Bish Bosch

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SCOTT WALKER
BISH BOSCH

Australia

"Fascinating stuff. Troubling and tantalising. You tempted? Scared off?" - Sydney Morning Herald (3.5/5)

"It’s that rare album where you’re driven to pore over every detail trying to decipher the thing"" - The Big Issue (4/5)

"It’s a challenging listen - indeed, the frequencies occasionally feel like their intention is to induce nausea - but Bish Bosch is a very interesting album made by a man with a distinctive vision." - The Music Network

"Fascinating Stuff. Troubling and tantalising" - The Age - Life & Style (3.5/5)

"Sounds madder and more maddening than ever, with his radical, ridiculous avant-garde-ism turning the tragedy of The Drift in to a bizarre comedy " - The Age - EG (4/5)

"The world needs more people like the 69 year old Ohio native. His 14th album will no doubt convince a few beige indie rock dudes to go crazy with the cheese whiz." - Herald Sun - Hit (4/5)

Canada

"Bish Bosch is also a gorgeous block of polished obsidian humming in the moonlight. Its nearest cousin might be the darkest films of David Lynch, produced at the highest levels of craft.In today’s recording industry, it’s hard to grasp how this paradoxical artifact exists. The answer lies in the aura of its nearly septuagenarian creator, Scott Walker." - The Globe & Mail (3.5 / 4)

"Tonally and lyrically, Walker is bang-on, blending that dramatic, industrial, Foley-driven horror movie soundtrack with his inimitable, mock-operatic vocals. At turns terrifying, confounding and darkly amusing, the tension never lets up, even during 22-minute centrepiece "SDSS14+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)...Scott Walker is one of the true geniuses of modern music and the treasures are as rich as ever for those prepared to go the distance." - Exclaim (8/10)

"Those without patience will dismiss this album, like they did its two predecessors, as inaccessible, avant-garde noise. But listeners with a flair for adventure will find a master at work again." - Montreal Gazette (4.5/5)

"As densely constructed and sonically assaultive as any of its predecessors, Bish Bosch seems unlikely to win fresh converts to the Church of Scott—most people don’t like to take this kind of abuse. Walker has expanded his arsenal of sounds to include blows from machetes and good oldfashioned farts, but Bish Bosch still contains some of his most arresting and gripping compositions to date." - The Grid (9/10)

"The way Walker uses protracted stretches of silence in the disc's 22-minute centerpiece, "SDSS 1416+13B (Zercon, a Flagpole sitter)," is particularly exciting, making the listener apprehensive about what variety of sonic hell is about to be unleashed (and, incidentally, where else will you find Roman numerals used as a hook?). The sharpening of machetes as percussion in "Tar" go right through you." - DOSE (4.5/5)

"There is simply no one to compare him to, and anyone with a restless spirit will embrace this as arguably the most original music of the year." - Toronto Star

Denmark

"Som en tiltrængt og lige så afhængighedsskabende modgift, man må vende tilbage til" - Politiken (5/6)

"Ja, man kunne sågar hævde, at Scott Walker har begået et af karrierens bedste album" - Soundvenue (5/6)

"Avantgarderockens ener smelter himmel og helvede sammen" - Gaffa (5/6)

" ... og endnu et mesterligt værk fra enegængeren Scott Walker" - Information

Eire

'Bish Bosch is jarring and lyrical, at once beautiful and uncompromising' - Irish Times (5/5)

'I would die for his right to make these things' - Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy (The Works TV show)

Finland

"Bish Bosch ei ole askel tyhjyyteen vaan uusi löydös vallatulla maaperällä" - Rumba (3.5/5)

"Bisch Bosh on musiikin muotoon sävelletty nykyruno, jossa kielellinen abstraktius on muunnettu ääneksi" - Rumba (3.5/5)

"Levyn täydellisen selkeä soundi kielii äärimmäisestä huolellisuudesta ja ammattitaidosta" - Soundi (5/5)

"Milloin viimeksi olet musiikkia kuunnellessasi pelännyt? Säpsähdellyt, luullut kuulevasi omiasi ja huomannut pulssin kohoavan?" - Soundi (5/5)

"Tämä on yksinkertaisesti musiikkia, jota on helppo ihailla, mutta hankala rakastaa" NRGM.fi (75/100)

