Kobi - "Live in Japan"
(Endo of HuM 2010, End of HuM-10)
Kobi - "Live in Japan"
(Endo of HuM 2010, End of HuM-10)
From Aural Innovations #42 (May 2011)
Three pieces from March of '07. The first two tracks are fifteen minutes each and, along with project-leader Kai Mikalsen on "objects and effects", featuring Petter Flaten Ellertsen, also on "objects and effects". This is even noisier than the "Acousticks" album. Out of a huge scary morass of feedback and violent grunting gurgling noise comes a weird kinda whiny voice loop... ahhh, pure sonic dissidence. I don't know if guitars are being tortured here, but it's possible. All of these sounds are of the utmost abrasive... sudden crashes of behemoth noises! I wonder if any of the objects used here are jackhammers... I'm picturing both of these guys quivering whilst trying to hang on to their instruments for dear life. (Oddly, this track is titled "Flying Teapot" - I hope no Gong fans pick this up expecting anything along those lines... shoulda been called "Flying Shrapnel", if anything). "MegaHertz" begins with a (relatively) cleaner ambient sound, higher frequencies, driftier, objects still thrown around the room in minor snits but lower-key, distant echo-y sounds... more droney, less kinetic... and by the end of the track, the sound is again almost pure distortion. The collaborator on the twenty-minute "Loop Line" is Kelly Churko on guitar and effects... some very down-tuned guitar drone here which is a good addition to the general ruckus... but some unpleasantly chaotic noodling, too, your basic avant-whimsy... then everything's revved up to 100 mph. I've listened to this album a handful of times, often in and out of full attention. It's interesting as sound, occasionally, but I doubt I'll be back for a return listen, as there's not much going on musically per se.
For more info, contact: http://www.endofhum.no/kobi
Reviewed by Chuck Rosenberg