{"id":4581,"date":"2011-04-18T20:46:15","date_gmt":"2011-04-19T03:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/?p=4581"},"modified":"2011-04-26T11:54:42","modified_gmt":"2011-04-26T18:54:42","slug":"to-bo-or-not-to-bo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2011\/04\/18\/to-bo-or-not-to-bo\/","title":{"rendered":"To-Bo or not To-Bo&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-4581 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2011\/04\/18\/to-bo-or-not-to-bo\/to-bo\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/To-Bo.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/To-Bo.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/To-Bo.jpg?zoom=2&amp;resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/To-Bo.jpg?zoom=3&amp;resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2011\/04\/18\/to-bo-or-not-to-bo\/toboindustrial-pic\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ToboIndustrial-Pic.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ToboIndustrial-Pic.jpg?w=600&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ToboIndustrial-Pic.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/ToboIndustrial-Pic.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2011\/04\/18\/to-bo-or-not-to-bo\/to-bo-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/To-Bo1.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/To-Bo1.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/To-Bo1.jpg?zoom=2&amp;resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/To-Bo1.jpg?zoom=3&amp;resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<h2>To-Bo, <em>Malaria<\/em><\/h2>\n<h5>\nDark Meadow Recordings, 2011, darkmeadowrecordings.com<\/h5>\n<p><strong><br \/>\nReviewed by Kent Manthie<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To-Bo, a German experimental noise band has been bopping around various underground labels and now, the latest, <em>Malaria<\/em> has just appeared on Dark Meadow Recordings.<\/p>\n<p>Their work is\u2026well, it\u2019s an \u201cacquired taste\u201d, meaning that it will probably never be heard on any commercial outlet.  This is, like, true industrial &#8211; total noise; no vocals, no harmony, melody or any \u201cnormal\u201d song structure.<\/p>\n<p><em>Malaria<\/em> contains four tracks that bleed into one another:  \u201cMalaria\u201d, \u201cDeath By Insects\u201d, \u201cEpedemie\u201d and \u201cEndstatum Tot\u201d.<br \/>\nThe opening, title track is only 1:07, I suppose you could say it\u2019s an overture, of sorts.  The next three songs are 12 minutes, four minutes and 22 \u00bd minutes, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>More than just \u201cindie\u201d, To-Bo come from way underground, from the German school of minimalistic noise.  It would fit in nicely at some independent record store (Rasputin in Berkeley, for one or Streetlight Records in San Francisco, to name just two legendary record stores) or at a Goth party, a vampire get-together or a human sacrifice in some border town in AZ or TX or Dresden.<\/p>\n<p>Self-described as part of the \u201cHomemade Music Movement\u201d, To-Bo\u2019s stuff is about as homemade as a fertilizer bomb and almost as destructive &#8211; at least to the psyche and ears, if you&#8217;re delicate.<\/p>\n<p>Now, just because they\u2019re German, don\u2019t get any stereotypical ideas about them.  The noise-rock is just that &#8211; pure noise, but of course, since my 10 year old cousin could put noise together and burn a CD there is obviously more to it than the sound.  It seems to be part of a nihilistic, devil-may-care (cuz who else does?) cacophonous rant.  The intensity of the thrashing and reverberating buzzing and machine-screaming seems, to me, anyway, to evoke a cynical mind-set about the world of 2011:  a global economy that is so tied together that one false move and the whole house of cards comes crashing down; this is the sound of that hanging-by-a-thread economy imploding.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s face it:  someone had to step up and do it and since there has been so much written and pontificated about the ills of living on borrowed time and borrowed money, To-Bo doesn\u2019t need to add any more polemics or punditry on the myriad octopus effects, so the next step is to just pummel the masses with <em>Malaria<\/em>, a complex mass of sounds.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; KM<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To-Bo, Malaria Dark Meadow Recordings, 2011, darkmeadowrecordings.com Reviewed by Kent Manthie To-Bo, a German experimental noise band has been bopping around various underground labels and now, the latest, Malaria has just appeared on Dark Meadow Recordings. Their work is\u2026well, it\u2019s an \u201cacquired taste\u201d, meaning that it will probably never be heard on any commercial outlet. This is, like, true industrial [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,574,573],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-art","category-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4530,"url":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2011\/04\/17\/the-dark-meadow-alliance\/","url_meta":{"origin":4581,"position":0},"title":"cd review: i Am Esper, Glowing Valleys","author":"Kent","date":"April 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"[cd review]i Am Esper, Glowing ValleysTHE DARK MEADOW ALLIANCE, part one Dark Meadow Recordings, 2011 Reviewed by Kent Manthie Since the middle part of this decade, Justin Palmieri has been working hard under the pseudonym, \u201cEsper\u201d. 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