominently, not so much grindcore as there is so little decent grind available, Jazz (hard Fusion & Avant Jazz, I don't really dig standard Jazz) was much more productive, so there was a better harvest of results to scour – but my musical diet is absurdly convolved - & I very much appreciate varieties & styles that I don't play or have any instrumental familiarity with. The bulk of my shit is about elaboration, expansion, exacerbation, elevation, & evolutionary esemplastication - it needs to go further & “elsewhere” & additional mutations, extensions & outgrowths are a necessary contribution – almost a toll & “right of use” - hence Gunk, Gratecore, Flensecore, “Impetuous Improvised Intercourse”, Poise-Spore, Riot Gear, Phosphorus Funk, Glyph Hop, No-Skool-Noyzcore, Gush-Gyna, Fray, Neko-Neko-Noyzcore, Apoplexy, Off-Road & the like. Seismic shifting, singularity & sui-generis shenanigans are all personal obsessions & motivational molten.   
& of course – gluttony for fast/careen, complicated & histrionic turmoils &! &! &! - as much as I relish melifluence, I do have a strong penchant for absonance/anti-phonics/harsh in all its many dialects.   

 

4. When composing music, Is it always easy to make the difference and know for which project it will be used? I mean some noisy grind stuffs might fit for Bollock Swine or Nabeg for example... How do you make the difference? If you happen to come up with new music that doesn't fit an existing project, do you feel obliged to create a new musical entity to release it under that name?

 

Spot on Gurbhz & well observed! You're right on the dial here – if something emanates an infidelity to an existing project/ideal – but retains high quality in another manner – it will become something else, quite possibly being furnished with new embellishments of whatever resonates with the concoction & its straying. Spumed? I work with preconception, unpremeditated autogenic disembogue, vaguery, suggestion, retention, dissolute intemperance, rigidly defined compositions or any degree of variables a motherfucker wants to toss me in the thick of battle....its all got merit & improves reactions & abilities in other quarters plus discovery, cos' anything new/never-entered has to be accessed by the naked ninja with zero safety equipment ^0^ - HEY! - just one example – Condign was supposed to be Bollock Swine – but the shit was too dark (극악무도 한 세월호 잔혹행위) & too political for old chop-sui bollux, so we spun another division from the fatal ricochet & posted her on th fuckin' ho-stroll.  

 

5. Bollock swine is composed partly of Hungarian musicians, how do you rehearse? Do they come in UK especially to grind, or do you play together online using Skype or webcams? What should never appear on a Bollock swine release (Music or artworks)?

Kyuk-hyuk-hyuk! There was once - one - extremely maul noiseguitar/noisebass Hungarian peg-leg in Bollock Swine who was partisan to the Flavescent Dittograph session/release – Kornel Vajsquez or something – really good musician, I think he subluxated a bone or mangled his tendon permanently from a noise induced repetitive strain injury & can no longer play, which is tragic! He was also focal & present in the first NABEG/Enclave for Aberrational Expostulation exasperation that we executed (which also ensconced a phalanx of Hungarian noise stragglers).
Back tur' Bollux … we never rehearse!!! NEVER! Its only when we play that we play....not a rule at all, just how the debris erode – hard to find the right people....spectacular mangle/mishap/mishape/myoplasm/maim is a requisite or/& abject oddness … there is plenty that should never be on a BS bleuuurk – to define is difficult, I just know, preserve the aesthetic/mien/blat as is ordained by 'her' .. sensory, not regulatory, heavily abstract & nonsense orientated only…. No LGBT for sure! No Tories/Republicans! No fuckin' Zionists!
 


 

6. At the time, when I was 16 years old, the way I understood BRUTAL TRUTH on their second and third albums (when they began to become more experimental and weird) it was very straaaange and opened-music... Do you think NABEG shares the same very open-minded spirit with a very extreme music? How would you classify the music of Nabeg and do you have good feedbacks from either experimental or metal peoples?

