PBK - Mutation Theory, 2006

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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http://rapidshare.com/files/300758672/PBK_Collabs_On_WCBN.zip

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Disco Splendor - We Shit Art; Disco Splendor Sampler, 1987/88

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http://rapidshare.com/files/294503564/We_Shit_Art__The_Disco_Splendor_Sampler.zip

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The Sound Genetic Cassette Series

The Sound Genetic reissues eight tapes from early in PBK's recording career, the years 1987/88. The material has been remastered for the best possible sound. Because of the age of the original master tapes they could not be used for dubbing, so each tape is a first generation recording dubbed from digital. The first wave of tape reissues focuses on PBK's recordings in collaboration with tape underground legend, Minóy. The absurdist noise of hoax-band, Disco Splendor, The Minóy/PBK official collaborations and the first PBK "solo" tape, which includes contributions by Minóy & analog synth artist, David Prescott. Most of these tapes are unknown and were distributed to only a handful of listeners, they are very rare, and not one of the Disco Splendor tapes is listed at the Discogs site. These on-demand cassettes will be offered as a limited edition of 100 copies each. All have similarly stark black and white cover compositions, a nod to the early cassette network DIY culture. Second set of tapes to be released in November. To order go here: http://sgcassettes.blogspot.com/

Minóy / PBK - Cloisters 1987

PBK - Descent 1988

Disco Splendor - The Politics Of Aggression 1988

Disco Splendor - The Odor Of Patriarchy 1987

Disco Splendor - New Wage 1988

Disco Splendor - Heteroglossia 1987

Disco Splendor - Correct Music 1988

Minóy / PBK - Chansons Mystiques 1988

PBK - Asmus Sources, 1989/1996

PBK:

"Asmus Tietchens' first album was released on the French label, Egg, in 1980. His music had evolved out of a sort of quirky electro-pop style to later become these really deep, dark soundscapes, rather frightening at times. I loved his mid-80's work: 'Formen Letzter Hausmusik' (United Dairies), 'Aus Freude Am Elend' (DOM America), and 'Notturno', on Esplendor Geometrico's record label, were all in my record collection. Tietchens' music was both old-school and new, his work correlated to the proto-electronicists of the 50's, but he brought it forward into the post-modern through his fascination with complex electronic processes that re-imagined the source material, creating an extremely abstracted composite of the original.

He and I were in contact as early as 1988, we did some trading back and forth, corresponding by mail, and we decided to collaborate. Late in 1989 I began preparing source material for our collaboration. The resulting CD, 'Five Manifestoes', was released on Realization Recordings in 1992.

'Asmus Sources' compiles many of the textures I created for 'Five Manifestoes'. My sound sources, manipulated and re-processed by Tietchens, were the ONLY sounds used to create the final compositions. This, to my knowledge, was the way he always worked on collaborations.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about 'Asmus Sources' are the textures I created in 1996. I have included here three sources I sent to Tietchens for a proposed second collaboration. At the time we agreed to work together again and I sent this source material to him, but he later wrote to say that he could NOT work with the sources, that he couldn't achieve satisfactory results with them. He sent one short audio track he had worked on, it's never been released before now, and I've included it here as the last track on the album."



DOWNLOAD (mp3 320 kbps 144 mb + covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/274943518/PBK-Asmus_Sources.zip

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PBK & Artemis K (Acclimate)- Edge And Effect, 1998

PBK:

"The story of my ill-fated collaboration with cousin, Michael Kowalski, aka Artemis K, was laid down in a previous posting here. During the time he and I worked together, from 1996 to 2000, we never had what I'd call an 'official' release, but several tapes were made and 'Edge And Effect', from 1998, was my contribution. Up to that point, it was our only full-length release.

By 1998, my cousin and I had done many live improvisations under the influence of LSD and Mescaline. Quite often we would perform concerts at his house with friends looking on and those concerts would always last for hours, so there was a lot of material to choose from in assembling this release. I chose what exemplified, for me, the best of our more abstract material and opened the set with a very fine track mixed by Artemis that eventually appeared on an album he self-released called 'Miscreant'. To the best of my knowledge 'Miscreant' was released with at least three collaborative tracks on it to which Artemis did not credit my contributions.