France

« Tout l’album raconte l’échec, la fin et la perte, mais dans des formes si précises, si aiguës que tous ces récits de désolation sont mis à distance, y compris par l’humour noir à froid de Walker. Au fond, Bisch Bosch est une grande messe mortuaire, le monologue opératique d’un désespoir noir d’encre, transpercé ça et là d’éclats métalliques et de lames orchestrales glaçantes. (…) Plus que jamais, Walker use de silences et de formats inhabituels, n’hésitant pas à étirer Zercon sur plus de vingt minutes d’orchestrations abstraites, ou faisant intervenir les instruments à contre- temps. (…) Ce disque n’appartient clairement pas à l’actualité discographique, celle qui fait circuler dans un temps toujours plus rapide le flux accéléré de la musique. » - Chronicart (5/5)

« Bisch Bosch dégage, avec ses invectives, ses stridences et ses chocs, la même indescriptible et humiliante majesté que ses prédécesseurs. Avis aux oreilles les plus hardies. » - Jalouse

« Bisch Bosch constitue un territoire miné : n’y pénétrer qu’en connaissance de cause. Mais l’expérience est ébouriffante. » - KR Recording

« A la fois solennel et orgiaque, hilarant et pétrifiant, monstrueux et superbe.(…) Parce qu’il emploie ses acquis au service d’une ultime déstructuration, Bisch Bosch est la suite et le point d’orgue (de The Drift). Une remise en question de la chanson même, comprise ici, non plus comme une entité de sens et de composition unitaire mais comme un découpage défini presque arbitrairement au sein d’un album qui, au contraire, apparaît comme un tout homogène mais pénétrable par n’importe quelle entrée. Il faut être l’homme le plus libre du monde pour composer un disque pareil. » - Les Inrockuptibles

« En suspens, amusé et virtuose, Bisch Bosch est l’œuvre d’un grand compositeur de notre époque. Pour le public de 2012 enseveli de musique, c’est également un moment rare d’exploration participative. » - Liberation

« Bisch Bosch est un nouveau bâtiment, dense et anguleux, mais plus ouvert, plus brut et plus sauvage également (…) Fonctionnant plus que jamais par succession et concrétion de blocs intégrant sa voix aux sons et orchestrations, Bisch Bosch est un maelström crypto- sonique dont l’écoute procure d’abord une intense sensation de vertige avant de susciter une vive admiration. Voici une musique qui continue d’aller plus loin de son époque. » - Mouvement

« Vertigineux et tendu » - Obsession

« Bisch Bosch ne ressemble à rien de connu. Etrange, déroutant mais fascinant, Scott Walker ne laisse pas indifférent. » - Tsugi

« L’exigence que requiert Bisch Bosch n’offensera pas les adeptes de la chute libre. Scott Walker réussit avec une grâce sombre là où Lou Reed échoue depuis années à mettre en sons et textures sonores une picturalité trouble. » - Vibrations

Germany

De:Bug: Was für eine Herausforderung. Was für ein Außerweltmusik-Trip.

Rolling Stone: Scott Walkers faszinierendes Werk entzieht sich jeder Einordnung - (Album des Monats)

Eclipsed: Scott Walker ist das enigmatische Genie des Rock.

Sonic Seducer: „Bish Bosh" ist ein unübersehbar mit dem Zaunpfahl wedelnder Kandidat für die Platte des Jahres.

Spiegel Online: Selten war Unhörbarkeit so vergnüglich.

SZ: Scott Walker neues Album „Bish Bosh" verstört und ist gleichzeitig sagenhaft konkret

Die Zeit: In Scott Walkers Klangraum herrscht Krieg.

Der Tagesspiegel: Und so eine Musik, nein, so eine Musik hat man wirklich noch nie gehört.

Spex: Scott Walker kartographiert neue Sound-Welten.

