The transition from hardcore ne'r do well to masochistic noisenik has been both conceptually easy and aesthetically welcome for Columbia, South Carolina's resident Smashist Chris Bickle.

Like the devil himself, Bickle's a man of many names, and incarnated as Anakrid, Mr. B's been quietly releasing any and everything but quiet records for almost two decades now - some, interestingly enough, on the South Carolina Arts Commission's dime. (Can you imagine that grant proposal?)

For the most part, his latest aural flagellation - the free form, no fun Pos Load Nihilsurrealisme - is a nigh on inscrutable excursion, à la Lautréamont, into the very heart of distorted darkness. At first, it seems that the glitched-out bursts of already over-modulated signals acquiesce only to louder, more sinister versions of themselves - personified, literally, in the clipped yelpings of fellow noise sympathizer/BXR Records head K.E. Revis.

Wacked and perverted Bickle may be, but he ain't no formal dummy. Subtle, albeit brief moments of repose often dial in through the din giving the nearly 15 minute track a much needed feminine mystique. And perhaps most surprisingly, the piece ends not with a bang but a scuttled, defeated whimper - the (end of) the world according Chris Bickle.

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