I'm really proud to make this release available, if only for historical credit. This noise was created in Flint, an hour north of Detroit, during a time when there was no noise 'scene' in Michigan- Wolf Eyes, Hive Mind, Cotton Museum, Sick Llama, Mammal, etc. were either in infancy or didn't exist at all."

REVIEW: "This project of Artemis K and PBK assaults the listener with a combination of swirling rhythmic noise and atonal drifting sound. ACCLIMATE sift through the debris of our culture and unearth some of the sickness and grime that pollutes the air around us. Bits of subtle melodies seep in around the cracks, and snippets of found dialogue find their way through the dense sound fog. These guys are no strangers to post-industrial sound collage, and this debut full-length release from ACCLIMATE is a fine work that manages to be unpredictable and jarring, yet highly listenable. Looking forward to that CD release now..." Godsend Magazine

DOWNLOAD (mp3 320 kbps 110 mb + covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/257046702/PBK___Artemis_K_Acclimate_-Edge_And_Effect.zip

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Rob Backus "Bright Moments" Final Episode, 1990

Bright Moments w/Rob Backus
WIDR, FM (Kalamzoo, MI)
Final Episode "The Scream" December 1990

1. Ray Charles-Hit The Road, Jack
2. Ray Charles-Tell The Truth
3. Little Richard-Tutti Frutti
4. Pat Boone-Tutti Frutti
5. Little Richard-Jenny Jenny Jenny
6. Los Lobos-Jenny's Got A Pony
7. Link Wray-Rumble
8. DJ John R.-Excerpt
9. James Brown-Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
10. John Coltrane-Nature Boy
11. Institutional Radio Choir w/Carolyn Johnson White-Lift Him Up
12. Stewart Dybeck Interview
13. Wynton Marsalis Interview
14. Betty Carter(?)-Some Other Time

PBK:

"Unpacking boxes after my move to Puerto Rico in 1992 I rediscovered a book I had titled "Fire Music, A Political History Of Jazz", published in 1976, a very interesting book about the harsh socioeconomic realities for free jazz musicians that drove their art form more and more towards commercialism simply to make a living. The author was Rob Backus and the short biography said that Backus was a creative stalwart of the Kalamazoo scene in my home state of Michigan. On a whim I called information in Kalamazoo and, to my surprise, Mr. Backus' phone number was listed there. We spoke on the phone for a long time and began a correspondence that lasted several years. Backus sent me dozens of cassettes with things he'd been listening to and music he'd made with his free-jazz group, Struggle.

This tape is one that Rob sent to me, a dub of his final broadcast of the "Bright Moments" show he hosted on public radio in Kalamazoo. I know, musically speaking, this may only be of esoteric interest to followers of this blog, but I'm including it for a couple of reasons. First, there's a lot of profound thought expressed in between the music here (please do give it a listen). Secondly, Rob's upbringing in a mid-20th century 'mostly-white' community in Michigan is quite parallel to my own. The impact of African-American music on both of us had long-lasting implications, and I think his metaphor of "the scream" makes a lot of sense as to why R&B and jazz music touched us in such profound ways. Plus, there's a pretty fucking interesting interview excerpt here with Wynton Marsalis where he explains why music, to him, has no color boundaries and how the reference to "black" music is so condescending.

Though it was not possible in my own post-modernist approach to levitate to the emotional heights approached by someone as brilliant as John Coltrane, I found inspiration in his ability to apply 'new wave' concepts to a genre already known for it's pure innovation and my later discovery of Sun Ra's tremendous creative activities cemented, for me, the possibilities inherent in musical 'abstract expressionism'. So, personally, I found the African-American narrative in sound exploration, from John Lee Hooker, George Clinton, James Brown, to Miles Davis and the AACM (and on and on and on) to be extremely profound and moving. The word inspiration, in it's etymological origin, means "breathed upon" and I can certainly cite endless examples of how the "brea(d)th" of African-American music has moved me personally.

One more point I want to make, and this is in relation to the free jazz movement and the struggles the musicians endured to make a living and get their music released. From Rob Backus' Fire Music:

'BILL DIXON: By now it is quite obvious that those of us whose work is not acceptable to the Establishment are not going to be financially acknowledged. As a result, it is very clear that musicians, in order to survive, create this music, and maintain some semblance of sanity, will have to do it themselves in the future.'