Brutal Truth are a group I have spent very' very little time investigating. At the time (& assumably since) – they were too 'Metally' for me, & I was very fixated on the “core” single-foot skull-stove Grindcore or Noisegrind, plus BT were heavily in vogue with the establishment detumescence a-la Terrorizer-tabloid-turd-curd pay-to-play n' shit, so I was all like “fuck BT/Relapse”, commercial capture. They were actually a band that deserved their fame though & did good shit, but they were really not in my spectrum at all as I was so anti-metal/surface at the time. So I can't reference those albums at all (I just listened to Sounds From The Animal Kingdom back in 2005 at the Donkey palace).

NABEG's classification is very interesting for debate. I devised the terms Flensecore & Apolplexy as affixations. Excluding myself, it was an exceptionally eclectic ambit & instrumentation – noisegrind/noisecore/noise/industrial fucks with striking sympathies/sensitivities of junk like free jazz, avant garde, & other more challenging & cerebral branches of prog, experimental, left field, psychedelic-rock/soundscape & awkward or aberrant styles/groups that resist categoric confining. It was driven by indignation, exasperation & exclamation at the presiding unjust & excremental idiocy we endure from free-market shit-suck & “the giant lie”.   

NABEG contains significant deposits of Breakcore, Glitch, Noise, Extreme Electronics, Noisegrind, Noisecore, Gunk, Tempo-Jazz, Jungle, Farrago, extreme improvisation/free form/of-road, & the harsher/noisier angle of “Psychedelic” fulminations - plus - the more manic & volatile outpour from the Avant Jazz onslaught … a lot of these ingredients are further aggravated, potentized, warped, hybridized or inflated & run through disparate filters “noisecore through jazz - jazz through noisecore & so on). No stereotypes or core coloquials of noisegrind/grind/metal are permitted (blast beats, double kick, d-beat, or skull stove)... no obvious, identifiable features. As you will be aware – it is 'Anti-Listener' as fuck!!! my own percussive encyclopedia contributes. The last line-up on the Economic Gain – Ecological Ruin LP was all harsh noise heavyweights (Animal Machine, M150, 886VG, Napalmed) & the Donetsk noiseguitarist ...so flat-out harsh moil assault along with the colossus of riot/protest/confrontation sampling/field recording/reportage from the scrums of Hong Kong unrest (転覆!).

So what the fuck is it?
A foremost ferocity modern adaption of Free Jazz with noise instrumentation & the shunning of traditional instruments?
An advanced, acutely disparate & additionally aggrieved version of User-Hostile Noisecore?
Or is it just multi-assailant ultra mauling harsh noise/stridor with relentless free-form percussive belligerence as backup?
Or is it all three?
Somethin' else?
I just call it “Flensecore/Apoplexy” & I know that no fucker is doing anything on that level of volatility & intensity anywhere!

Feedback? I am not really connected to any kind of official conduits/forms/platforms, just a drastically versatile international coterie of explorers & esoteric enthusiasts running on redundant methods of communication who don't reside in any one domain. The response to NABEG has been very strong/positive, pretty much unanimously actually. I think currently, it is mostly smouldering in Noise circles at the moment??? the project does not even have a website (& obviously zero social media taint)...it's very bunker/NSE.



7. I noticed you were more recently involved in free jazz projects... I mean with "real" jazz musicians who do not come from the grind/ noise/ extreme music world, and might not be used to extreme sounds... How is it to collaborate with different peoples like that? Did they hear your more extreme sounds in NABEG or BOLLOCK SWINE for example? 


all realms – doors agape – caves entrance, hosts & hollow (pony tracks). “yes” .. there is a thorough expounding of multiple personalities & cross-contaminant mutagens with willing mutineers.

 

8. You use to run the jigokuki label, but also diy or die records... Is jigokuki a part of diy or die, or is it the contrary? What are the aims of this label? Is it mostly important for you to release extreme sounding, or original music? Or is it about the subjects of protest and craziness?