Greece

Ζοφερό και δυσοίωνο, το καινούργιο πόνημα του Scott Walker μοιάζει με ένα installation σε μία παλιακή γκαλερί. Κομίζει τον άχαρο εαυτό του ως αλλαζονικό, ματαιόδοξο σατράπη στις αισθήσεις των "ακροατών" του και ευαγγελίζεται κάποιους δαίμονες που σίγουρα δεν θα είχαν εμφανιστεί αν δεν τους έφερνε στην επιφάνεια ο δημιουργός τους - Jumping Fish

Holland

"Een meesterwerk" - HP/De Tijd (5/5)

"De muziek grijpt je onmiddellijk bij de strot." - Volkskrant (5/5)

"Geen gemakkelijke kost, wel een unieke expressie van een persoonlijkheid" - Dagblad van het Noorden (5/5)

"Het is uiterst radicale pop, met een enorme ideeën dichtheid en bepaald niet gemakkelijk. Maar wel fantastisch." - Leeuwarder Courant (4/5)

"Een gemakkelijke luisterervaring is het niet, wie het einde van dit uitdagende album haalt, is emotioneel danig door elkaar geschud." - NRC Handelsblad (3/5)

Italy

un onore vero per chi può respirare a fondo questa fragranza." Blow Up - Album Of The Month

"Walker ci ha consegnato il prototipo operativo di un’inusitata canzone del terzo millennio." Rumore - Album Of The Month (9/10)

"irrinunciabile." XL - Album Of The Month (8.5/10)

"Ancora una volta unico, difficilissimo ed essenziale" Mucchio Selvaggio - Album Of The Month (9/10)

"Bish Bosch è un’opera smisurata che si può magari respingere, ma di certo non ignorare." Rolling Stone (5/5)

"Genio all’opera" Il Giornale Della Musica

"Un lavoro che ha tutto il gusto sovversivo, e stranamente vintage, del moderno capolavoro." Rockerilla

"Un disco difficile: l’attenzione che richiede viene ripagata da un elettrizzante senso di avventura." Jam (4/5)

"Grande, insondabile Walker" Suono

"Difficilissimo ed ammaliante" L’Unita

"Lavoro prezioso da assimilare con cautela, un poco alla volta, e prendendosi un bel po’ di tempo" La Voce Di Mantova (8/10)

"L’esorcismo è compiuto, la catarsi è servita." ondarock.it - Album Of The Month (8.5/10)

"un’esperienza sonica totalizzante ed immersiva." Sentireascoltare (8.5/10)

"una cosa è certa: non c’è mai stato nulla di neanche lontanamente simile alla musica di questo disco" Fard Rock (8/10)

"Disco Totalitario e affatto egualitario, che necessita mesi e concede secoli, che richiede studio" La Bottega Di Hamlin (5/5)

"un disco situato sul limen dopo il quale il rock perde le sue capacità espressive" Outsiders (9/10)

Poland

"To surowa płyta, mroczna, niewygodna - ale jednocześnie intryguje i wciąga. Tylko boję się jej słuchać po ciemku." - Przekrój (5/5)

"Scott Walker stworzył najbardziej ryzykowny album w swojej karierze. Brzmieniowe i tekstowe eksperymenty w swej radykalności ocierają się tu czasem o muzyczną grafomanię. (...) Można go tylko pokochać lub znienawidzić." - Wprost

"Spacer po świecie z obrazów Bosha? Mroczna wizja matriarchatu? A może rzut oka na XX-wieczne dyktatury? Zresztą czy jedno wyklucza drugie? Nowa Płyta Scotta Walkera to dobry soundtrack do przemyślenia tego tematu." - Uważam Rze

"Echa melodii pozostają ukryte w industrialnych pogłosach, dźwiękach maszyn, niemal religijnym zaśpiewie." - Newsweek (4/5)

Portugal

"Porque é que ouvimos isto? Não será só pelo mito. Há algo de masoquista em expormo-nos a esta violência emocional, em lidar com um disco cujas dinâmicas são sempre um mistério - o ser humano tende a retirar algum prazer da repetição e Walker mina esse nosso apreço demorando cinco, dez, 15 minutos a repetir uma frase melódica. Mas, raios, há pouca gente capaz de fazer discos tão fascinantes, tão inesperados, tão exigentes. Bish Bosch é um buraco negro com uma estranha característica: ocasionalmente é penetrado pela luz; e essa luz, para quem começa a habituar-se à escuridão. é de uma beleza extrema." - Público (4\5)

"Se a experiência de escutar o novo disco de Scott Walker é impossível de esquecer, também nunca se dirá que é prazer o que dela se retira" - Expresso (4\5)

"Bish Bosch é uma missa no purgatório, uma epopeia sónica em que só embarca quem não quiser voltar. Morre-se neste sono hipnagógico, só Scott Walker regressa (para enterrar quem ousar fugir)." - Blitz (4\5)

