Pain Jerk/Incapacitants – Live at No Fun Fest 2007

Genre rock Publisher Load Records External Links Incapacitants Load Records

I've got just five words for you: total eclipse of the eardrum. But that shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone: from the Boredoms to Merzbow, Japan is undeniably home to the world's more formidable/oppressive noise artists. This split's pretty much what its title advertises – an untitled live track from Kohei "Pain Jerk" Gomi and another courtesy of Incapacitants Toshiji Mikawa and Fumio Kosakai, both recorded during annual NYC noisenik love-in No Fun Fest earlier this year. The lovely, informative accompanying booklet spells out the historic nature of these performances, so let's talk about the music. Pain Jerk bring a thundering, convulsing storm of krumping, relentless electronics that sometimes spasm and growl, sometimes whine like windshield wipers on overdrive, sometimes accelerate to the point where the total system collapse of whatever jury-rigged set-up Gomi uses seems necessarily imminent; it's like being buried live in a digital snow avalanche, numbing and horrible and almost inhuman. With Incapacitants, on the other hand, we're eased into the quagmire; their track's opening and closing allows in some crowd enthusiasm, and their squalling, ripping, buzzsaw-bolts of disorder are laced with bug-eyed vocalisms. Incapacitants' extremism feels a little more haywire and insane, out-of-control, bleep-bloop-loopty-loop-laptop furious. These two Japanese noise acts couldn't be more different from one another, and that fact makes this bulldozing showcase of their talents all the more enjoyable.