This totally correlates to what has gone on in the noise underground here in the U.S. It's still not possible to make any semblance of a living from our music and I've been at this now for nearly 25 years! What has happened in our community, however, is exactly what Bill Dixon speaks of in the above quote: the DIY ethic has maintained the momentum of the movement. The younger generation, those who've embraced this peculiar aesthetic, help keep it's legacy alive by discussing it's history, writing about it, reissuing crucial albums and providing basements and other acoustic spaces in which to present it in the live format. The internet has also gone a long way towards keeping the music alive and this blog is only a single example of it's potential. The new generation has it's faults, just as the old school did, the whole noise movement was born out of a sort of post-modern dilettantism, but on the whole I find the new guard to have a better grasp of the origins and precursors of the movement and are able to incorporate their ideas in more concentrated and satisfying ways. As interest in this musical subculture grows, the fan base grows, and who knows what the future holds in terms of it's socioeconomic possibilities?

Rob Backus: "Music is the best of all possible worlds, no boundaries, and represents the highest aspirations of the human spirit."






DOWNLOAD (mp3 320 kbps 194 mb)
http://rapidshare.com/files/243939005/Rob_Backus_Bright_Moments_Final_Broadcast_1990.zip

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Zenith Radio Broadcast PBK Special, 1994

ZENITH Radio, Radio Centraal 103.9 FM, Antwerp, Belgium - PBK Special 08/10/94

1. Untitled (Asesino)
2. Concupiscence (Assemblage)
3. Fantomas (Fragment 3)
4. The Fall Of Romantic Simplicity (Monument Of Empty Colours w/Vidna Obmana)
5. Manifesto 5 (Five Manifestos w/Asmus Tietchens)
6. Outside Of Time (Life-Sense Revoked)
7. Poison Sweets Of Love (The Toil And The Reap)
8. In His Throes (In His Throes)
9. Honour And Desire (Domineer)
10. Sweet Aabandon (In His Throes)

DOWNLOAD (mp3 320 kbps 126 mb)
http://rapidshare.com/files/243955408/PBK_Zenith_radio_Program_Full_mp3_1991.zip

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PBK & Hands To - Verfall, 1988

PBK:

"From the moment I first heard Jeph Jerman's work I was fascinated. His trio, City Of Worms, a sample-based loop project, was the first thing that impressed me. But it was his solo project, Hands To, that really caught my imagination, especially an album titled "Mose Wreck" from 1987. Jerman taught me a lot about deep listening, he found many ways of achieving bootleg quality lo-fi sounds and used them extensively in his work. In my opinion, Hands To took the notion of sound deconstruction and subliminals to a new artistic level- there was nothing cliche about his work, it was a new way of constructing totally abstract compositions. He was also a true improvisational artist as evidenced by the skronk and free jazz recordings he did with Big Joey and Blowhole. Jeph Jerman is a prolific genius and continues to make brilliant music today.

I was interested in incorporating my own synth-based sounds with Hands To's damaged field recording drones. The tracks on Verfall, our first collaboration together, define what I refer to as "noise-field works". These are sound structures that have a basic abstract-noise background in which indefinable sounds push through, punctuate and create peaks in the structure. These environments don't stray too far from Jerman's sound source origins, but contain enough looping and swirling within the drones that the structures, at times, become sort of proto-rhythmic. It is difficult to identify the sources used to create these soundscapes, I hear orchestral samples, slowed voices, synthesizer tones, electroacoustics, etc. The result is a very good (early) example of what I now refer to simply as 'noise-ambient' music."



UPDATE: Download link is removed as of 6/3/09. I am very pleased to announce that Verfall and it's companion piece, Melachoir, from 1989 are to be released as a forthcoming double cd by Cathartic Process in 2009. This is going to be a beautiful limited edition release. I will keep the readers of this blog informed of the details.

DOWNLOAD (mp3 320kbps 112 mb zip file includes covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/238753436/PBK___Hands_To-Verfall_1988.zip

PBK - Under My Breath Remixes, 2009

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http://rapidshare.com/files/217196324/Under_My_Breath_Remixes_MP3.zip

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Various Artists - Informator 001 Czech Underground Before the Velvet Revolution, 1987

PBK:

"In the late 80's I developed a close friendship with Peter Moreels who ran the Belgian label, Corrosive Tapes. I contributed music to several of his compilation releases. As Peter was winding down his activities in the cassette underground he asked if I might distribute some of his releases on my own PBK Recordings label and I agreed to carry the "Heart-Beat" releases and the "Informator" series of Czech underground recordings. These unknown tapes are an important document of the real underground music in Czechoslovakia before the fall of the iron curtain. Most impressive is the fantastic scope of the underground music scene during this repressive time with styles ranging from acapella music to post-punk, industrial, jazz, noise and more. This glimpse into the Czech Republic of 1987 reveals a strong and varied creative center which reflects the soon-to-come overthrow of the communist government."



