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"I was always drumming on things. Surfaces, body parts, dogs, cutlery, glossal percussion & dumb kid mouth beats ... anything I was given or could grab. First drum set at six."
Rabid dog behind the kit, faceless explosive warrior, ADHD blast freak. Blending a really particular self taught approach to drums and percusion, working and bursting between free jazz and noise/noisecore and experimental territories. Enthusiast outlaw with a DIY ethos and guerrilla aproach to most of his self-releases.
KIKANJU BAKU has taken part in and with many different bands and musical genres: NABEG, BOLLOCK SWINE, REFORESTER, KUTTEKOP, KIKANJU BAKU & CITIZENS OF NOWHERE... or as an intermitent collaborator with ROSCOE MITCHELL (Art Ensemble of Chicago, AACM) for more than a decade. The list is too long to narrow it down or define it.
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| "w’ tym i’ is there mhaaan???" - All pics by Kikanju Baku |
BANDS, LABELS, NEW MUSICAL GENRES AND HORIZONS? A NOT-SO-BRIEF INFOXICATION ON KIKANJU BAKU’S ACTIVITIES
> You started on 1999 and now run different labels: Lofi Or Die Records, Erstwhile Antrum, Ethnicity Against the Error, Tetsubishi Gob-Stopper, Basayev Inductions…
Also, what happened with the Gore Beyond Necropsy release that Discogs (if the information is true) says it’s a bootleg?
Yes! It was a bootleg cdr of sold out GBN 7”s, but even more so – it was a bootleg - of a bootleg!
There was a label called Tomas Canceras Recs, ostensibly running out of Bolivia, that did CDR compilations of out of print grind/noisecore 7” material. A GBN title they issued christened Noisexcretass Asshole had come into our possession via trading with the drummer from New York Against the Belzabu in Brazil, who I think was actually running the label incognito?
This was somewhere around 1998-2000, so recall that there is no Discogs, e-bay, Bandcamp, Spottify, Big Cartel, Facebook, Myspace, Instagram or any kind of streaming service etcetera.
I would have been about 11-13 at the time & had been getting into the fractured international noisegrind/noisecore subculture by buying & trading using email & postal mail.
It was full of heterodox customs like split releases, vinyl (considered a defunct & discontinued medium at the time), CDRs, home dubbed cassettes & the remnants of “tape trading” which was just becoming obsolescent. I assumed that amalgam tape/cdr editions of sold out/unavailable releases was just another accepted facet of the noisecore/grindcore sub-current & approved etiquette.
I had also tried to contact GBN a few times, including sending some tape material & letters direct, but I never received any kind of response.
My interface expertise & technical proficiency was bilge at the time, so we just literally rearranged the tracks from the Bolivian bootleg in some burn shareware …. a fucking bootleg of a bootleg!!!
we did of course lavish it with way better art, conditioned to the mien & style of the GBN releases, which we all had original, paid-for copies of cos’ we were avid fans.
The mf was a bitch to cut-out & glue together, & the CD-surface had a sticker strip that we lifted from those supplied in blank-tapes that then had an individual colour logo hand-drawn for each disc with uni-balls. The funny thing is that it became quite a cult title in itself …. we only did about x130 or summit’, & I regret that I don’t even have a personal copy now.
We wrote to Akinobu again sometime afterwards with paragon adolescent naivety saying that we should send over copies & what not, but once again, zero reply from that ol’ some’ bitch.
It is definitely worth declaring that we distributed, bought & spread a lot of GBN shit throughout Europe & the US back in the day. A lot! Much of there stuff would not get over here & into distros because some labels that put out GBN releases did not trade. We took no issue with having to buy them wholesale, stuffing converted currency into the back of CD trays & flipping it airmail, so we were often the sole distributor this side for their vinyl releases. We got a lot of GBN titles disseminated over here & elsewhere.
The climate of interest around Grind/Noise at the time in the UK was pathetic, with almost no awareness or traction for anything like noisegrind, or related crazy shit, or buying from small independent distros. I think GBN wise (beside the Relapse release) it was just really us & the guy from Sterilized Decay who was a very dedicated individual & early bird (we were all preceded by Psycho Mania o’er in azami land)
A fucking bootleg of a bootleg yo!
