PΞB – Iamchainsaw (Edelfaul) – You can hear a couple of (wounding) bites from the forthcoming album (coming out on Berlin based Edelfaul Records) on Bandcamp right now, the album is out in September, the whole thing just landed here and this is a vain attempt to give you some kind of sense of the first taste of the whole thing, an attempt to swallow it all in one go on the day it landed.

They say “PΞB is pain, PΞB is joy, it’s an illness, but can be a cure, it’s machines at work, but as human as it gets, it’s metal and raw flesh, it’s about terror, horror, shock and trauma, and a remedy for all of the above. It finds beauty in the ruins, serenity in noise, liberation in chains… and chainsaws. Born out of a healthy disgust and a tendency for perfection, PΞB was puked into the world by Edelfaul-co-founder Ilia Gorovitz on drums and electronic devices and obscure Berlin underground celebrity Asja Skrinik shouting, yelling and pushing buttons. The place of both conception and birth was that same furnace where pretty much most of our ideas are being spawned. To those who witnessed its first staggering steps, PΞB was some next level shit from the get go”.

Do like the (somewhat disturbing) menace of “obscure Berlin underground celebrity” Asja Skrinik, she is rather intriguing, they both are and yes as machine driven and as menacing as all this is, it is about as human as things can get. She and they do feel very human, disturbingly real. PΞB are highly visual even when you’re just listening to them, if indeed you can just listen to the two of them? This is not easy listening (although it may actually be very easy listening if you just let yourself go with it, submit to it maybe), you can’t just listen though, they demand full undivided attention and they do paint pictures, leave images swimming around your head, things just hanging there, always visual – this is interaction more than just listening, the full on ritual of it all, a state of mind if you will. And no, you can’t be multi tasking, no way is she going to let you do other things while she is performing, PΞB demand your undivided attention, you devotion maybe? They deserve it, these aren’t throwaway background words or sounds (or screams), this is the real art of noise and she doesn’t want her body to be found and when you do catch details, words, when you do catch lines, shouts and the glorious cacophony of it all then you are likely to do a double take, do a “what was that bit?”. And yes you will find the beauty in their ruins, the serenity in their noise and yes, their liberation (or yours) in those chains…    

The two members of PΞB talk of “a painstaking, yet totally natural process of arguing, spiralling and overthinking” of “skills honed into a precision weapon that has devastated small and mid sized venues all over Berlin and a fair share of Europe, even before the first recordings were done”. Their live set, they do appear to be a band best enjoyed loud, “quickly became infamous for its raw energy, murderous drum beats, distorted bass bombardment and nihilist lyrics on overdrive. Taking cues from industrial and rap music as well as from Grand Guignol theatre, way too many horror movies, the possessed vocalisms of Diamanda Galas and Lingua Ignota, deep throat metal shouting and spoken word poetry”

They have clearly crafted something all of their own with their mix of performance, of industrial threat, distorted Death Grips bite in their global noise attacks and that it goes it goes it goes menace that thrusts alongside those sadomasochistic hints or maybe undercurrents (more than just hints? The liberation of chains indeed). Those hints in their weirdifications (do like that, PΞB most definitely deal in “weirdifications”), they deal in shock and awe deliciousness, in the beauty of poison and the it goes it goes it goes…  

And so, as someone over there in Berlin tells it; “finally, in early 2024, PΞB started laying down the first tracks of their debut album: brutal snapshots from real life, filtered through their tools and methods that mostly aim at maximum satisfaction by way of maximum impact. The long process paid off, their live program was captured in all its distorted glory and carefully overdubbed. In a typical PΞB move, they decided to add transitional tracks found among hours of recorded sessions that went beyond the usual set-up of drums, vocals and electronics, and included field recordings and all sorts of feedback loops, distortions and weirdifications. Building up a parallel narrative to the shock and awe of their core set, these interludes, with their own series of cryptic names, might serve as breathing spaces for your phantom-bleeding ears and a way for your mind to process what has just happened, before the next avalanche of brutal drums, mangled noises and hellfire lyrics demands all your senses and survival skills.” 

PΞB are positively threatening, no, not threatening (even though there’s chainsaws), threatening is wrong, they’re kind of inviting, actually they’re kind of thrilling, they’re clearly not just another industrial flavoured dark wave noise band, there’s something deeper here, darker but not obviously so, something more questioning maybe? More demanding? Certainly more rewarding, they clearly are a live gigging two piece industrial (rock) band, they feel like they could be equally as (un)comfortable when viewed (or encountered) as a performance art outfit or something you might discover in some kind of dark backstreet torture garden. It isn’t all machine, they are organic and yes that is a contradiction and those clanks are almost (feeling) analogue, whatever it is PΞB  are rather disturbingly beautiful and no way, no way, no way, brace yourself right now! Tiny cameras, big screams what can one even talk about? Lots to unpack here, lots to get lost in, it might take some time, certainly more than just one day of listeing and who has kissed you? And now what? This is good, there’s a depth here, there’s good here, there’s a dark menace here and there goes the heart monitor, we’ve reached the end, play it again, this is wholesome, this is a damn fine album, this is good for you… This probably isn’t good for you, the wise thing would be to run the other way but where did being wise ever get you…  (sw)

Release date 9th September 2024

Links – Instagram / Bandcamp