Borbetomagus — Borbetomagus-A Pollock Of Sound (DVD)

Even with-in experimental & extreme forms of sound/music there are not many projects/ artists that seem completely with-out peers or a scene. American noise jazz terrorist Borbetomagus are one of few that come to mind, with their overloaded, dense, and completely seared sound worlds - which seem to sit apart from simple genres labels, or definitions.   Here we have a long-awaited doc about the projects 37-year existence, and fitting the projects intense & difficult sound- it’s far from easy, formal or approachable telling of their story.

I’m reviewing the recent region free release of the documentary- this takes in the just over hour long doc. Plus a forty-seven minute live set recorded in  2009 in France- which is a very nice bonus.  

The documentary is mostly built around a mix of black & white stills, the bands music, on-screen texts & quotes,  snippets of live performances, and interviews -though we never see the band being interviewed-  we just get their voices.  The structure of the whole film is quite haphazard, at times jumping back & forth in timelines sonically & visually, and once again that makes the whole thing both daring & unpredictable. Interview wise we get input from all three key members of the band-  saxophonist Don Dietrich & Jim Sauter and guitarist Donald Miller. Plus comment from the likes  Thurston Moore, Byron Cole, Jason Gross, & Chris Corsano.

Content wise we also don’t get what you’d normally expect from a music documentary- we get little or no info about the band as individuals, their backgrounds/ day jobs, or their relationship with each other. Through you do get discussions about additional band members who mostly had fairly fleeting time with the project.
The main of the content is discussions about the bands sound, their live performances- where they’ve been known to blow-out & set fire to amps, with the pure power of their sound. And really how they made their way through the underground experimental music scene of the 80’s- for a long time connected to no one scene, and banished from a few like John Zorn’s Down Town scene.

On the whole, it’s a doc that needs the viewer’s full concentration & focus- due the raw, unconventional, and at times bombarding format. But it fits perfectly the band ethos & sound, and I came away from it appreciating & respected Borbetomagus work even more.

 

The bonus live show was recorded at respected French experimental venue Instants Chavires in 2009. And the forty seven minute performance is also expectedly intense & in your face. It’s filmed from between the two Sax players, with the odd shots over to guitarist Donald Miller. The set just consists of one long track- which sees the three shredding ‘n’ sweating out their searing, dense & overloaded sound. Recording wise for the first quarter or so the guitar does sound a little high in the mix- whether this is down to the mic on the camera, or the venues mixing I’m not sure- but as the set carries on this issue improves. I’d say as Borbetomagus shows go it's suitable overloading, exhilarated, and brain scrambling as one's ear tries to up-out the sonic threads & paths in the dense noise mesh of sound. Throughout the length of the whole set, none of the three barely break into their attack, and seeing them perform as well as hearing them notches up the intensity even more.

All in all this DVD is really a no-brainer for fans of the project or those who enjoy intense & extreme sound worlds.  I can’t really see the doc appealing to a more mainstream music doc audience, or those with just a passing interest- as it really doesn’t attempt to give the viewer any form of easy, straight, or an approachable ride- but really a doc about such an extreme & totally uncompromising act really shouldn’t be anything less.