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> When it comes to bands and projects: Bollock Swine, Citizens of Nowhere, Foju Frequency, Kuttepop, Law Facilities Crime, Melanin Momentum, Menstrum Mantics, Nabeg, Ray Man Trio… I know that there may be more, but would you mind telling us some differences or what they have in common? You are always coming up with stuff… :)
Is there any particular reason -when it comes to releasing- or difference between them?
Core directive - uncharted uninhibited utmost - an obsession, perhaps even a crusade, with “intensification”, using the most extreme/volatile substances available - to create a standard, culture, discipline, “genres” & capacity - to push it ever, ever further into ultra-absurdities.
Sonically speaking - it needed to be as extreme as possible … further than anything else, in the literalist of empirical senses.
One of the central features of the laboratory is Gunk & No-Skool-Noyzcore - Noisecore/Noisegrind that goes far beyond the standard, by people that practice/train & take it seriously, & are always trying to invent & induce an intensification or expansion of extremes, damage, severity, ridiculousness, hysterics … not looking backwards or trying to reprograph.
sui generis.
Almost nobody does that, as noisecore is largely treated & practised as a kind of rhetorical statement/prank, or a “fuck the world” fashion accessory where being shit, lacking ability & mocking effort is encouraged, which is also an ideal backup justification for playing weak-as-fuck material without vigour or commitment (“it’s not supposed to sound good!”/”we’re not trying!”).
There needed to be a way to distinguish & declare distance, & demarcate a contrasting intention & condition, because noisecore/noisegrind just wasn’t cutting it anymore.
Hard scrambling ... I am all over the place.
It is too eclectic & garbled, especially once you engage with EA which requires a fuckin’ essay or some such.
But an overly-simplified adumbration aggregate -
LOD, TGS & BI are sorta’ essentially the same contiguum – weapons grade, full contact No-Skool-Noyzcore, Scour Histrionics, Hard-Vacuum, Blastcore, Gunk, Blurcore, Flensecore & ultra-peak, primary or paragon harsh noise mangle. Gratecore, Noisegrind overly outrageous variations concerning Speedcore, Glitch, Breakcore - or their most destructive components or spillover - & other anomalies & “suffocatingly original” rare strains in - “severe, grievous, obstreperous, mordant” - malfunctions & mutations in surrealist futurism & supra-deformities.
Ethnicity Against the Error is illicitly radical Avant & Free Jazz - arcane, ethno, curio, peregrinism & well planned raids into terra incognita.
> As for musical “genres”, it seems that you’ve coined some of them. Is it cheap talk or is there some meaning or definition behind them?
Yuh! - These are certified distinctions & divaricative skewings, or otherwise unheard of transmogrifications & evolutionary extension on existing formulas. & some of them are not just radical elaborations but entire new genres, definitely.
Flensecore (alternately called Apoplexy) came out of the NABEG operations – a new descriptive was required to capture the turbulence & severity of such extreme - & successful – experimentation that had clearly manifested as an independent genre.
NABEG strictly avoids any of the classic grind/blast/extreme metal/standard-noisecore drum themes & patterns or inter alia conventions – they are all prohibited & an entirely new language/approach was executed.
Phosphorous Funk – this was a radical reinvention of hard funk – most notably through some very tricky & inventive time signatures, displaced beats, hyper ghost-notation & contrapuntal application etc. it also bore the ingredient/influence of the post hip-hop era, meaning that the sampled results/aesthetics that emerged from rap/hop-hop (early 90s especially) were a schema we liked to work with & elongate.
We called it “Phosphorus” cos’ the idea was it would funk so fuckin’ hard it would burn a mothafuckur!
Glyph-Hop was instrumental interpretations of the aforementioned sample-based rap beats/production taken to further extravagance on live instruments. The “glyph” being something you had to figure-out or that was very complex or hyper-quirky, but still sloshed.