Jigokuki is an umbrella appendage – for Lo-fi or Die Records (LOD) & Tetsubishi Gob-Stopper - which despite atrocious update activity - is absolutely & resoundingly alive-&-shitting, active, productive. The objective & indeed prerogative was to honestly, veritably & without rhetoric - issue & produce by far the greatest concentration of unquestionably fucked-up, sonically obscene, exotic, vivid, skilled, individualistic, ridiculous & unmatched dramatic deformations & utmost outré & irrecoverable maim & maul in the Anti-Listener Gunk/No-Skool-Noyzcore/ultra Noisegrind concentrum – which is exactly what we have done. I also run Erst-while Antrum, Basayev Inductions & Ethnicity Against the Error (all rekad labels).   
 


 

9. What's the best way to distribute noise/ Grindcore/ extreme experimental PHYSICAL releases in 2020? During shows? Sales on forums or webshops? Trading with small labels? 


that depends on the practitioner entirely. Certainly I can say – fuck all the colonialist/corporate channels – Spotify, Face Book, Bandcamp, Apple, Amazon,  .. suck sump & suffocate! Death to Silicon Valley! I am personally far' far more inclined towards physical copies, all formats, cassette, cdr, cd, vinyl, minidisk … digital is my least favourite & the most accessible, formal & disposable – I really don't like it, but of course, it can be done well with great deliberation & care. All mediums can be done well. I do my own shit mostly on very high quality, high-input physical formats with originality, personality, dedication & considerable artistic effort to make shit that stands out...i enjoy the design process a lot & take it seriously... that is my preference.

 

10. Who takes care of the artworks of the Jigokuki releases? It's original, very influenced by the Japanese world... Sometimes it's not easy to understand what happens on the visual side of your releases, perhaps the artwork-person is under drugs? AhAh

I am the artistic director. I commission other artists to render specifics & sometimes do shit m' self. Heavy duty manga heads, but supra engrossed in the likes of 200AD (a huge influence comin' up) & reams of US & Europissant comic & toon artwork & tha' like. Some of the artists have dabbled or dunked into drugs & drokks at varying intervals no doubt... bu' narcotics nah necessary. X13 yes! - Confusion, non-convenience, nebulosity & cryptic abstrusion are honey to my buds ^ ^ ….  難解!

 

11. Historically, what were the first bands to mix jazz and grindcore? I remember there was NAKED CITY, then later EXIT 13 (Ethos musick)... But you probably have a greater knowledge than me... And how do you view these old releases from a more expert eye?

I really don't know? I could tell you more about “noisecore” or noise & thus – sections of free or avant jazz from the 60's onwards that 'constituted' a 'variety' or form of noisecore, at least in moments. Ferocious free/avant jazz for me is “noisecore”, just a different variegation of it with a set of alternate characteristics & instruments. My immersion into free jazz was accidental – I was scavenging for substitutes or alternate stimulants in Jazz after becoming disillusioned & desperate at noisecore/noisegrind failing to provide “intense/invigorating/imaginative” enough collision, there was so little interesting, defining, challenging or just “hard” enough shit materializing – so I started to look elsewhere. There is plenty of shit, throw-away free jazz, but the good stuff is so valuable. Also, the high virtuosity was very precious, & allowed them to exceed, summon & access far more fucked-up modules, modals & phenomena. The “extreme metal” orbit became so poor as well (in the early 00s)....terrible production, triggers & acceptable studio manipulation (for me, like doping in sports, inadmissible), over saturation, the attraction of commercial interests & commodification, homogeneity & the reduction of risk.... I extricated myself & went zero-g!!

Oh! noisecore – Sonny fuckin' Sharrock..... that guy was noisecore a good two decades r' so before it had been officially ordained/defined. Monkey Pockey Boo? 1969! Distortion, shred, grating cacophonic free-form hysterical lallation from his bint & the French drummer tumbling hard all over his kit way harder than some one second piss-artist! Observe!  