"Há pontuais frestas de melodismo, mas é de sons, de texturas e acontecimentos que vive a alma desta música tão intrigante quanto cativante." - DN (4\5)

"isto não é para estômagos fáceis" - Bodyspace

Sweden

"En fascinerande mardrömsresa" - Svenska Dagbladet

"Om du är en människa med känsel i ditt hjärta är "Bish Bosch" helt enkelt något för dig" - Sonic

"Oförlåtande och samtidigt beroendeframkallande avantgarde." - Gaffa

UK

"The real skill lies in the fact that the results frequently affect the listener's gut before the brain." - The Guardian (Album of the Week)

"An album of startling invention." - MOJO (Album of the Month)

"Walker is almost unique in his generation in continuing to provide mind-food instead of cosy nostalgia." - The Independent on Sunday (CD of the Week)

"I know I'll be listening to (Bish Bosch) for years." - The Line of Best Fit (9/10)

"Nobody can touch Walker as an engrossing and madcap visionary." - Time Out (Album of the Week)

"There's a strangely addictive quality to hearing something quite so aggressively sui generis as (Bish Bosch)." - The Independent (Album of the Week)

"Bish Bosch is an anti-cult album, one that seeks to jar, disorient and remain inscrutable." - The Arts Desk (4/5)

"Truly gripping... Disturbing... Worth every minute." - This Is Fake DIY (8/10)

"Walker’s continued artistic quest sees him forge beyond music and into hallucinatory fragments and sound sculptures… a meta-work that’s ultimately utterly impossible to describe in a review: a grand riddle or a master ruse depending on your viewpoint." - Record Collector (4/5)

"Scott Walker, his psycho string section, metal guitar maniac, and heartfelt bleating’s, drags popular music into a place where it doesn’t want to go." - Standard (4/5)

"Another important album from a very important musician who truly sounds like nothing else on the planet, whose originality, though it may have taken him to dark places, shines through." - The Thing Is...

"’Bish Bosch’ is among the most exhaustingly thrilling and fearlessly intellectual explorations of what music can be (and what humanity can be) that you may ever hear." - Blasted

"Like the best progressive albums, ’Bish Bosch’ is a brave, challenging and visionary work." - Classic Prog

"He has continued to mature and develop in a late style utterly at odds with the music that made him a superstar, a lifetime ago, but which is totally honest, uncompromising and transcendent." - Deluxx Digital "Scott Walkers depiction of life, and the enduring spirit, aren’t for the faint-hearted… the sound of melancholy has never sounded so profound, revealing and stirring." - God Is In The TV

"’Bish Bosch’ can be anything… and interpretation lies within the listener, and will demand a great deal of thought. For that reason alone, this is music of exceptional status." - Notion

‘If you’ve any interest at all in adventurous music, dark music, strange music - or just music - this is absolutely unmissable." - Rock a Rolla

US

"A catalog of basic human cruelty - a subject no footnote could ever make any easier to understand." - Pitchfork (8.0)

"Walker is in a whole different dimension." - Under The Radar (8/10)

"With an artist like Walker, though, long waiting times between albums serve mostly to reinforce the idea that he is careful and deliberate, and in turn, the idea that his music is not just product, but that purest of things which cannot be rushed: Art." - Pitchfork

"This very refusal to cohere, to make sense, to play the game of identity and otherness, of harmony and disharmony, makes Bish Bosch this year’s only necessary work of art. Merry Christmas, listeners! Here’s to a lousy life!" - tinymixtapes

"Almost seemingly designed to offend, Bish Bosch could soundtrack a particularly nightmarish David Lynch film." - CMJ

"Scott Walker is still light-years away from any other pop artist of his generation, gazing into a very specific part of the void. He's the true man who fell to earth." - SPIN

"This new Scott Walker album Bish Bosch is blowing my mind. He's amazing anyway butBish Bosch is all kinds of out there. It's a hard one to suggest to anyone as it's not all that enjoyable as much as it is an amazing thing to behold. It's not a happy place record but it is sho nuff some genius work. This one on LP is incredible." - Henry Rollins

"[Walker] is stronger and scarier than ever on his violently gorgeous 14th album." - Entertainment Weekly