Gratecore – this was an extreme innovation within Grindcore (the real shit! not the Metalic substandard). You can hear a lot of it materializing on Law Facilitates Crime’s “Thought Encryption” EP & my project 走り抜く<Hashirinuku> ... - hard to explain, there are very specific fundamentals & dynamics that create greater extremity/damage/impact - but contractions, off-beats, extra punctuation(s), pushed velocities, …. it is a discipline of “extra impetus” – the end result is just much more intense, much more dynamic & much more Grind/Grate.
The Z-Beat modus that I created also – you use buzz-rolls/doubles/triplets within the D & C beat to create more pressure but also much more detail & pivot, which also often leads to subdivision & displacement - “compounded damage” ….. good grind/gratecore should be like good boxing.
No-Skool-Noyzcore - I explained in a previous question - Noisecore by people that take it seriously & are not aiming to replicate or rip-off but originate & veer. Gunk is the same, but Gunk has to have a live drummer, that is the distinction of the term.
You also have - Drill n’ Waste, Farrago, Poise Spore, RiotGear, Fray, Advanced Fracture, Scour Histrionics, Gunk, Hard-Vacuum, Abnorm, Apoplexy, Scolopendra, Gush Gyna, Harlequin Haze Hop, … probably some other shit too? Delta vortex outermost.
it is also worth citing the phrases User-Hostile & Anti-Listener … they are more standards or condition – but an ethic that I run with/pioneer in many projects & playing.
& of course – the “blurbeat” – “tatsumaki”/竜巻 which I invented.
> Considering that you run different labels, write in the blog and so on, have you run a fanzine, printed publications or taken part in any of it?
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| -How many drum kits have you broken playing and blasting like a rabid dog? Sorry Ace! - I really don’t break drums! You can’t drum that fast & precise without serious control & technique, so I don’t break drums & rarely sticks even (I use very light ProMarc 7A’s, the smallest 7A available). |
BEGINNINGS/RELATION WITH ASIAN CULTURE
>It seems like you are always joking/taking the piss, but you take things really seriously when it comes to getting the stuff done. You even introduce some words in Japanese, where you have a logo with: “(?¿)dead children in buses(?¿)” written on it, it seems?
“Kid Leader” – like a “leader that is a kid/guttersnipe”, or “leader of the kids/urchins” …. 浮浪児!
Taiko has my respect, & there are some striking similarities to facets of my own work, most obviously from the integration of martial elements for physical execution. I honestly have not experienced much Taiko though, & I hate commercial Taiko .. I only like the best, most serious practitioners or ensembles who do some incredible work.
Some of the rigidity & regimentation, group conformity & controlled stricture can also be – for me – too boxed in & stifling. but definitely - Taiko has my respect & I need to give it more attention & investigation.
The bell, gong & wood block percussion from old folk or court music in Japan is far more appealing to me generally. & I am a sucker for singing girls with a shamisen.
Good Korean 국악 <Gugak> & 사물 놀이 <Samul Nol-e> also, providing they are not modernised varieties.
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Some of it can be a bit enervated & staid, but there are some fantastic performers & groups out there.
But, of all the Asian percussive mediums – the proper, complicated versions of Chinese percussion (mostly associated with 戲曲 <Chinese Opera>) are insane. It is also some of the most novel, unique & difficult of styles, instrumentation & set-ups, with very demanding precision, coordination, syncopation & timing.
Not many people play that shit these days, & it is not easy.
Gamelan is also very interesting, & Mongolian, Eastern Russian autonomous prefectures & the Central Asian steppes traditional music is a gigantic influence/adoration of mine.
Artistically, Old Asia is an incredible standard of human ingenuity – so naturally I am allured, inspired, besotted.
I am really just a goddamn’ Hun though bro!
>The way you play drums it looks to me like a mix between free jazz and noisecore bursts with ADHD. In which moment both realities click for you? I heard that you’ve been playing from the early age of six years. Are you self-taught?
I was always drumming on things. Surfaces, body parts, dogs, cutlery, glossal percussion & dumb kid mouth beats ... anything I was given or could grab. First drum set at six.
Yes! I am self taught, & that is a big problem & very controversial – because I have totally & completely outperformed the academics & champions of establishment & insider conveyer-graft, which troubles – if not refutes - their entire choke-hold & the accepted lore of learning, “elitism” & “prescriptive positioning”, as pushed by empire. It also means the empire cannot claim credit for my genius as there is no association & I have not been through any of their institutions or orthodox channels.