DOWNLOAD (mp3 320 kbps 174 mb + covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/191402516/Various_Artists-Informator_001_mp_320kbps.zip

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PBK- Vivisection, 1988

PBK:

"By the time of 'Vivisection', in 1988, I had been composing noise-based music for nearly two years, but I was anxious to find a better realization of my sound. My music from this time sort of represents a flipside approach to the Japanoise aesthetic of power-electronics. This isn't power-electronics at all, though the first 10 minutes of track 1 won't convince of that. The noises are not created simply by over-amplification. The looped sounds, some obviously from shortwave radio, create structures, but the individual sounds are isolated in a setting where each is allowed to reveal itself in a slowly unfolding manner playing against all the sounds around it. The result is often rhythmic and hypnotic, yet also stern and forbidding. This minimalist/maximalist noise music is the setting for many of my early releases, 'Die Brucke', 'Asesino', 'Warfare State' and the like."

DOWNLOAD (mp3 320kbps 144 mb + covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/175584332/PBK-Vivisection__1988__mp3_320_kbps.zip

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PBK & Minóy- Cloisters, 1987

PBK:

"I am one of the few people who actually met Minóy in person, this was in 1986, and we worked very closely together for a year, completing about 10 full length tape releases. There were two different projects we worked on together, the hoax noise-band, Disco Splendor, and our collaboration proper, Minóy/PBK.

Minóy was a very interesting person, quite eccentric, and when I met him he'd already established a big reputation in the U.S. cassette underground. The New York Times had interviewed him for an article on the profound 'home taping' movement. Many artists from the 80's I met through my association with Minóy: AMK, Zan Hoffman, John Wiggins, Al Margolis, Hal McGee, Big City Orchestra, etc. At the same time Minóy was working with me, he was also collaborating with dozens of others, he was extremely prolific and his output of completed releases numbered in the hundreds.

When we first began working together he said let's call our project "Disco Splendor" and asked me to set up a new post box address for it somewhere other than Torrance, California, the city where he lived. This was easy since I lived an hour away in San Bernardino. The idea was to keep the project anonymous. I started networking tape releases without establishing to the recipients exactly who we were.

Das of Big City Orchestra played Disco Splendor tapes on his radio show and said he loved them. We began to get good press reviews. When Minóy realized that the Disco Splendor project was gaining some attention he decided to abandon the name and reveal who was behind it, from then on we used the name 'Minóy/PBK'.

Minóy

Minóy was very obsessive and he could stay up for days and nights on end, recording sounds and vocals from one cassette deck to another over and over. As heavily overdubbed as some of his compositions seemed to be, he never used a multi-track recorder. He was certainly brilliant, but used the cheapest of materials to create his compositions: a guitar, shortwave radio, Radio Shack mixer (crucial for the reverb mode switch which could make very strange analog echoes) and a Casio CZ-101.

Minóy was manic-depressive, so he told me, and he was on a lot of meds for it- when he was up he was giddy and could stay awake for long periods working on his recordings, but when he was down he suffered terribly and would stay in bed for days, if not weeks, on end. He was a large-framed man, but with a fragile personality condition... His remarkable and unique approach to isolationist noise music made him an underground legend to the few who heard him, but he dropped out and disappeared in the mid-90's and no one seems to know what happened to him.

'Cloisters', being a Minóy mix, includes a lot of Minóy trademarks, the howling, anguished vocals, the remaking of song standards, in this case 'Me & My Shadow' on the track 'In Shadow', and the strange fuzzy lo-fi sound courtesy of running the entire mix through that old Radio Shack mixer. Enjoy!"



