Scott Walker : Bish Bosch

All shadowplay mixed with discordant jabs of odd instrumentation and noise, Scott Walker's latest opus, Bish Bosch(4AD), ranks as one of the finest releases of the year. Scott's sound pictures are dark indeed, the bastard son of Ad Reinhardt's black paintings woven through with Cy Twombly psycho-squiggles, along with healthy doses of black humor. Unlike his last release The Drift that was populated with deep architectural drones, Bish Bosch is an angular tapestry sounding not unlike modernist serial music where silence provides a backdrop for the sounds of metal guitar, clanging swords, gargantuan drums and actual flatulence. All of this is recorded with pristine detail that further enhances its immediacy, its  almost sickening expressiveness. This is beautiful brutality. Francis Bacon would be proud.