DJ Bazootka – All ‘Bout Vice
Written on 22 October 2021 by Jack Hunter
DJ Bazootka returns in full-length operandi, this time emphasising on ethereal, no-holds-barred brutal mayhem in 15 nodes of chaotic transmission.
“No one has to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life, but, then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you had to do it – you’ll have lots of company.” – Hunter S. Thompson, April 1958
In lieu of the compact vortex of societal pressures and the mosaic of traumas we feel lambasted with on an almost constant basis, this release by Bazootka does well to amplify those phenoms by divulging in a somewhat pensively transgressive mode of conduct. This release brings up nothing short of caustic sensory relapses and synaptic fringe-work dispelled with enigmatic flare. We are to be accommodated with our own inherent vices via a sonic simulacrum.
The mosaic in question is inhibited by the Abaddon of Bazootka’s prose, the industrial wanderings and punctuations lamented deep – esoteric to the minds of junk and squander. A bohemian’s pamphlet guised with brutality and romanticism, the commonality presented in extensions of brick and mortar and bone and sinew. He wants to invite you as the hysterical paramour of violence, psychedelia, injury, madness, decadence. As much as they prevail, they are ultimately just as defeated as the will that induces it. This is the potent irony that resonates throughout, this is the potent irony that is captured within.
Despite the nihilistic rhetoric, Bazootka does not seek to lament territorial pissings on the world at large (although that is a characteristic), moreover it’s a celebration of counter-culture but presented with sincerity. One can recognise familiar tropes presented within, but with a wide-eyed doe-ness to its profound intricacies. There is a fineness present here – the correlations between calculated, quantised structure married with spoken character, improvisational flares and Humanism.
We hear passages of artists and writers of whom capture the essence of Bazootka’s prose perfectly, not so much appropriating, but amplifying the wisdom of both. The words give greater meaning to the source, as they do the compositions. Despite vice, of sickly junk and amphetamine gyromania, of Gonzo open-form and beatnik fallacies, we are not laden to romanticisation, nor embalmed in misanthropy, rather we are left pulverised, then given the key to submit unto ourselves – it is our own wanderings that create purpose. When the author is dead, we can only really rely on ourselves.
As the twilight of the album fades, one is left wondering – what is left to gain? The transmission ends abrupted as we are left to recollect. The tome of time is weighted, in its finite dance, as we may well just be doomed to repeat the seeds the we have already sowed.
“You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.” – William S. Burroughs, 1959
