Anarchist Republic of Bzzz.... - Arto Lindsay, Seb El Zin, Marc Ribot, Mike Ladd, Sensational - CD

"Here's one way to get your music noticed amidst a terminal glut of new CDs. Producer/leader Seb El Zin pressed his new release on 12" vinyl, which offers four times the visual surface. He hired vintage punk illustrator Kiki Picasso to create as provocative an image as possible, a day-glo 60s psychedelic portrait of someone looking exotic and wise, like a turbaned Osama bin Laden, right index finger raised in instruction and surrounded by smaller images of Muammar Qaddafi and some riot police with transparent shields so armored and brightly colored they look like puppets, or robots. Pull out the record and you'll immediately notice the Al-Quaida suicide bomber pin-up on the label and then the incredible chemical red of the vinyl...but be sure to take note of the side titles, 33T and 45T. Yes, it's a two-sided record meant to be played back at two different speeds, the kind of thing you might miss if you're still pouring over the cover graphics. And, oh yes... the music. Anarchist Republic of Bzzz takes a genuinely interesting approach, a kind of original mash-up of hip-hop and free improv. Seb El Zin, a French performer without apparent genre allegiances, recorded this material between 2204 and 2008, working with co-producer and guitarist Arto Lindsay, guitarist Marc Ribot, poet Mike Ladd, and freestyleing vocalist Sensational; El Zin adds his own guitar, editing and "throat." The sound ranges from deep (and anonymous) bass frequencies and turntable squiggles to myriad voice approaches and some spectacular guitar grooves and bleed-through distortion. It's paradoxically tight and divergent at the same time, likely the result of the mixing that seems to create continuity without apparent structural patterning. Oddly, the juxtaposition of Mike Ladd and the guitarists brings to mind Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica period. It's brilliant, fractured music, and every bit as edgy as the packaging promises." ~ Stuart Broomer, Signal To Noise