No grounds for claim.
I was the delinquent intelligentsia with multiple expulsions that did not even complete secondary education.
I am the result of sovereign scholastics & endogenic autodidacticism, which is why I am whupping’ motherfuckers so bad … & they hate it.
-You have this shape to you and at yet you don’t abandon your sonic chaos imprint. It looks like you work/train/exercise with and against your body, not against a machine or being a small-dick sixpack bodybuilder due to steroid abuse. Do you have any training or exercise routine?
Always training. Junantaiso, budo, kobudo, free-climbing.
I also love to run. Long distance, off-road, & fast. All weather conditions, all terrains.
I bike hard too. Old racers, trail bikes, rusting & rattling ladies bikes – I’ll make em’ move.
I hate cars. Fucking hate them. Never owned one. Never will. Can’t drive. Never will.
No gym man. No weights. No apps. No lycra. No phone. No roids. No protein pellets. No supplements.
Hardcore vegan too. Almost all my life, without breaking it. Oldschool health-freak vegan – not one of these new LGBTQ- “vegan squid rungs” gimp-sucks … der real grain sack, foliage fucker, hemp husk type.
-Are drugs or substances an inspiration for you? What’s your point of view regarding them?
No. I have never done drugs or alcohol.
just never a need or desire.
I am crazy enough already & always engaging.
Others need to make their own choices & do what’s right for them – especially in such a shit, capitalism ravaged world that leaves people so under-stimulated, overworked & unfulfilled looking for quick substitutes/demulcents – which is the real problem/failure/crime.
I don’t need any of that shit. & I like the “process & activity” that gives you a “natural” high, not just taking some substance that does it all for you.
FACE COVERED
>You describe yourself as a Warrior, your face is always hidden behind a 笠 “kasa” (japanese hat) and a handkerchief covers most of your face. You look like a Zapatista situationist or a superhero behind the drum kit. Shy cat, trying to go unnoticed, indifference to the possible “commercialization” of yours (kind of Bansky?). What’s the reason behind this?
So many reasons.
No interest in fame in any of the traditional senses.
Better to maintain the element of surprise.
Remain as anonymous as possible in surveillance-suck data-rapist techno-dystopia entrapment economy.
I called myself a “warrior”?
I am certainly at war - & war is being waged on me/us on a circadian basis.
Shibou is good protection against the sun when you’re planting trees.
I have Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese & maybe a Thai one too … but no Japanese shibou!
Really need one of the hatago styled ones … just never sourced a specialist or found an old one.
Old skills – dying out.
Maszx from Java.
MODUS OPERANDI / IMPROVISATION
>It seems that, in most collaborations, you are the one who starts taking the initiative or conceiving the primal ideas and gets in contact with all the people involved. In some releases, it seems that your lines have been improvised -where you barely make any cuts or edits in its length: imo: Citizens of Nowhere. It seems like you are always playing with the mic on and that you use these lines for future releases. What gets you to collaborate with someone and what is the filter you use for it? How do you record everything, what stuff do you use? Home recording, the posterior edit/production, etc.
Unfortunately, I have to drive or catalyse a lot of activity, yes. I wish more came from others impetus & efforts, but so many people are just curdled & pulverized, so the weight rests with you.
The circumstances are forever changing, but the deprivation & adversity remains near constant. You have to convert the negativity into fuel, have a good scavenging game & exercise extraordinary resilience, endurance & initiative.
Long distance.
Almost everything I have ever released constitutes my drumming without any editing or conjoining or cutting in any way at all (aside the inconsequential start & finish of tracks/silence etc).
It is exactly as it was played, in real time.
Authenticity & sincerity.
Especially in the extreme or virtuosity rubric …. you cannot cheat.
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| "This is jazz grind experimental space rock/ Noisecore and it doesn’t suck" |
>You also play live with some acts like Nabeg or Roscoe Mitchell. I don’t know if you rehearse the “songs”, but in contrast with other musical genres- what’s the importance/value of improvised music and what does it means to you?
Total Improvisation is overwhelmingly the action.
