Bong-Ra/Enduser/Shitmat: Monsters of Mashup
Ad Noiseam

Sonic cannibals Bong-Ra (Jason Kohnen), Enduser (Lynn Standafer), and Shitmat (Dr. Henry Wenry Colly Wobbles Junior) unleash six hellacious mashups (two apiece) on this Ad Noiseam round-up (Shitmat's contributions “written and produced in the year 1805,” for those keeping score).

The blazing breakcore beats terrorizing Bong-Ra's jittery party raver “My Cock is an Aardvark” threaten to careen out of control at every second though, amazingly, never do while his darker “Mosh” triggers apocalyptic meltdowns of grungy slime. Psychotic by comparison, Shitmat feeds libraries of samples through his overworked cuisinart in “His Dad is a Maltese, His Mom is a Malti-Poo,” an inferno of chipmunk vocals, bass pounds, police sirens, grinding guitars, and gabba beats, and a dizzying rave-up “Kiss the Spanner and Call Me Charlie” that actually includes moments of soulful funkiness when it's not bludgeoning the listener with convulsive splatter. Enduser's “Too Many Fucking Stairs” begins in gamelan mode before throbbing pounds first flatten the terrain and frenetic drill'n'bass beats then detonate it. Here and elsewhere, Enduser's material is distinguished by its fundamental musicality: no matter how noisy the material, it never loses its focus, even when blistered beats crushingly writhe and flail. Standafer maintains his league-leading batting average by anomalously ending the 33-minute sampler with the elegant downtempo epic “End of a Beginning (Sludge Mix).”

September 2005