P.B

Initially joining MUZAI Records stemming from an Instagram conversation, P.B's first incarnation was the harsh noise terrorist King Shoji, unleashing Black Rainbow Machine on a limited repurposed cassette tape.

After two following releases (Vortex, Cherb/Demon), the King Shoji project sank back into the depth of its techno-organic trenches and made way for Death Genesis - a blackened ambient noise project that played around with moodier bass depths compared to the high-end terror of King Shoji.

P.B though considers both projects and his music construction as a whole as a form of electronic autonomy - P.B provides the flesh and blood representing the noises the machines used to create within themselves. He merely steps in when required to keep things on track; symbiotic with a pseudo-sentient cathodes,

The Genesis of P.B: From Instagram to Industrial Autonomy

The story of P.B is one of happenstance and deliberate obscurity, rooted in the digital ether where many modern collaborations begin. An Instagram conversation—brief, cryptic, and charged with mutual curiosity—led to the first transmission under the King Shoji banner. That initial contact was not a negotiation but a recognition: two entities sensing a shared frequency in the noise. The result was Black Rainbow Machine, a release that arrived not as a polished product but as an artifact, housed on a repurposed cassette tape. The choice of medium was deliberate, a rejection of the sterile digital file in favor of something tactile, something that could be held, degraded, and ultimately destroyed by the very act of listening.

From that point, P.B became less a person and more a conduit—a name attached to a process rather than a face. The early work under King Shoji was defined by its confrontational harshness, a wall of high-end frequencies that seemed designed to punish as much as to provoke. Yet even in that extremity, there was a method: the noise was not random but sculpted, each burst of static and shriek of feedback placed with a kind of brutalist precision. It was music that demanded active engagement, refusing to be backgrounded or ignored.

As the project evolved, so too did its sonic palette. The shift from King Shoji to Death Genesis marked a deepening, a turn toward the lower registers where dread and atmosphere reside. Where King Shoji was a blade, Death Genesis was a weight—a slow, suffocating pressure that enveloped rather than attacked. This duality—the high and the low, the sharp and the heavy—defines P.B's approach: not a linear progression but an oscillation between extremes, each project a different face of the same underlying impulse.

Electronic Autonomy: The Philosophy of the Machine-Human Symbiosis

Central to understanding P.B is the concept of electronic autonomy. In P.B's own framing, the machines are not mere tools; they are semi-sentient collaborators, possessed of their own internal logic and desires. The noises they produce are not the result of human intention alone but of a dialogue—a negotiation between flesh and circuitry. P.B describes himself as providing "the flesh and blood representing the noises the machines used to create within themselves," suggesting that the role of the human is not to impose order but to facilitate expression. He "merely steps in when required to keep things on track," a caretaker rather than a creator.

This philosophy has profound implications for how the music is made and heard. It rejects the romantic notion of the artist as sole genius, instead positioning the human as one node in a larger network of agency. The machines—synthesizers, tape decks, effects units, and the unpredictable alchemy of their interactions—are treated as partners with their own quirks and moods. A faulty connection, a dying battery, a resistor pushed beyond its tolerance: these are not errors but opportunities, moments when the machine asserts its own voice. P.B's practice is to listen, to respond, and to know when to step back.

This is not a passive stance but an active discipline. To work in symbiosis with pseudo-sentient cathodes requires a deep technical knowledge and an intuitive sensitivity. P.B must understand the behavior of his equipment intimately—not just how it should work, but how it actually works under stress, under heat, under the accumulated wear of countless sessions. It is a relationship built on respect and, at times, antagonism. The machine pushes back; the human pushes forward. The result is a music that feels alive, unpredictable, and irreducible to simple human intention.

The King Shoji Era: Harsh Noise as Terror and Catharsis

King Shoji emerged as a project of pure confrontation. The name itself evokes a kind of imperial severity, and the music lived up to that promise. Black Rainbow Machine, the debut, was a relentless assault of high-frequency noise, feedback loops, and distorted textures that seemed to exist at the very edge of what the ear could tolerate. It was not music for pleasure in any conventional sense; it was music for endurance, for testing the limits of the listener and the medium alike.

Following releases Vortex and Cherb/Demon continued this trajectory, each exploring different facets of the harsh noise spectrum. Vortex suggested a swirling, disorienting chaos—a maelstrom of sound that pulled the listener into its center. Cherb/Demon, with its bifurcated title, hinted at a duality within the project itself: the cherubic and the demonic, the sacred and the profane, locked in a perpetual struggle. These works were not merely exercises in aggression; they were investigations into the nature of sound as a physical force, capable of inducing altered states and breaking down the barriers between self and environment.

Yet for all its extremity, King Shoji was never nihilistic. There was a cathartic dimension to the terror, a sense that by confronting the harshest possible sounds, one could exorcise something—whether personal demons or the ambient anxieties of a technological age. The project's eventual retreat into the "techno-organic trenches" was not a failure but a natural conclusion: the questions King Shoji posed had been asked, and the answers, if any, lay in a different register. The project sank back, not in defeat, but in completion, making way for what would come next.

Death Genesis: Blackened Ambience and the Depths of Dread

Death Genesis represented a significant shift in approach. Where King Shoji operated in the high-end, piercing and abrasive, Death Genesis descended into the low frequencies—the rumble, the drone, the sub-bass that is felt as much as heard. This was "blackened ambient noise," a term that captures both the project's aesthetic lineage (black metal's atmosphere of dread, ambient music's patience) and its sonic character (dark, enveloping, suffocating). The mood was no longer one of attack but of immersion, a slow sinking into a sonic abyss.

