PBK

Phillip B. Klingler, aka PBK, has concocted stunning streams of sonic lava for 20 years now, from his audio cave beneath the famously depressed town of Flint, Michigan. Even making average-sounding sludge in that unlikely spot would be an admirable feat, but judging by the amazing stuff on A Noise Supreme, Early Solo Works, 1986-89, a selection of cassette pieces resurrected by XDiedEnrouteY (the excellent CD-R label recently responsible for a great Dino Felipe slab), PBK's work is pretty miraculous regardless of locale.

Kinda pathetic that this is my first exposure to PBK - had seen his name for years in association with Asmus Tiechens, Aube, Wolf Eyes, Jeph Jerman, etc., but somehow never actually heard him. The 11 tracks of super-thoughtful sound crammed into this disc make that ignorance a jailable offense...I'm not sure comparisons are appropriate with PBK's deep noise, which certainly shares terrain with the above compadres, as well as the ritualistic horror-loops of Non, the aggressive sheen of Merzbow, and the echoing drones of Double Leopards. But PBK's been doing this for so long and has developed such an singular vocabulary using synths, samplers, effects, and turntables, that it'd be an insult to say he sounds like someone else and not the other way around.

Most impressive about PBK's cavernous racket, aside from how I find something new everytime I play it, is the way he uses familiar devices to produce unique results. Some pieces, like the clicking drone of "CNT Oct. 1910" and the dark pound of "Tribality," veer toward industrial bombast, but PBK melts the rhythmic stomp into his din rather than interrupting it or arbitrarily chopping it up. Others feel almost academic, but never in a bloodless way - only in the sense that you can hear all the thick thought behind PBK's sound, making his music feel more like layers of sediment excavated by a dirt-loving noise scientist than dry lab experiments with no gunk under the fingernails.

Every track here is a killer and I'd love to post them all, but instead I implore you to Paypal some $ to XDEY (and soon, mine is copy 34 of only 100)...and also check out mp3s at Soundclick and the Noiseambient myspace page...plus a nice vid of live improv from 2004...and finally enjoy "Fata Morgana," which I post below not only because it's a wall of harrowing hiss, but also because it shares a title with one of Werner Herzog's most insane films, not to mention lots of other random stuff too.

Tons more PBK to come (I'm most drooling at the 3-CD retrospective due on Russian label Waystyx), and some old stuff is again ownable now, so time to catch the hell up...

mp3:
PBK - "Fata Morgana" from A Noise Supreme