Martin Bisi has, for years, lurked in the shadows. A force behind much that has arisen from the seminal, New York underground, his discography is an embarrassment of riches that includes the likes of Sonic Youth, Alice Doughnut, Cop Shoot Cop and Swans. Working out of BC studio, the Brooklyn-based studio he founded alongside Brian Eno and Bill Laswell, Bisi has carved out a name for himself, not only as an innovative producer, but also a performer of note, perfectly placing him at the heart of this special recording – BC35 – a celebration of the lengthy, varied history of BC studios emerging from a fundraiser campaign devised to help Bisi with certain medical bills. Drawing together an eclectic, ensemble cast, BC35 is compiled from a weekend of performances, recorded live at the studio in 2016, and includes performances from members of Sonic Youth, White Hills, Foetus, Violent Femmes, The Dresden Dolls and many more. Released on both vinyl and CD (head here to learn more), BC35 is a once-in-a-lifetime compilation that chronicles one of the most influential studios of the last four decades.
Featuring thirteen tracks overall (the 12” vinyl features 11 tracks but comes with a bonus 7” housing the final two), BC35 opens with ‘Nowhere over the rainbow’, a creeping piece of hypnotic psyche rock reminiscent of Sonic Youth’s ‘bad moon rising’ (not entirely surprising given the involvement of former SY drummer Bob Bert). As atonal guitars jab and thrust, Bob lays down a surprisingly forthright barrage that holds the piece together over the course of its seven minutes. With barely audible vocals floating in and out of the haze, ‘Nowhere…’ is a free form, white-knuckle ride that shows just how central to the early New York noise rock scene BC studio actually was. Next up, the nine-minute ‘Denton’s drive’, another track featuring Skeleton Boy alongside members of cop shoot cop and Alice Doughnut, is the sort of hallucinatory, auditory nightmare you’d be more likely to associate with the Melvins on a particularly gnarly trip. Grinding riffs, tribal drums and arcing feedback all coalesce as the band coax the semblance of a rudimentary groove from the reverb-laden recording and the results are as gloriously exhilarating for the listener as the track must have been for the band to play. As the piece breaks down in a welter of white-hot noise, surprisingly polite applause greets the dirty scuzz rock of ‘Details of the madness’ (feat. New Old Skull – a reunited Live Skull), the performance conjuring images of oil-slide lamps, frayed nerve-endings and palmed acid tabs passed around the audience. It’s a window into a musical world where boundaries are made to be broken and where genres are for people who just don’t get it in the first place, and there’s considerable joy in hearing music made with such utter devotion at a time when the industry seems to be doubling down on its efforts to eradicate all originality. The only slight shame is the way in which the track seems to fade out way too soon, although the dark, hellish soundscapes of ‘What a jerk’ (featuring members of Swans and Cop Shoot Cop), mired in feedback and claustrophobic bass, soon plunge the listener back down the rabbit hole. Horrifying electronic noise greets the listener as Tidal Channel unleash minimalist, art-noise on ‘Humash wealth management’. Like the Sleaford Mods filtered through a coked-up mix of Aphex Twin and Ciccone Youth, ‘Humash wealth management’ is deeply unsettling; so much so that the dusty, Western-themed ‘downhill’ (featuring JG Thirwell) almost comes as a relief despite its funereal aspect and atypical noise-rock roots. It leaves the peaceful, delicate noise of ‘The animals speak truth’, with its echoes of latter-day Swans, to see the first half out.
Despite the fire and fury of the album, there’s something about ‘His word against mine’ (feat. JADO) that catches in the throat like the acrid smoke of a bonfire made from tyres. As guitars spit and fizz, Jado’s vocals swoop through the mix, the track embodying the vital spirit of punk seen through a no-wave lens and amped up to infinity. The track synthesises all the elements that have made BC studios great into four glorious minutes and should be made mandatory listening for all. Almost as glorious in its unfettered worship of spontaneous noise, ‘syntesthesia!’ is a partial reunion of two Alice Doughnut members, (Steve Moses and Sissi Schulmeister) that proves to be a spinning carnival ride of arcing guitar noise underpinned with speaker-frying levels of bass and held together (barely) by jazz-infused percussion. It falls to White Hills to take things down a notch with the droning soundscapes of ‘end of the line’, a four-minute noise assault that lasts an eternity and drowns out the light under a sea of liquid bass. In stark contrast, ‘take this ride’ is a beautiful song that sounds like John Barry going head to head with Jarboe alongside Bee and Flower. Western tinged with rich harmonies, it’s a remarkably coherent, mesmerizingly lovely piece of music led by Ajda The Turkish Queen. However, such beauty is an oasis, a soft pool of fading moonlight caught in the virulent fire of ‘disintegration in the well’, a gruelling, six-minute exploration of guitar noise and avant-jazz featuring Cinema Cinema, David Lackner and Mikel Dos Santos. The album ends with ‘soft glitter cosmos needs a pig war’, a beat box experiment that sees the return of Tidal Channel. It’s the only misfire here, the track suffering from a painful irony-bypass. Chris Morris was channelling exactly this sort of faux-intellectual / bored vocal delivery in the mid-90s as a parody, and the track does little other than kill the sense of wide-eyed creativity flowing across the rest of the disc.
Overall, ‘BC35’ is a remarkable tribute to a remarkable environment. The music here, largely improvised, is by turns joyful, extravagant, terrifying and claustrophobic. Squalls of feedback and painfully distorted bass dual with jazz-fuelled experimentation and beat box noise. Whether you look at this release as an opportunity to help out Bisi, a producer whose endless exertions across multiple genres have resulted in a number of classic albums, or whether you simply look at it as an opportunity to get your hands on some amazing, unique music is neither here nor there – what is important is that you do get a copy. Music such as this comes along but rarely in these increasingly homogenous times and should be celebrated. BC studios remains a potent force and ‘BC35’ is the perfect celebration of its rich, diverse history. 9