DOWNLOAD (mp3 320 kbps 142 mb + covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/173380947/PBK___Minoy-Cloisters_mp3.zip

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Jim O'Rourke Mixtapes, 1989

PBK:

"Rummaging through boxes I came across two mixtapes sent to me by Jim O'Rourke in 1989. At the time, Jim was an eager 19 year old music student at DePaul University. He also performed and recorded in my friend Dan Burke's industrial music project: Illusion Of Safety.

Jim would call me on the phone every week or two when I lived in California. We had many conversations about music, discussing different genres/composers and he'd send mixtapes and cd's for me to hear some of the things he'd been listening to. He was a huge fan of Van Dyke Parks' 1968 LP, "Song Cycle". He was also very excited, at the time, about Godflesh who appear on the C-60 tape here. He sent me Godflesh's "Streetcleaner" cd and compared them to "Red"-era King Crimson.

We were quite close for a couple of years. He contributed a beautiful solo track to my "Assemblage" comp. tape in 1990. Later he even asked to produce an album for me, but I declined, mainly because I couldn't see what role a "producer" would play in creating one of my albums.

O'Rourke sent me several mixtapes of electroacoustic music, below are the playlists and links for two of these, they give some insight into his listening tastes in the late 80's, long before he worked with Faust, Wilco or Sonic Youth. There's a lot of great stuff on these tapes. The Parmegianni and Bayle tracks are absolutely awesome. The Paul Dolden compositions are impressive, his compositional method is, apparently, quite rigorous as he uses up to 400 overdubs to achieve his massive sounds. The Robert Ashley track, with it's psycho-sexual overtones, is unique and haunting. Enjoy these in typical mixtape style, with no track separation!"

Tape One, Chrome C-60:

A1 Olivier Messiaen-Liturgie de Cristal From Quartet For The End Of Time
A2 Olivier Messiaen-Louange a l'eternite de Jesus From Quartet For The End Of Time
A3 Luigi Nono-A Pierre dell 'Azzuro Silencio for Bass Flute & Bass Clarinet with Live Processing
A4 Robert Ashley-Purposeful Lady In Slow Afternoon

B1 Mauricio Kagel-Musi for Lupforchester 1971
B2 Giancinto Scelsi-Pt IV of Quattro Pezzi for Orchestra 1959
B3 Godflesh-Christbait Rising
B4 Godflesh-Pulp
B5 Luc Ferrari-Und So Weiter for Piano & Tape
B6 F.B. Mache-Terre De Feu 1963

DOWNLOAD (mp3 133 mb 320 kbps)
http://rapidshare.com/files/171901956/Jim_O_Rourke_Mixtape_C60.zip



Tape Two, Chrome C-100:

A1 Bernard Parmegianni-La Roue Farris 1971
A2 Jaques LeJeune-Deux Apercus Du Jardin Qui S'eville 1983
A3 Ivo Malec-Reflets 1961
A4 Phillipe Mion-Soupcon Delise 1980
A5 Francois Bayle-Toupie Dans Le Ciel 1979
A6 Pierre Henry-Divinites Paisibles from Le Voyage 1962
A7 Bernard Cavana-Goutte D'or Blues 1985 (from Musiques Contemporaines pour Saxophones on Adda, France)

B1 Paul Dolden-Below The Walls Of Jericho ('88/'89)
B2 Paul Dolden-In The Natural Doorway I Crouch ('86/'87)
B3 Paul Dolden-Caught In An Octagon of Unaccustomed Light ('87/'88)

DOWNLOAD (mp3 215 mb 320 kbps)
Pt 1: http://rapidshare.com/files/172057562/J_O_mixtape_C100_Side_A.zip
Pt 2: http://rapidshare.com/files/172069306/J_O_mixtape_C100_Side_B.zip

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PBK & John Wiggins- Where Pathways Meet, 2001

PBK:

"When I posted the "Listening To The World Vibrate" cassette remaster I promised to enlighten the readers of this blog to the compositions I had collaborated on with John Wiggins. For those too young to remember, RRRecords released two crucial experimental music lp's by Mr. Wiggins in 1986 & '87. Long out of print, maybe not a lot of people ever even heard them, but I did and I was a huge fan from my first days in the cassette underground. John Wiggins is better known these days as a film and television soundtrack composer, and maybe best known as the composer of the theme for Howard Stern's cable television show on the E! Entertainment Network.

