BBJr – Junior Nuclear

6.7.19 by Ryan Masteller

I’m a stupid moron loving every second of BBJr’s recorded output. It’s always so innovative and interesting! No two things sound the same! Experimental music is one of my favorite genres! And our buddy Bob Bucko Jr. here, he often blasts through free jazz/psych rock/noise improv like a white hot supernova expanding through outer space and obliterating everything in its path. He likes his saxophones, his guitars, his drums, his … Yamaha DD-20 drum pad?


OK!

We’re getting a different BBJr here, that’s for sure, and Lurker Bias was waiting to slurp up his output and release it on cassette. Weird, right, that noisy old Lurker Bias was, like, LURKING, lying in wait for Bob on the stoop outside his brownstone in a trenchcoat, just feening creepily for whatever Bob just happened to be recording up there? Or maybe not so weird. Bob was happy to oblige Lurker Bias with these four lengthy tracks of fission, atomic-decomposition-as-sound for mass consumption – or at least as “mass” as an edition of 41 (plus Bandcamp downloads!) can be consumed. Lurker Bias didn’t care. Lurker Bias slurped.

There’s a celestial groove that starts this thing, and my head was nodding for a bit (drum pad after all), and then digital haze took over. “Inarticulate Particulates” may describe the whole thing, but maybe “Random on Purpose” does, or maybe “Over and Under and Out Again,” or – heck – “Indefinite Infinite.” These four descriptors tether us to the tape, to a tracklist, but they employ the English language to open up cognitive pathways to imagination overload. Turns out BBJr’s equally as adept at that DD-20 as he is at the sax or whatever, as his visionary compositions, accidental or otherwise, still radiate weird coherence and delightful surprise.

That’s … just what Bob Bucko Jr. DOES, you guys.