Sometimes, the ambition, energy & result are “noisecore” without any intimacy or influence from the determined 'genre' or any direct inspiration from a notifiable band/group/artist in that field. The same with “noise” & what we may refer to as “Industrial” or extreme electronics, some people “went there” (or abouts) without any connection to the establishment of the genre itself (perhaps even years prior to its materialization as a defined style).

“Grindcore” differs as it has clear specifics & bedrock characterizations that 'make' the style. but much of these have been corrupted, a lot of blatant metal is passed off as “grind”, which I hate ><   



 

12. We all know the Japanese grindcore scene was and is crazy... But what about Chinese music? Did you experience interesting Chinese music the last years? I noticed their metal scene is slowly growing, there are more regular metal bands than before, as well as a couple of labels...

I can't name one decent Japanese grindcore band (well, maybe Surge Line)? They performed much better in noisecore & noise...
I work with a lot of Chinese/HK/Taiwanese musicians, but its all traditional Chinese music – Chinese opera, folk music, court music etc … I was being urged to move to Shanghai some years back...apparently there was a real rip-tide of skitz & blitz clattering hard, but the pollution & Xi Jinping's unexpected authoritarian excrement totally deterred the lunge. I expect that there are a lot of excellent but highly scattered & decentralized groups/musicians peeling paint & ladelling on the ol' acid wash. The Chinese intellectual/artist is very stark, very special, their history & current experience are very powerful, but rampant two-bit commercialism, profound conformity & austere authoritarian oversight create difficulties... but also fuel. Hong Kong & Taiwan have some excellent noise stentorians – You-Sheng Zhang, Ying Fang, Orgasm Denial & others.   

 

13. What do you know about french music? Perhaps you like ooold stuffs of the french singers like Serge Gainsbourg (some songs are quite dark), Jacques Brel (Could be intense!) or Edith Piaf (?? Very retro...)... Some of these take more meaning when you understand the lyrics...

I don't know much about yu French fucks? accept that your girls are the best in Europe. Brigitte Fontaine did a series of very delicious albums back in the late 60's … not so keen on her recent stuff, but I still admire her. French noise is better – Mourmansk150, Minamata, Le Syndicat, FztFwrd & definitely your own superb Circuitry & Synoding. I am sure there is much more & would always welcome expanding such discovery.



14. A lot of metal and grindcore music went very OLD SCHOOL the last 10 years, fewer metal peoples seem to be interested in very modern/ experimental stuffs... Do you enjoy this old school wave, perhaps to rest the brain and relax the mind, or you dig only extreme/ free/ experimental stuffs?

Grindcore & Noisecore suffer from a very adverse cultural flaw – they champion reprography. It's practically karaoke! they openly celebrate & vaunt imitation...shitter versions of the same concoction minus all the zeal, aura & originality  – apparently its the ultimate compliment?
Both genres are utterly commodified now so time to move on.  
I am not that familiar with the current swirling tides of Metal …. anything I identify as distinguished/specialized/standout I will immediately acquire/research, but sooooo much junk & poor standards. I have nothing but respect for anybody that still manages to invigorate the standard in Metal.

I would rather listen to an old authentic recording with integrity than to an adulterated contemporary epigone counterfeit. Even if you just take the same template & just deploy it in slightly different quarters - you have to expand & extend the vocabulary, otherwise - my preference is with the original always & the 'energy' will be superior as they are riding the vanguard rather than rubbing the coat-tails.

I generally pursue “hidden” old shit from the vintage era, where potency was maximized. “success”, attention, mainstream subsumation, commercial representation, celebrity & the formation of hierarchy - this often heralds the death knell & capsizing of a genre/movement along with the subsequent infusion of “imitators” who are attracted for ulterior motives (fame, accessory, advocation, status, business, profit, power brokering).