Starting around 1994, and through to the late 90's, I became very interested in improvisation and free jazz. I wanted to create a sort of futuristic jazz music, very synthetic sounding, but organic in construction, and I had been working for some time on this idea. John helped me to realize my ambitions for this and these six compositions are the result. The tracks have never been released, except for one which will come out on "Under My Breath" in 2009."




DOWNLOAD (mp3 320 kbps 64.2 mb + covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/170987929/PBK_Wiggins_2001_mp3.zip

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UPDATE:

Looking through my archives I came across a tape consisting of collaborative tracks which I had completed in 1999 using John Wiggins' source material. I remastered these tracks and now you may download them in addition to the previously posted material. The three untitled tracks are unedited PBK live-mixes, very long tracks (one nearly 23 minutes!), meandering in a sort of stretched-out way, with the patterns disappearing then reappearing and fluxing through... No aspect of the mix is more important than any other, all the sounds intermingle as in ambient music, even though the sonic activity belies passive listening. Download below:

DOWNLOAD (mp3 320 kbps 188 mb)
http://rapidshare.com/files/175782392/pbk_wiggins_additional_material_1999_mp3.zip

PBK- Narcosis, 1990

PBK:

"This album, "Narcosis", was created during the very productive, though personally tumultuous, year of 1990. After working closely with Vidna Obmana on two collaborative releases, I found myself still trying to define the concept of "ambient noise". (please see the "Depression And Ideal" listing for further correlations) One answer was that ambient noise could be environmental sounds, or 'field recordings'. But that didn't suit me personally for two reasons: 1. because I wanted to have a very strong hand in the improvisational aspects of composing, and 2. I didn't want the kind of imagery that would result from self-referential associations to field recordings. If I was going to use any kind of location recordings in my compositions, they were going to have to be used in a unique way. Only later in the 90's, when I began collaborating with Slavek Kwi, aka Artificial Memory Trace, did I have the confidence to use environmental sounds in my work.

I wanted my sounds to be largely unidentifiable, but definitely machine based. I became very interested in composing via sets of self-driven sequencers running simultaneously and at different speeds. I would set up various sounds and samples rather randomly and live-mix everything straight to a metal cassette master.

In retrospect I can definitely see "Narcosis" as a response to Vidna Obmana's co-opting of my ambient style. When he returned to Belgium in 1989 and started using all of the same equipment and methods I'd showed him in creating my ambient compositions, this pushed me in a different direction. Where Vidna Obmana worked very carefully, I was flippant, any type of sound might be used. Later the poster for my performance in Paris, France (1996) listed: "PBK: Trash Electronics et Crepitements".(i.e. 'cracklings')

To me, Vidna Obmana's music was more typical ambient music because the imagery was always about nature and had sort of cosmic, or 'new age' themes, especially as he began to work with guys like Steve Roach whose whole career seems to be dedicated to those ideas. I hated pastoral imagery and wanted my music to correlate only to the world(s) of art, philosophy and science. Having grown up in the automobile factory culture of Flint, Michigan, "noise" made sense to me as a reflection of my personal experience living in the cradle of a dying industrial culture which I hated yet drew inspiration from. The compositions on this recording fall somewhere between industrial noise, mechanical drone and space music, a form later referred to as 'assault ambient' by one critic(Glen Thrasher)."

REVIEWS: "...This latest release by PBK continues his exploration of, ummm, noise. Flowing, churning, developing abstract noise textures. I've no idea how they were created or manipulated: they possess an authentic identity of their own somewhere between electronic, mechanical and environmental noise. PBK's aim is to use this unpromising material to reeducate our ears, show us that noise really is nice. His music has ranged in the past from the musical to the unlistenable, but this cassette is neither: it really does stand on its own merits, as a new listening experience. Post-apocalypse ambient atmospheres." EST

"Those of you familiar with PBK's work don't need a review, if you've enjoyed earlier releases you'll love this. In a sentence, his noise-based compositions are some of the most exciting (high degree of cognition and emotion) out there. It's always hard to describe this sort of minimalist/maximalist music, so I won't even try." H23

"Unlike many of today's bands, PBK can rightfully assume the position of "industrial" music with this release. Mechanized power electronics... like a factory of machines. Approaches a sort of computer-based ambience at times." Godsend

"PBK has really developed a finesse over the years. Narcosis is another carefully done tape of electronics. This is also one of his spacier works, evoking images of alien landscapes, orange flames licking the night air, and strange beats roaring and disappearing. The sound quality and production are excellent." File 13


