I reviewed this record somewhere else a couple of months ago, this one and Dialetics of Shit are the kind of noise-war-artifacts that pieces like Machine Gun, by Peter Brotzmann may sound like to guys from the 70s.

Billy Bao previous records were astounding to me, I guess the Spanish punk scene must be pretty much close to Mexican punk scene, full of similar sounding bands with speed demon sensibilities and little brain in their “political” messages, but once in a while comes something that really shakes things up, Billy Bao might not be punk, might not be Nigerian, might not be political and as a matter of fact it would be a little tough to describe, but it is obviously way above from what we can currently perceive on a punk rock scene.


A “fictional” project of Basque musician Mattin, Billy Bao is a supposed punk rock group led by a Nigerian musician Billy Bao (a cool reference to someone who was more punk in attitude than most punks, Nigerian Afro-beat god, Fela Kuti, whose Zombie is sampled somewhere on this record) who is now set on Spain and is making records about how disgusting is the system (am I going to suppose life is tougher on Spain than on Nigeria?).

Other things to keep in mind is that Mattin was part of the Basque Radical Rock movement of the 80s, which brought us bands like Eskorbuto or La Polla Records, bands that took the punk rock ethic in a more serious and radical way, whereas the Sex pistols disbanded pretty soon and neither of its original members lived up to their punk rock ethics, bands like Cicatriz, Eskorbuto or La Polla Records, really lived the way they sang, on the red, as some of their original members died of heroine over doses, aids or terrible accidents, yes, life in the punk rock scene in Spain during the end of the 70s must have been a very though time, as Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was still head of the government.

Billy Bao might also be a reference to the Spanish city of Bilbao, and another cool reference I already mentioned was Fela, who made Zombie, in the late seventies, a record so full of venom that Fela received an almost fatal response by the military heads of the state, almost resulting in his own death, while Never Mind The Bollocks was supposedly making a stance on Anarchy in the Uk, Fella was living it on Nigeria.

Billy Bao is a record? Sonically speaking yes, it sounds like a very though punk rock record with noises and primitive sampling coming in and out, it sounds a lot like some of the most fucked up live recordings by the Stooges, as the “band” or Mattin or whoever is in his company, performs brutal repetitive two or three chords of distorted punk rock at its most chaotic, and then some brutish cut and paste work makes it sound like one of the most “out there” records of all time, but don’t forget this is Mattin, a guy from Spain, also home of one of the greatest masters of Cinema, Luis Buñuel, remember that scene on the El Angel Exterminador, where a guy comes into a room and the scene is repeated again and again? Well Mattin does similar stuff sonically speaking, giving the record a strange and eerie quality, yes, black humor and surrealism float here.

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