Everest Records – 25th September 2026
Christopher Nosnibor
What we effectively have here is a pair of EPs from Swiss avant-garde act KiKu, led by trumpeter and composer Yannick Barman and drummer and percussionist Cyril Regamey, each one a collaboration – but rather than rendering them separate works, what we get is an album of two distinct halves, conceived, we’re told, as a diptych: ‘two distinct bodies of work held together by a shared musical architecture’, where, ‘on one side, Blixa Bargeld moves through language with precision, restraint and abrasion. On the other, Black Cracker turns language into rhythm, pressure and momentum. Between them, KiKu constructs a dense, unstable framework of trumpet, drums, sampler and electronics’. The result is something akin to a split album, on which the two sides of KiKu are as much a defining feature as their collaborators.
The first of the four works with Bargeld, ‘Orlando’s Victory,’ slides in with some retro-vibing electropop which isn’t a million miles away from late-career Leonard Cohen. Simmering synths strike some dramatic shapes and brooding tones atop a slightly shuffling, trip-hop infused beat. ‘The Number of the Millibeast’ is a slice of dark storytelling, a minimal, almost folky instrumental provides the backing for a half-sung, half spoken narrative, delivered with a theatrical flourish, before ‘Suzhou XX XY YX YY’ continues in the same sonic vein, while the lyrics become more abstract. The instrumentation becomes ever sparser and the lyrical cohesion crumbles with each successive piece, culminating in the flickering pulse and gasping weirdness of ‘Nonsense Rock ‘n’ Roll’, which seems to be a moan about some people playing music in the street in the night which rapidly escalates in divergent directions. The atmosphere is that of late-night, downtown, smoke and rough liquor, Bargeld adopting a persona that’s a bit Tom Waits, a bit Charles Bukowski, but which comes across with a hint of grizzled old man, chewed up and ground down by life, veering erratically between raconteur and curmudgeonly malcontent. ‘Do I like the music? No! Nonsense!”
While it’s Regamey’s percussion which sits to the fore on the Bargeld cuts, it’s Barman’s brass which takes the lead on ‘Bull Whip’, the first of four ‘bull’- themed tracks with Black Cracker. ‘So much road rage / so much road kill’, Black Cracker reflects. His delivery here is soulful yet sad, and the trip-hop vibe of ‘Suzhou’ makes a subtle but distinct switch to hip-hop on ‘It’s All The Rage’. ‘Leaping Bull (Chicago)’ is different again, and something deep within the song – the way the mournful trumpet which echoes out over stuttering beats, and Black Cracker’s grizzled, world-weary vocal, vaguely reminiscent in its patina to Mark Lanegan – tugs at half-forgotten emotions and a sense of memories of the past, hazed by time. And then, halfway through, it switches to a dense, droning slab of dark hip-hop, tense and twitching with angst. Coming out of nowhere, it hits hard, but paves the way for ‘The Running of the Bulls’, where bleak instrumentation and soulful but anguished vocals combine to convey a sense of conflict between the interior and the exterior. ‘Sleeping Bull’ notably is subtitled ‘Woke’ in parenthesis, and its lyrical and sonic latticework makes for a compelling combination while reminding us where the term ‘woke’ actually came from. It’s absurd to think that it’s been adopted as a pejorative term, predominantly by white, right-wing wanksacks. It’s high time to reclaim it, and to not only be woke, but woke and proud.
Decidedly more downtempo and downbeat than ‘Suzhou’, ‘It’s All The Rage’ feels less driven by anger or rage than it conveys an aching sadness, the kind that permeates the body to the core, and makes the limbs and the very heart weigh heavy. As a whole, Suzhou / It’s All The Rage is very much an album of two halves, precisely as intended. And as contrasting as the two sides are, they do, most definitely compliment one another, and, perhaps more importantly, they tap different triggers for response. It’s a multifaceted work, and most certainly an album to chew on.
AA
Aural Aggravation 