DOWNLOAD (mp3 320 kbps 128 mb + covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/169040417/pbk_narcosis_remaster_1990.zip

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PBK- A Noise Supreme, Early Solo Works 1986-89

PBK:

"On tour in 2004 I played a show in New Paltz, NY and Al Margolis showed up. One of Al's claims to fame is that he ran the legendary Sound Of Pig label in the 80's, probably the major showcase for cassette underground music during that time. I had my share of tapes released on Sound Of Pig and one of them was called "Poetry And Motion" from 1987, which featured some of my earliest soundworks. Al brought along a few copies of that tape to the show and somehow Adam Mokan, who was on tour with us, got ahold of one of these.

Apparently Mokan shared "Poetry And Motion" with Steev Thompson (aka Roxanne Jean Polise & Warmth) who was running the XDEY label. Steev really liked the tape and asked me if he could re-release it as a limited edition cd-r. I agreed on condition that I could re-configure the track list and remaster the compositions, so this project turned into "A Noise Supreme". (title borrowed from my 1989 tape release)

The earliest tracks here are the ones that use drum machine rhythms, 'Big Thumb' and 'Tribality', these are some of the very first things I recorded in 1986, experimenting and sorting out what direction I wanted to go in. It wasn't long before I stopped using the drum machine. This compilation definitely touches on all aspects of my early work, from the slow evolving drone masses of 'Appeal' and 'Underground', to the more cosmic fluxing textures of 'Fata Morgana', to the breakthrough tracks, 'Receiver' and 'A Noise Supreme', both from 1989, which point towards the noise-isolationist style of composing revealed on my first cd release, "Macrophage/The Toil And The Reap"(ND Records, 1992).

Many thanks to Steev Thompson for the excellent cover graphic which I've kept from the limited edition release. (original release on cd-r in an edition of 100 numbered copies)"



DOWNLOAD(mp3 320 kbps 168 mb + covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/166274015/PBK-A_Noise_Supreme_Solo_Works_1986-1989.zip

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PBK- Exclusion Zones Tour CD, 2004

PBK:

"I toured the east coast of the USA in the summer of 2004 with my Japanese friend, Yasutoshi Yoshida, aka Government Alpha. This extremely limited edition release was given away to friends and fans on the tour. Here you'll find collaborations with Govt. Alpha, Nocturnal Emissions, Wolf Eyes, Aube, C. Reider and Dale Lloyd.

A couple of the tracks ('World's Gone Askew', 'Fire Across Our Divide') were included to promote the "Under My Breath" album, which, at the time, was slated to be released on the Russian label, Electroshock. As too much time had passed and Electroshock kept delaying the release, I eventually asked for the rights to have it released on another label and "Under My Breath" will now be available on Waystyx in 2009. (well worth the wait...)

"Exclusion Zones" includes several tracks unavailable elsewhere: my collaboration with Nocturnal Emissions titled 'Blackmask'; the 20+ min. noise epic, 'Art Amiss', dedicated to my cousin & partner in the Acclimate duo project(all sources from a live performance at the Flint Noise Festival in 2004); and the extended live mix of 'Fire Across Our Divide' performed at The Dreamland Theater using Aube and Wolf Eyes source."

DOWNLOAD(mp3 320 kbps 163 mb + covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/162000959/Exclusion_Zones_Tour_2004_CD_Remaster_MP3.zip

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PBK- Listening To The World Vibrate, 1995

PBK:

"Today's offering is my 1995 release: "Listening To The World Vibrate". There were several well known experimental music colleagues of mine who did not appreciate what I was doing with the sort of music collected on this release. Asmus Tietchens, whom I had already collaborated with on "Five Manifestoes", could not use the source material I gave him at this time, he found it unworkable. Dirk Serries, aka Vidna Obmana, expressed a lot of reservations about this music as well. One guy who got it, however, was John Wiggins. Wiggins understood what I was attempting and we proceeded to collaborate together on some things in this vein (which I'll post later on).

