Improv group
Bang! Bros. are somewhere in between a basement noise act and a free jazz trio, with bashed-out electronics joined by jagged saxophone by Andy Allen (formerly of
Guerilla Toss). Arkm Foam and Mark Johnson often seem like they're playing Whack-a-Mole with their gear, attacking drum machines and twisting feedback noises into oblivion. Typical of their first-take, in-the-moment spirit, both volumes of Big Bang! Theory were bashed out in a single morning. While there are some moments of pause, much of the second part is restless. Tracks like "Big Freeze" have vaguely jazzy bass notes plunked throughout a maelstrom of diced samples and space-blasted effects, and eventually the notion of conventional rhythm seems quaint and meaningless. The 12-minute "Naked Singularity" starts out sounding almost playful, but halfway through it just turns into a monstrous pileup of drilling glitches and lacerating sax, later morphing into some grossly dilapidated beatbox action. That sense of frantic collision continues to the final "Big Crunch." Like the first volume, Part Two verges on being a massive headache, but somehow that just adds to the excitement. ~ Paul Simpson