If Kazuyuki K. Null is the best-known and most prolific Japanese noise artist next to Merzbow, he's achieved it with ballsy reinvention, an extreme work ethic and the power/desire to shock the senses. (Yes, folks, Null is the Madonna of Japanese noise.) From his work 20 years ago in Zeni Geva (the experimental rock band that married brutal, guitar-generated discord with Eastern culture and space music, among other things) to his collaborations (working with Steve Albini and Jim O'Rourke, producing Melt Banana's debut) to his later solo output (in which he took the art of feedback into new directions), Null has always been good for unpredictable and unmistakably innovative sound, whether you enjoy it on an entertainment level or not.
Atomic Disorder is Null's latest entry into the world of digital recording; he first took the plunge around the turn of the century. A drummer himself, our noise merchant wraps his sonic arsenal -- here consisting of industrial klingklang and Mego-level laptop overspray -- within rhythmic alliterations that are sometimes syncopated into faint grooves, sometimes released in a stuttered assault. Null's current directions are subversively connected to the patterns of dance music, where the exploration and deconstruction of "the beat" is realized not with drum machines and computer software, but with Nullsonic, his own custom-built gear and techniques.
The tracks on Atomic Disorder are nameless, taking the meaningless numeric listings of the past down to their simplest extremes. Track One kicks off with a spectacle of metallic, Einstürzende Neubauten beats duking it out with pummeling high-speed gabber. It's an exciting and noteworthy start; all the material on Atomic Disorder, Track One is probably the most noticeably connected to a categorize-able art form. Track Two, with its mumbling space station hum and high pitched click track, brings the energy down to a mesmerizing level, then builds to Track Three's twitching mass of machinated tribal fuckery, which could be the last recording from the Isle Of Tron.
Things really heat up on Track Five. Armed with a manic bassline pattern, the cut initially recalls a chase scene in the first Terminator movie; it pumps along fabulously, aided by overcast sonic scribble and peripheral rhythmic elements, and is the album's greatest success at building maddening tension. Once Track Seven brutalizes the ear with distorted smacks of blunted juggernaut power, the album drifts to a lower-key level of elastic ambience on Tracks Eight and Nine. Finally, Track Ten unravels everything into atonal chaos and short-circuiting spasms, the semi-constructed world of Null coming unglued in entropic reversal. A fitting end, indeed.
All told, it's a compelling saga of sonic unsettlement, transcending traditional noise as only KK Null can. It's remarkable that, even after 20 years, he can maintain such experimental dexterity and quality.
