A re-release of a stunning performance record from 1984. As a younger man, this band was extremely important to me, as an example of music unbound by economic restraints or polite convention. Many a morning would find me waking to a side or two of this very album along with my coffee and newspaper. Bracing!

At this point in their history the Borbetos had yet to fully embrace electronic processing gear, so the sounds of their double-sax and electric guitar maelstrom ring a little truer than on later recordings (i.e. Experience The Magic). There's plenty of amp distortion going on though. It sounds like the recording quality slowly gets worse over the course of the record's four sides, as if the recorder were being fried by the force and heat of the music. Or maybe it's my ears that are frying. Or my mind.

For an ensemble comprised of traditional instruments, their music seems to hold mostly references to earlier electronic music and/or more dissonant forms of composition, with a heavy dose of Hendrix-esque danger. It is, and was even at this early point, pushing so hard against the boundaries of convention that it's a wonder anyone still bothers with convention at all. Heavy handfuls of irreverence and goofy humor add to the proceedings. The former in their abuse of their instruments: Donald Miller's manipulation of his guitar with files and other implements, or Dietrich and Sauter's attaching rubber hoses to their saxes, pouring beer into the bells or playing with the open bells pressed tightly together; the latter in their scatological "song" titles and pseudo ad-copy liner notes. If you're into modern music at all and you haven't heard these guys, you owe it to yourself. This is as good a place to start as any.