"What’s really amazing about Bish Bosch is that all of its myriad components are somehow pulled in to exist on the same insane planet. The source of the gravity? Walker’s immense, disgruntled-god croon, of course... As existentially terrifying as it is impossibly distant, movements of this record are transcendent—the kind that seize the nervous system (refer also to "Corps De Blah," "Phrasing" and "Epizootics!"). So why endure the horror show? If for no other reason—and there are far too many to list here—Walker’s music should be braved for the simple fact that you won’t encounter anything else like it again, ever." - FILTER

"Utterly strange, yet alluring." - AllMusic

"As much as you might want to leave, whether it’s out of fear or misunderstanding, you’re probably going to be driven by a greater desire to walk further into the darkness. Like the sugar rush addiction of upbeat pop music, there’s an alluring temptation with darkness, to be surrounded in it and to revel in it." - Beats Per Minute

"This isn't music for a first date or your grandma's next tea party. Listeners that can't stand the noise can just move on to the next pop record. Walker is in a whole different dimension." - Under The Radar

"...its sheer, lapidary obsessiveness provides its own rewards." - New York Times

"It’s a bastard of a listen — a rare, tough piece of meat too savory to spit and toss aside. One can lose themselves in this album, and early on, too, trembling under the furious assault of dystopian instrumentation. It’s fair to parallel Walker with Bosch because the two are so intricate in detail and grand in scope. [...] And while Bish Bosch isn’t nearly the departure The Drift was six years ago, there’s a sharper attention to detail and a much broader scope at bay, one that would shake the boots of even the strongest composers worldwide. What’s remarkable is that time isn’t really a problem anymore for Walker, who possesses the uncanny ability to overwhelm his followers within any duration." - Consequence of Sound (4/5)

"Wholly unique, vital, and timeless...This week ushers into the universe numerous notable releases...But unlike Bish Bosch, none of them will still be with me decades from now, teasing me, frightening me, vexing me, inviting me in, forcing me out, making me wonder, what the fuck is going on, what the fuck is he saying, what the fuck is this?" - Stereogum (Album of the Week)

"No matter which side of the road you drive on, though, everyone everywhere needs to hear Scott Walker’s new record. Like every one of his records since 1984’s Climate of Hunter, Bish Bosch, too, is album-of-the-year material... Yes, indeed, Scott Walker has a new record. And apropos of Hieronymus Bosch, Bish Bosch really is his beautiful, dark and twisted fantasy made manifest." - Dusted

"Rather than find a comfortable hole to burrow in, he's treated each new album as an occasion for further experimentation, wrenching out sounds that instruments didn't seem capable of... A big, ballsy achievement, the work of a committed artist delving further into a land of vaguely sketched nightmares." - Slant Magazine

"It’s a record that counters the assumption that intense, repeated listening is the key to cracking impenetrable work. Bish Bosch may function better as a single theatrical experience, alive in its ability to surprise, its peculiar lack of pleasure resulting in something like awe." - L Magazine

"In its execution, Walker has shown he is still an artist willing to take daredevil risks, diving, in the end, to the breathless depths needed to deliver such an odd and transcendent document as Bisch Bosch." - Mxdwn

"Like 1995’s Tilt and 2006’s The Drift before it, Bish Bosch confounds at every turn. It clatters and rattles, but also keens and sways. It scrapes and scratches but also glides smoothly (on occasion). You’d be inclined to call it post-apocalyptic with all its shadows and negative space, but really it feels like it comes from a land that can have no apocalypse, that never formed enough in the first place to have a beginning, let alone a decimating end. Walker does not mine through ruins. He never lets the structures get built in the first place. [...] These are songs, but also they are not. They are movements, but also they don’t move so much as grow and crumble in the same spot over and over again. It’s troubling and beautiful. Sometimes its conceits get in the way of both those effects...but mostly it presents us with something that could be brilliant if we could understand it. We can’t, though, it’s not set up that way...The gap between hearing Bish Bosch and understanding it [is] a cultivated one. It’s an anti-spectacle, but also an anti-mystery. Because you [are] drawn to return to it, to find the details and hidden gems that make you feel this music deeply—for better or worse—even as you know there’s no clear answer. No satisfactory one. Just the feeling, as big and broken and impossible to pin down as the album that evokes it." - PopMatters

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