(03.14.06) There’s no stopping Jason Kohnen. It seemed like only a few months
ago he was shredding the inside of my skull with I Am The God Of
Hellfire. He’s returned with Soldaat Van Oranje, the
latest Dutch secret weapon: the bunker-busting beat bomb. Bong-Ra
delivers doom ‘n’ bass, sonically contorted breakcore that will punish
you for not dancing hard enough.
“Eenzaam Sterven Wij Allen” winds up over the course of seven minutes
to its catalclysmic conclusion as an atmospheric piece of echoing
explosions (like bombs being dropped in the next valley over and all
you hear is the rolling echo of buildings collapsing), lilting flutes
and hiccuping voices. It’s like DJ Krush being remixed by Scorn or
Mothboy. “Duivelsche Sodomie en Extasie” explodes from its
restrained intro into a claustrophobic, floor-shaking scattershot
breakdown. While synths zoom by like low-flying attack bombers and
soldiers in heavy body armor march and clap in formation — the crunch
of boots and the slap of leather as a crypto-fascist S & M parade —
Bong-Ra compresses drum ‘n’ bass rhythms into a downtempo mold
creating a sludge river of guttering beats.
“Orgie Van Vuurzee” spits and coughs like it can’t quite get the
initial loop out of its throat, a hacking measure of cut-up beats
which, as it turns out, actually is the percussive drive of the track.
More kudos to Kohnen for taking a sliced up burst of music and making
it work as the staggering beat block of the track. Part of my
fascination with Bong-Ra comes from these seemingly incomprehensible
loops which are buried beneath layers of synth washes, explosive gouts
of noise, spattered rhythms and breakneck programming.
“Varkenslachter,” for example, begins with a spurt of engine noise and
a stuttering drum ‘n’ bass rhythm that has had its bottom sliced off.
Kohnen starts layering menacing synth lines over this rhythm, injects
samples and tinkling keyboards and then explodes the mother-fucking
thing into a overdriven monstrosity of hammering beats (that drum ‘n’
bass rhythm from earlier though now hopped on steroids and human
growth hormone) and kitchen-sink style texturing.
There are little breaks in the gabber confusion like “Tastend in Her
Duister,” a two minute swirl of ambience; and “Doovshoorn Des
Overvloed” and “Spiegeltie Met Lijntjes,” a pair of dense rap tracks
with a pair of Dutch MCs (maybe, they could be just tweaking on
English lyrics with really bad accents — it’s all part of the Bong-Ra
charm). The final track, “Laatste Oordeel,” is the calm following the
storm, a piece for somber keyboards and tiny mechanical DSP effects.
In the buzzing silence following the preceding nine tracks, you can’t
believe Bong-Ra isn’t going to drop one last bomb on you. While
static-edged beats stalk around the periphery of the room, “Laatste
Oordeel” really is the come-down, the melancholy exeunt of all the
players. Lights out, power off. Nothing left but the echo of
plaintive keys and the ringing in your skull. Stll, Soldaat Van
Oranje meets my daily hardcore requirements. (Buy it at Amazon.com)
Soldaat Van Oranje is out now on Sublight (CD) and Mirex (LP).