Composition & writing songs & material is actually something I hugely, hugely enjoy, & a very important sector of my work. But my stuff is very challenging, & I need adept, expeditious & resilient musicians that can handle the pyro-dynamics &/or involution, plus the utility/space/time – all of which never seem to be available.
One day.
Improvisation is equally fantastic & natural/easy. But I do so much of it out of necessity – the absence, limitation & deprivation of creative conditions/space/opportunities/equipment & able/brave enough collaborators mean; that’s all your gonna’get/make it count.
>“Mmere Dane” and “Knocking” are tracks
where there’s a bass/double bass line + the metallic percussion
sound that acts as a beat and that reminds me of hip-hop or ideas and
songs taken from Gil Scott Heron (and a nice change/interlude between
all the chaos in the release). Experimental hiphop or jazzy hip hop
comes to my mind (experimental cats like JPGMafia, Danny
Brown, MF Doom, Madlib, Deltron 3030, Dälek, Death Grips…)
you probably know them better than us. Is there any inspiration
coming from any of this? Aside from drums, which other instruments do
you play?
that’s with Niles Asheber, a musician, but also a poet, orator, community activist & leader, & also a “rogue rescue worker” of the Grenfell ground zero truth commission.
The session was snatched impromptu at Acklam Village.
I just showed up with my cello & ankle bells.
Niles had just emerged from another confrontation/meeting with the notorious RBKC representatives, the council that murdered the cohabitants of the Tower.
Fresh from the front, he improvised that material/spoken word, augmented by just a few official/legal papers he had on him with support from my spontaneous double bass & bells.
We recorded it on his phone. As is.
Acklam Village was “seized” by local citizens & RRW as part of an emergency response shortly after the Grenfell atrocity/massacre & in the total absence of local & government assistance provided (a follow on crime in itself).
They & the space met the needs for many of the traumatised & internally displaced survivors in the immediate aftermath following the atrocity whilst the official “authorities” (Cancervative government & Cancervative council) floundered spectaculalry.
After such a graphic & irreversible display of contempt & “ineptopathia” by “the state”, the building was held & effectively commandeered/expropriated by the community, which at one stage included it being physically defended whilst police tried to forcefully storm it to return to the mismanagement under guilty state parties (the police were successfully repelled).
Niles was one of the guys that renegotiated the terms of the buildings new proprietors, using the abundance of extreme criminality perpetrated by local & state authorities & commercial actors as leverage to secure the required agreements/concessions on behalf of the community.
Acklam Village is the only venue that has had the courage & bollocks to do anything with Baku in London. All the rest of em’ were too bitch ass & nonce-nuzzling.
Beyond blacklist.
I play cello (like a double bass/plucked), Eastern zithers - gu-cheng/yatga, dai fut loi, san shin & all manner of drums percussion.
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| "Stolen" from BBC |
RELEASES AND THE LABELS + ANTICOMERCIAL APPROACH: no Bandcamp, no social media, etc, etc.
>Papers and pictures tied with metal clips in the releases, spray cans for the Cds designs, etc, etc. You make a few hundreds of each release -and quite a bunch of releases during the year- and all these tiny details in some releases may look like guerrilla propaganda. Do you record the tapes at home? How much money do you spent in the label and how much you get back from it?
All the tapes are done through a professional company, I don’t do any dubbing at hovel, just burning CDR’s for the Erst-while Antrum series (& I can’t even do that now) & other related crafts … naturally the vinyl & glass mastered/industry standard CDs are printed with various companies.
Yes, we are renowned for artisan, exceptionally detailed & laboured, novel & extremely high quality design & artworks … I work with a codex of connoisseur litho print specialists & small craft printers to give what you get.
Shits fucking expensive, but there are ways where you can significantly reduce your expenditure if you have the experience/field knowledge & a printer that is comfortable dealing with a fastidious client. Furthermore, if your willing to cut, scour, fold & glue by yourself, you can often save over half the estimate. That will entail expertise & precision craft – a whole discipline & skill set itself - & a huge amount of work & time. But then it’s hand-crafted, non-mass-produced, personalised - & depending on the specific design – variant, individual to each copy. That is a very important ingredient or aesthetic to me.
