It's all about the Knees & Bones.
For the longest time I suspected that the brief K&B "1983" feedback-wank session represented CB's only legitimate foray into genuinely harsh noise. The following were then to be regarded as re-presentation / re-mastering / re-mixing of the same material:
Knees & Bones
Plegm Bag Spattered
Bladder Bags and Interludes (most of it)
Shanked and Slithering (the two long tracks)
This suspicion was briefly halted when CB released Bladder Bags and Interludes (Vanilla, JPN) on the heels of their submission to the World Record compilation (Alchemy, JPN). The liners for both described the material as representing "all new" harsh noise work from "1991". (Quoth Mikawa in the latter, "This work, 'Shoving Stump,' is, according to them, their first noise work since 1984." [emphasis added. Could Mikawa have harbored his own suspicions?]) Suspicions were nevertheless raised anew upon perusing the material and finding it to share more than few cubits of air with Plegm Bag Spattered – itself supposedly consisting of "out-takes" from Knees & Bones. Not to mention the fact that one of the "all new" "1991" tracks on Bladder Bags is described as a remix of Knees & Bones, but sounds no different from any of the other "all new" "1991" material... anyone following me?
None of this mattered much since Bladder Bags, in conjunction with the World Record submission, "Shoving Stump", was – and still is – by far and away the best harsh work CB have ever released. The sound pressure is just that much more forceful; and where Plegm Bag tends to devolve a little bit overmuch into aimless wankery, Bladder Bags is simply full on all the way through. Parts sound like some kind of ultra-slow-death swans-punk-pounding enveloped by masses of scorching hell. Other parts divest themselves of any lingering note of musicality and leave the aural passages with the scorching hell. Plus the mastering really emphasizes the brutality of the sound. "Shoving Stump" is practically onomatopoeic in its thud-flubbering scud-huffery.
Then Shanked and Slithering comes out and the liner notes this time describe the Bladder Bags material as having been recorded in "1986". Geesh. Shanked and Slithering commits the mortal sin of indexing the first four short tracks off Bladder Bags into one fat one, and then just arbitrarily snipping five minutes off the end of the fourth track. The mastering is indeed shite but enjoyable for all that. Much as I appreciate the heaving dynamism on Bladder Bags, Shanked is just that bit harsher. And in any case is worth having for two things: the awesome "Dry Lung"("2004"), which at times approaches the psychedelic intensity of a live Incapacitants set; and "Swallowing No 5 (Power Mix)", a wonderfully dense concoction apparently recorded in "1985".
My favorite "harsh" CB moment, however, appears on the otherwise hit-and-miss Body Samples. Haven't listened to it for ages, but the memory is crystal clear. Somewhere in the middle of the recording, this lovely lilting bit of glittering ambience is rudely interrupted with a dose of CB at their very harshest, a drilling redzone scorcher that wouldn't sound out of place on a 90's Incapacitants album.
EDIT But the recent 5-disc box is the easy value-added winner, Shitslipper or no.
