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BORBETOMAGUS  Sauter, Dietrich, Miller, Doherty (1980)  CD   (Agaric)   13.98


It took me long enough, but we've finally managed to get the entire available catalog of Borbetomagus releases on Agaric Records catalog in stock at the 'Blast. And for anyone looking for thee most brutal free jazz band on the planet, look no further: Borbetomagus, a Celtic word for "City Of Worms", three men locking saxophones and guitar noise together into a blast of monstrous improvised skree that takes the feeling behind the aggressive free playing of Ayler and Brotzmann and amplifies it into total fucking napalm. The core trio of sax players Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich and electric guitarist Donald Miller have been consistently bulldozing eardrums with their incendiary "snuff jazz" since the late 70's, and no one in the avant jazz/improv underground has ever come close to achieving the sheer cyclonic power of Borbetomagus. A host of their recording have been reissued recently, many with liner notes, and we've snagged everything that we could

from the guys so there's absolutely no excuse for any of you into brutal noise and improv to not fill out your Borbeto collection.

The very first Borbeto album from 1980 is probably their least challenging, with an undercurrent of droning electronics and guitar that makes their dissonant improvisations a little easier on virgin ears, but even at the dawn of the group's creation, Borbeto sought to destroy. Back then, the band included Brian Doherty on electronics, and his contributions of squelchy noise and concrete sounds add a whole 'nother level to their sound. Something else that marks this album is Miller's guitar playing, which is surprisingly some of the heaviest sounding axe noise the man emitted throughout their catalog. Parts of this album actually remind me a little of Matt Bower's Total if that project has been joined by frenetic free jazz skronk informed by Coltrane and Ayler. There's five tracks, numbered "Concordat" one through five, and this CD reissue of the album also has a previously unlreleased track titled "Lost COncordat". Corrosive, sludgy guitar noise and spacey electronic bleepa

ge becomes intertwined with blackened textures befitting early Industrial moves and strafed and splattered by the prowling sax bleats. More seething and dramatic than the block-razing death jazz blowouts that the band would define themselves by later in the decade, Sauter, Dietrich, Miller, Doherty (1980) is an excellent starting off point for anyone looking to check out Borbetomagus, and is also a highly recommended slab for fans of free-jazz accompanied, distorted freeform guitar noise.


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