Satoshi Kanda
& Nick
Hoffman - "COCKROACH
BOY"CDr
Recorded live at art space tetra, Fukuoka, Japan, May 2010 as part of
AGAINST 2010: Fukuoka Extreme Music Festival Total
Time: 40:42 66 copies Released October
2012
OUT OF PRINT
REVIEWS:
The Sound Projector (Ed Pinsent)
August
23, 2013 Another
American who, I suspect, is no stranger to staring the Gods of futility
in the eye is our good friend Nick Hoffman, the sullen and stern genius
who utters little while issuing great but perplexing music on his
Pilgrim Talk label. One such batch arrived in November 2012. Cockroach
Boy (PILGRIM TALK PT22) is a teamup with Satoshi Kanda, one of his many
connections in the steaming continent of the East, and they also made a
split cassette for this label in 2010. Kanda has been improvising since
2003 using nothing but an electric bass and some empty milk bottles.
Well, he certainly delivers the cream on this recording! It’s one of
Hoffman’s “play it and guess” recordings where absolutely nothing is
explained and it’s up to the listener to decide when the duo have
started or ended performing, and whether or not what they are creating
can even be called “music”. Ultra-minimal, confusing, yet it’s full of
the unbearable tension that these dangerous situations can often
create. Soon you too will be drawn into contemplating these strange
tones and lengthy silences, and wishing you were nailed inside a coffin
at the cemetery in Fukuoka, where this was recorded. The lengthy title
to this 40-minute work, if indeed it is a title, compacts references to
demons, corpses and Gods and also retains the air of a schlocky horror
movie, in keeping with the grotesque Insect-Fear cover art by Hoffman.
I love the way this music consistently refuses easy digestion, and all
these Pilgrim Talk releases are recommended.
Just Outside (Brian Olewnick)
December
08, 2012 Cockroach
Boy - s/t (Pilgrim Talk)
40+ minutes of sounds provided by Satoshi Kanda and Nick Hoffman, live
in Japan in 2010. More than that is bafflingly tough to say. Searching
for referents, one might hazard to place this material in the neck of
the woods recently occupied by Taku Unami. That is, for one, there's a
strong impression of missing something vital by virtue of merely
digesting the audio portion of the event. When glass shatters early on,
I conjure up a thrown bottle, but who knows? (Kanda is known for milk
bottle utilization...) And much of the other sourcing is similarly
elusive and disjunctive. I'm tempted to fall back on the old "liming
space" trope; listened to with that in mind, it does so quite well;
there's some depth at hand, enveloping the sparse bleats, moans, taps
etc.
It's often very quiet, enhancing the feeling that I'm missing important
portions, but so it goes. Aurally, its get to the level of listening to
a quiet individual putter around his kitchen, not such a bad thing. FOr
whatever reason, I found myself enjoying more often than not though I'd
be hard pressed to say explicitly why. It breathes and feels honest,
best I can do.
