The titular MB on this record is not the Italian noise pioneer, but GOG's Michael Bjella with Robert Skrzyński (of Micromelancolié) in collaboration. Black Box Recordings may not resemble Bianchi in any obvious way, but the duo have a similar raison d'être of utilizing purely dissonant electronics, roughly recorded found sounds, and the occasional interjection of conventional melody and instrumentation. Like its title would indicate, it is a bleak and disturbing collection of sounds that could easily be the final recordings of a cataclysmic event.
The dynamics of this record sit somewhere between the harsh dissonance of the noise world and the more reserved, spacious setting of an ambient record.For example, the short "Homes in Paris" is an idiosyncratic collage of found, but unidentifiable noises and incidental sound effects.But even within these abrasive layers, processed electronics and droning moments bring an oddly comfortable set of music and placidity to the otherwise heavy chaos.
On other pieces, the noisier tendencies of the duo’s sound stays in the forefront."Black Box Recording" sounds as if much of the recording is culled from its title, based upon what sounds like bursts of static and radio communication noise, but never fully discernible dialog or human voices.Layers of low fidelity recordings, bursts of noise, and explosions results in the two artists’ conveying the harrowing nature of a flight recorder capturing the first few moments of a catastrophic disaster.
Other moments, however, make for more of a transition between the harsher and melodic moments."Tearing Up" is all dark and lurching loops, at first just uncomfortably dissonant but amped up with static and distortion go become even more chaotic.Interestingly, towards the conclusion some clean guitar playing from Bjella glides to the forefront with a somber, beautiful tone that gives the song’s title two distinctly different interpretations depending on its pronunciation."Yes the Enduring Classics" is built from cavernous, almost musical loops as layers of noise are piled atop.Both the melodic and chaotic moments are magnified by the inclusion of what sounds like cello and metallic percussion, and straddles that line perfectly.
The two choose to close the album on a dourer, disturbing note on the lengthy "The Brighter Side of Fucking History".Opening with massively reverberating water drips and rattling noises with bass-heavy, subterranean rumbles, it captures the ambience of an expansive, disused concrete basement.Some oddly treated synthesizer passages drift in and out, with strange metallic scrapes and mechanical clattering making for an unsettling piece of moody ambiguity that excels in both its composition and its insinuated creepiness.
I am more familiar with Michael Bjella's work as GOG, and while a different beast, Black Box Recordings still bears his mark in the same way his primary project does.With less of the heavy metal elements and increased noise contributions from Skrzyński, it is an album of blackened industrial noise and experimentation that may have a familiar mood, but an entirely fresh and innovative sound in its execution.
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