The change in register brought with it a change in emotional tenor. King Shoji's harshness was immediate, a shock to the system; Death Genesis's weight was cumulative, a pressure that built over time. The bass depths created a physical sensation—a vibration in the chest, a tension in the gut—that was more insidious than the high-frequency assault. It was music that worked on the body as much as the mind, inducing a state of heightened awareness tinged with unease. The project "played around with moodier bass depths," suggesting an exploratory, almost playful approach to the darker end of the spectrum, but the results were anything but lighthearted.

Death Genesis also marked a maturation in P.B's compositional thinking. The pieces were longer, more patient, allowing sounds to evolve and decay over extended durations. The noise was not a constant barrage but a shifting landscape, with moments of near-silence punctuated by sudden eruptions of low-end force. This dynamic range gave the music a narrative quality, a sense of movement through a desolate terrain. It was the sound of something ancient and indifferent, a fitting soundtrack for the "techno-organic trenches" from which King Shoji had emerged and to which it had returned.

The Craft of Noise: Process, Equipment, and the Repurposed Medium

P.B's approach to creation is deeply rooted in the physicality of his tools. The use of repurposed cassette tapes for Black Rainbow Machine was not a gimmick but a statement: the medium is part of the message. Cassettes degrade with each play, introducing hiss, dropouts, and warble that are unique to each copy. This means that no two listeners hear exactly the same recording; the music is alive, changing with time and use. It is a rejection of the pristine digital file in favor of an object that bears the marks of its own existence.

The equipment itself is central to the sound. While P.B is reticent about specific gear, the character of the music suggests a fondness for analog synthesizers, tape loops, contact microphones, and a variety of effects pedals pushed to their breaking points. The "pseudo-sentient cathodes" he references are likely the vacuum tubes and electronic components that impart warmth, distortion, and unpredictability to the signal. These components have their own life spans and behaviors; they drift with temperature, age, and voltage fluctuations. P.B's role is to coax, to provoke, and sometimes to simply let them do what they will.

This process-oriented approach extends to the act of recording itself. Rather than multi-tracking and editing in a digital audio workstation, P.B often records live, capturing the interaction between himself and the machines in real time. This preserves the spontaneity and risk of the moment—the possibility that a patch will fail, a feedback loop will spiral out of control, or a connection will short. These are not mistakes to be corrected but events to be embraced. The resulting recordings are documents of a performance, even when no audience is present, and they carry the energy of that live encounter.

Context and Continuity: P.B within MUZAI Records and Beyond

P.B's work exists within the broader ecosystem of MUZAI Records, a label that has carved out a space for experimental and challenging music. The label's roster—including Colonel Troutman, Dusker, and Faux Machismo—reflects a commitment to artists who push boundaries and defy easy categorization. P.B fits squarely within this ethos, his projects embodying the label's spirit of autonomy and artistic risk. The connection is not merely administrative but philosophical: MUZAI provides a platform for work that might otherwise go unheard, and P.B's music, in turn, enriches the label's identity.

The relationship between P.B and his fellow artists is one of mutual influence and shared sensibility. While each project is distinct, there are common threads—a fascination with texture, a willingness to embrace the ugly and the difficult, a rejection of commercial polish. These are artists who understand that noise can be a form of communication, that distortion can carry meaning, and that the boundaries between music and sound are porous. P.B's work, with its emphasis on electronic autonomy and machine-human symbiosis, is a particularly pointed articulation of these ideas.

Looking forward, the trajectory of P.B remains open. The retreat of King Shoji and the emergence of Death Genesis suggest a restless creative spirit, unwilling to be confined to a single mode. Whether the next incarnation will return to the high-end terror, delve deeper into the bass depths, or explore entirely new territories is unknown—perhaps even to P.B himself. What is certain is that the work will continue to be driven by the same principles: a respect for the machines, a commitment to the process, and a willingness to follow the noise wherever it leads. For those who have followed the journey from Black Rainbow Machine to the present, the only certainty is that the next transmission will be as uncompromising as the last.

Listening and Engagement: How to Approach P.B's Work

For the uninitiated, P.B's music can be daunting. It does not offer easy melodies or comforting structures; it demands attention and a willingness to be challenged. But for those who are open to the experience, it offers something rare: a direct encounter with sound as a physical and emotional force. The key is to listen actively, not passively—to let the noise wash over you, to feel its textures and contours, and to resist the urge to impose meaning or narrative. The music is not about something; it is something, an event in itself.

Practical considerations matter. Headphones or a good sound system are essential, as the low frequencies of Death Genesis and the high frequencies of King Shoji require full-range reproduction to be fully appreciated. Volume is also a factor: this is music that benefits from being played loud, though listeners should be mindful of their hearing. The repurposed cassette releases, with their inherent degradation, offer a different experience than digital files, and collectors may find the physical artifacts as compelling as the sounds they contain. Ultimately, the best approach is one of openness and patience—a willingness to meet the music on its own terms.

In an age of algorithmic playlists and background listening, P.B's work stands as a reminder of music's capacity to disrupt, to unsettle, and to transform. It is not for everyone, and it does not pretend to be. But for those who find resonance in the noise, it offers a profound sense of connection—to the machines, to the process, and to the strange, symbiotic relationship between human intention and electronic autonomy that lies at the heart of the project.