The bands that “didn't” make it in the 90's/early 00s in Thrash or Death etc are veeeeeeery interesting & I am constantly on the look-out. Politics, malmerit & corruption often mean that brilliant acts/musicians (frequently those that are the most significant/credible in their terrain) are excluded, sidelined, redacted, buried. Rediscovering, cramming the repository with these forgotten protagonists is an obsession of mine, for sustenance/quality purposes as well as the shear fucking injustice of it. I also really value the self published, demo or ultra obscure label productions...often they are better than the larger acclaimed efforts....the marginalized, dedicated & self motivated fuckers that never gain traction but deposit these great' great efforts before burning out or being dissuaded by despondency over the shitter, dishonest political machinations of “scene politics” & the laws of consumption.

So? so? So! - I still listen to Mental Funeral, Malice, Enter the Dragon, Pierced From Within, FFF, Worship Me or Die & other original & genuine declarations of blat. Not to dismiss everything neoteric - quality only! High profile or ultra bunker/NSE (non-surface entity) – I am just interested in ingenuity & quality & “honesty”.             

 

15. Do you like flowers? Do you prefer pink, blue or green flowers?

Bro! I fuck flowers! Literally! Especially yellow French ones from your mums garden!!!

 

16. Which music did you listen to the most the last weeks? Is it mostly about new stuffs, or are some older recordings welcome? Do you dig Spotify playlists, or always prefer physical formats such as tapes, cds, vynils? 


bonkers! Well, I always listen to a lot of my own blat – cos' I make it specifically to elate my own insatiable thresholds & nobody lops lard like that! Otherwise – been crashing a lot of Eddie Harris, Lenny White (doing a combined review of his Venusian Summer & Big City records), Lin Ling, the latest Analog Africa “Mogadisco”, Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, PMNT- Com Supremo Com Tudo", Gary Thomas (found on sordid streets & while the gate is open), Brazilian Stridor specialists Abesta, Gore Beyond Necropsy GFG & NAGG compact discs, Illusion of Safety - “from nothing to less”, & ancient Gamelan & “music for temple festivals and death rituals” from Bali 1928 (on the excellent World Arbiter series) plus some medieval European folk music (Estampie). I discovered that Autopsy had reformed? So I brought an album called Macabre Eternal, but its awful. How the fuck can you overproduce Autopsy??? who made that decision?
I absolutely do not do no fuckin' Spotify – thieves! Espionage! Disempowerment! I am 99% physical format only (any & all).
I especially like “old” stuff, where machine presence was minuscule/absent & human capacity & impression was the prevailing ingredient, - but then a high dose of glitched out psycho Breakcore, noise dusted Splitter core or vintage machinegrind before it tanked or 8-bit pixel moog is always a welcome viand for the sows trough of eclectic ooze.   

 

17. Do you have new projects in mind? Something special to announce to the readers? Thanks for the answers.


“Fuck Israel” is out this month on Basayev Inductions on a gold tape with the familiar high quality & hand crafted sleeves & design … two tracks from me as NABEG augmented with fresh harsh moil exclusives from Napalmed, PMNT & 886VG stacked against draconian grade-A triage from nxbx, 886VG, Estupor, Eine Stunde Merzbauten, God Pussy & Mourmansk150.
Other collateral is impending & more will be effectuated as soon as I can secure the opportunity/personnel resilient & adept enough to spin body parts & spray cartilage.

Gabz! - my sincere & serrated thanks to you & your blind Synoding circuitry scintillant synthesis Sacré bleu!  


Listen:

Bollock swine: https://youtu.be/RUTgzCbX6jg
Law Facilitates Crime:
https://youtu.be/QOdfRdqP05k
Foju Frequency:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtQX0JGH3vE
Bollock swine:
https://youtu.be/1FFU0HBv12M


Web sites:
https://www.jigokuki.org
http://www.gakishidosha.net

 


 
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