And what was I attempting? I was looking for a sound which I heard in my head as a futuristic kind of free jazz. The elements are there- rhythmic patterns, solos, even choruses, but they are abstract and in the end don't sound much like any jazz music I've ever heard. In retrospect, I think I was creating a rather unusual form of "glitch" electronica. Oval's first album came out in 1993, Terre Thaemlitz's in '94, Pan Sonic's in '95. I was unaware of of these artists at the time, yet it seems like our concurrent aesthetics were sort of in the same line of thought. They exemplified a way of (ab)using musical/computer equipment in extreme ways to create new sound sources.

"Listening To The World Vibrate" sounds very little like anything else being done at the time. It is isolationist in the extreme, which makes sense to me since it was composed while I lived in Puerto Rico where there was no "noise" scene (at the time) and I felt very disconnected from the dominant music there. The track 'Common Language', my tribute to David Tudor, was re-released on the "System-Music-End" CD for RRR's Pure label in 1995."

DOWNLOAD(mp3 320 kbps 101 mb + covers)

http://rapidshare.com/files/158987415/PBK-Listening_To_The_World_Vibrate_1995_MP3___Covers.zip

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PBK & Vidna Obmana- Depression And Ideal, 1989

PBK:

"Dirk Serries, aka Vidna Obmana, contacted me in 1988 after hearing my "Die Brucke" and "Asesino" cassette releases. Each album included some of my ambient music, which he took note of, and invited me to submit some tracks to an ambient music comp. he was producing for his label, The Decade Collection. We traded sound-sources via mail and he quickly released the collaborative cassette, "Monument Of Empty Colours", which has since been reissued on CD by the Projekt label. By the time I met Serries in-person when he visited the U.S. the next year, he had turned away from his past "power electronics" approach for good and had now become completely immersed in ambient music. We performed concerts together in the San Francisco Bay area and he spent a week working in my home studio on his first solo album in the new style.

Every electronic musician knows that their own instrumental configuration is personal and results in a unique sound, but Serries returned to Belgium and later informed me that he had purchased a number of the instruments he'd used in my studio and was now using a system I had taught him to create his own music. Even though I felt ripped off, I was driven to find a way to reconfigure my studio and bring a new dimension to my music, even if it meant a complete change of direction. I finished using the Vidna Obmana source material I had and released my own tape, titled "Depression And Ideal". As much as I liked the results of this collaboration, the project never gained any momentum. Serries didn't seem to like it much, which was largely the reason I didn't promote it, even though I remember it receiving good reviews.

The original recording was on metal cassette and here I've edited and re-mastered these compositions to a much more detailed sound. Quite different from Vidna Obmana's solo work, these are like large abstract paintings with masses of slow moving sounds, fluxing waves of electrons, and an industrial edge that Serries' own work seems to have intentionally forgone. Good for late-night listening and best listened to loudly where the waves of textures are very powerful."

REVIEW: "Much of this electronics tape struck me as prologue: waves of majestic sound which seemed poised to break into faster themes but instead led into other waves of majestic sound. In tone, the music reminds me of the acid trip sequence in 2001, though there are no vocals here. Ponderous and intense." Factsheet Five

Dirk Serries, aka Vidna Obmana, collaborated with PBK on his first all-ambient cassette release, titled "Monument Of Empty Colours".

Serries working with the complex arrangement of synths, sequencers, and effects at the California studio of PBK. Most of Vidna Obmana's first solo album was composed there.

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http://rapidshare.com/files/153145444/PBK___Vidna_Obmana-Depression_And_Ideal.zip

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PBK- Headmix, 1997

PBK:

"This is the companion piece to "The Mescaline Tracks". Both albums were produced in 1997, both were influenced by the electronica scene of the time and, maybe moreso, by the psychedelic experiences I was submitting myself to. Working with my cousin, Artemis K, on the Acclimate industrial project, I became sort of disenchanted with "programmed" rhythms and in my solo work began utilizing turntables in unusual ways to create different kinds of "free" rhythms. In the mid 90's I had heard drum'n'bass music, but I knew a lot of these musicians were really just cutting up jazz breaks, re-sequencing them, speeding them up, etc. It sounded great, but I was more interested in abstract, or free percussion: rhythms that didn't exactly keep time. So, a lot of my turntable use, in these recordings, is to find rhythmic actions that punctuate the musical sentences, or float around within the composition acting as another part of the sonic fabric."

DOWNLOAD (109 mb mp3 320 kbps + covers)
http://rapidshare.com/files/153073468/PBK-Headmix_1997.zip

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