Seqs & Drums & Rockin’ Synths – Butsenzeller (Jezus Factory) Reviewed by Dave Franklin

The only thing that surprises me anymore with  Jezus Factory releases is just when you think that they have put out the most bizarre record you have ever heard, they  manage to raise their own warped benchmark. Not that the core idea behind Butsenzeller’s music is too outlandish, robotic, dance floor euro-electronica, but like most creativity it is the attitude behind it and the way it is delivered that becomes the real game changer.

I guess those who want a sound bite tag,  maybe punk disco might be an apt term, electrotrash or possibly industrial noisebeat…I don’t know I’m sure someone will find an appropriate label for it but in essence this is someone doing to dance music what The Sex Pistols did to rock and roll. You take the basic building blocks and rather than methodically sculpt them into new pleasing arrangements you instead hammer the crap out of them until they form grotesque shapes and then use them to build wonderfully horrifying new designs.

It may be worth noting that “Bootsie” (to his friends) is a lynch pin drummer, DJ and sampler for a whole host of bands on the Antwerp alternative music scene and all of this seems to come together in his music. The back beats range from cold and clinic through robotic to industrial onto which is added all manner of strange electronic motifs, alien sounds, tribal psytrance, factory noise, demented computer sounds and darkwave pulses. The result is challenging, crazy and totally unique.

I’m not sure if this is the sound of electronic music imploding or striding out into a bright new dawn, the product of one innovative musician or the output of a badly programed super computer running software designed to create music. Androids may or may not dream of electric sheep but this is what you computer sings to itself when you are out of the house.