SHAME “White Man” (Orb Tapes)

 

Shame is Abdul-Hakim Bilal, and I’ve had my eye on their band and their work before. (In fact, Samuel Goff, Bilal’s Among the Rocks and Roots cohort, is putting this out on CD [of all formats!] on his Cacophonous Recordings label.) White Man is an uncomfortable release, especially for someone like me who represents the titular demographic. Bilal is black, and “the struggle black people face daily is present in this harrowing and experimental album.” Bilal utilizes vocals to great effect to supplement the noise churning like a distant storm or like the crackle of enflamed dry wood. Anger and fear permeate the release with a harrowing intensity. I succumb to the tape’s intent of discomfort. It makes me squirm, and it makes me hurt. I can only let it crush me with its weight. Who gets to impose their will on others; who is worthy of that? Nobody. White Man is a seething answer.
 
https://orbtapes.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan

SHAME “I Don’t Like You” (Orb Tapes)

“Shame is not here to make friends.” Well duh, not with a name like “Shame”! And, well, also not with a tape titled I Don’t Like You – I probably should have flagged that first. Indeed, Shame, the solo moniker of Abdul Hakim Bilal of Among the Rocks and Roots – whose Raga tape, also on Orb, floored the bejeezus out of me when I first heard it – is as antisocial* a project as it gets, opting for harsh, gristly noise at all costs in order to repel you from Bilal’s presence. And honestly, why would Bilal want any of you in their presence? You’re all a bunch of freeloading, whiny babies. Bilal is right to not want to have anything to do with you.

 

But then there are the select few who get what Bilal's got going on, who hear the outré sonic mayhem and are pulled in, gravitating toward the center of the hellish concoction. People like me. OK, listen up, gather round – you hear that oscillating static? You hear those sampled shrieks? You withstanding that piercing feedback? You resisting the demonic temptations of that buried whisper? You churning like that pulverized cement? You becoming one with that barely tolerable pitch? You frying on that flat-top stove?

 

GOOD!

 

I don’t like you either.

 

You can hang out though and listen to this. You’ve proven worthy of remaining in Bilal’s presence, and that’s good enough for me.

 

*Well, I Don’t Like You isn’t totally antisocial – the awesome Orb alum Samuel Goff makes an appearance on “Transmission Dreams.”

 

https://orbtapes.bandcamp.com/

 

--Ryan