This very refusal to cohere, to make sense, to play the game of identity and otherness, of harmony and disharmony, makes Bish Bosch this year’s only necessary work of art.
It’s notoriously heavy, full of references that will elude you without lyric sheets, centering on characters from history you’ve never heard of, and containing sound worlds that will frighten, amuse, and beguile you.
While Bish Bosch isn’t nearly the departure The Drift was six years ago, there’s a sharper attention to detail and a much broader scope at bay, one that would shake the boots of even the strongest composers worldwide.
Bish Bosch is difficult music that was intended to sound difficult and be enjoyed primarily by people who enjoy difficult experiences. The irony is that it is difficult in conventional ways.
Bisch Bosh continues that dissonant trend with Walker's distinctive baritone croon in the midst of the avant-garde storm. There is more emphasis placed on rock tropes this time, but Walker's lyrics are just as oblique.
For all its uncomfortable moments, Bish Bosch also provides both reminders of Walker’s existing strengths, and some intriguing suggestions of where he might go next
Despite its ties to vital art from the past and its incessant line of obscure references and Walker’s own pretentions as an artist, this is also industrial opera dramatics mixed with musical slapstick.
The irony of Bish Bosch is that in its extra-terrestrial grab for timelessness, Walker ends up lightyears from the qualities that made his art timeless
How anyone outside the walls of a mental asylum could genuinely enjoy the annoyingly repetitive industrial drum-throbs, aimless experimento-guitar crunches and lyrics about “reeking gonads” that characterise songs called things like ‘Epizootics!’ is beyond me.
#1 | / | Tiny Mix Tapes |
#2 | / | The Quietus |
#11 | / | MOJO |
#11 | / | The Wire |
#12 | / | The Line of Best Fit |
#16 | / | The Needle Drop |
#20 | / | Cokemachineglow |
#25 | / | Pazz & Jop |
#27 | / | FACT Magazine |
#30 | / | Consequence of Sound |
#30 | / | Obscure Sound |
#46 | / | Drowned in Sound |