Some of the releases are “art kamikaze” … you end up hugely overspending for something so over-board & extravagant that you will never even slightly recover the expenditure or days of assiduous assembly that went into its manifestation…. But that just makes it cooler, more cult & more special. The last two Basayev Inductions editions are a stark example of that … just insane.
I love the adept arts & crafts, slow growth, work shop expertise, & it is such a counterstrike against the insufferable, impersonal, mass produced, machine-made standardization & commodification.
> There’s an anti commercial approach -taken from an interview of you from the Nihilistic Holocaust webzine- that you seems that you still keep with which I find quite curious and attractive:
“Brutal Truth are a group I have spent very' very little time investigating. At the time (& assumably since) – they were too 'Metally' for me, & I was very fixated on the “core” single-foot skull-stove Grindcore or Noisegrind, plus BT were heavily in vogue with the establishment detumescence a-la Terrorizer-tabloid-turd-curd pay-to-play n' shit, so I was all like “fuck BT/Relapse”, commercial capture. They were actually a band that deserved their fame though & did good shit, but they were really not in my spectrum at all as I was so anti-metal/surface at the time. So I can't reference those albums at all (I just listened to Sounds From The Animal Kingdom back in 2005 at the Donkey palace).”
This brings up the following questions:
-Waking up in the morning, getting into the bus, underground or riding the bike; being bombed at every turn with propaganda, shit that you don’t need plus ugly faces and burnt out individuals who just don’t even give a fuck about you or even about themselves. You have a lot of samplers and speeches plus in depth/over infoxication of artworks and the nasty/weirdo/outsider way of playing drums. Despite this, most of you records can only be fully listened if purchased. Why? What are your thoughts on piracy and letting downloads for free?
Let’s not be too brutal on Brutal Truth. Those guys are alright & did their own thing – respect! I just never owned any of their work or was influenced by it, & they got – & quite rightly – a lot of agency, support & platform, & many other worthy candidates were not bestowed the same benefit (not that that is BT’s fault).
Regarding piracy/downloads - so it’s very difficult & complicated …. it is all proportional & contingent on a motley of factors relating to the circumstances of the specific artist, listeners & perhaps even more.
For me personally, if someone in Sadr City, the slums of Manilla or the fucking Barrio living at the arse end of capitalism wants to pirate bay/torrent my shit – that’s fine. They are welcome.
If I can dull the virulence of capitalisms cruelty for you & the savagery of global bandit economics, I am sound with that, fulfilling one of my purposes, & you can take whatever you need.
My music is made for & belongs to all the world’s poor – from Beirut to Bishkek to Bolton - & it is the injustice that they have to suffer that drives a lot of my work.
So that’s fuckin’ fine.
But art, the real & radical or inventive shit, is dying & depreciating in many instances & avenues – along with the fecundity that produces it, & artists - especially uncompromising, outspoken, truly independent, hard heteroclite ones - badly need support, & collective support from disaggregated committed individuals/listeners/audiences – not bullshit industry/scene/corporate power bases that are so prone to corruption, duplicity, suppression & external interests or pressures who have no authentic stake in the medium.
So the onus is on the individual. It requires a sort of voluntary ethics & attention to the specific conditions of the given art form/artist blah blah.
Nobody cares if your downloading David Bowie or some ivory tower cotton swabber on the gold circuit that’s shitting caviar.
But robbing the radicals/rebels/revolutionaries or those battling the swirling hostility, devoting themselves to some artistic ideal, indignation or remnant quality buried under asphalt, tear gas cannisters & single-use plastics – that’s some fuckin’ ignoble bullshit.
Nuance, ethics, evaluation.
Show support.
As you have probably clocked, I also do exclusive free downloads sometimes …. Bollock Swine’s - Faster Than All the Rest mix LP, Concussion Projectile Trio’s – Enko-Ecto-Explo ep, NABEG’s – Economy = Extinction, しぬ マザーファッキング うじむし/SMU - Natsumi Pax a Micro Uzi in Her Lunchbox ep & others.
I absolutely consider them proper releases, & considerable effort is enacted on them, but they are just free to all to download & enjoy, & not through any commercial channel.