"Perhaps Endo has always been a bit of a gear fetishist. Back when he was performing as Killer Bug he would literally “play” his signature springloaded-washboard-thingy, AKA Killer Bug. The Killer Bug – the gear - as performer, Kazumoto Endo - the man - as the, um, low-paid techie? When the name changed to Kazumoto Endo, the Killer Bug left the stage to be replaced by... laptop. And, it ought to be said, a significantly diminished stage presence, to go with a significantly diminished interest in earhole destruction. Not a lot of recorded output released in the laptop period, and when he would return to the stage in all-analog mode it was as... Killer Bug, with Killer Bug center stage. (Subequent performances as Kazumoto Endo would feature something rather Killer Bug-esque but we'll ignore that for the moment.) Now here comes Endo or should we say, here comes Quattro Pulsanti Bomba. A straight-ahead piece of gear responsible for a straight-ahead piece of work. With the four pulsanti in action, this is as frantic as anything released via the cut-up workings of the earlier Endo; but without apparent studio editing/trickery, this is much more rough, unrefined, rugged. Ragged-edged. I could very much imagine Endo delivering the exact performance here recorded live, on stage: the man, the gear, the new legend to be born? Well, I suppose it depends on what your expectations are of your Endo at this, um, stage. Yes, the edges certainly, are ragged, which is, of course, great! But persuasiveness comes via the very raw materials proffered: blistering sharp, bristling fury. Never has Endo sounded this brutally harsh. And never, not since Killer Bug, has dead air been so violently cleared. Straight-ahead blast, exploding momentarily across channel pan, crinkling into near null-fidelity... very hard to offer a play-by-play without sounding like a fucking spastic. Still I'd hesitate to call this random: each abbreviated event feeds directly into the next, the barest hint of subtle manipulation betraying a tell-tale care, and control. Erratic, certainly, as erratic as fidelity proper is shredded, with heavily percussive cut-up-ish textures achieving a kind of constantly unsettled, er, shreddus interruptus. A bit of a strain; re-strained, even. Net impact: as frenetic as one might hope, if not all that fast-paced, and never straying far from the essential quattro-layered attack, fenced in, finally, by a consistency quite well-defined. In any whathaveyou, those unpersuaded by the Endo mixwork gracing the recent full-length Bonini-Endo collab, to which this is to be regarded as a prelude, will not be won over by the raggedy Quattro-textures on tap, and may I therefore direct the sagacious seeker of sustained sonic-sensual satisfaction to the satiation to be derived on the flip-side, courtesy Encephalophonic. Encephalo hits immediately, hard, with tightly focused fits of metal-pronged stabbing. Buttloads of painstakingly edited fragments compressed into the most fleeting of spasms. This was just in case you thought the Endo side wasn't spastic enough. Very little deviation from the subject at hand: that of acoustic junk sources punched in stuttered, arrhythmic, fashion to splat out a net, crunch-filtered, epilepsy. Repetitive, crunch-filtered, epilepsy. Sounds like someone's been listening to way too much Pain Jerk, staring at Retrogress-ive album covers, and has somehow drawn all the wrong (right!) conclusions. Repetitive, crunch filtered, epilepsy. Muttering to himself in frenzied self-reassurance: “Sounds For Buttphone. Sounds For Buttphone! G-G-G-Gomi-s-s-s-sss-ssan had the right idea, the right idea.. ye-ess – CUM ALERT! - but never quite realized, NO!, his true, his true, his TRUE potential. The fu- the fu- the FOOL! Yes, yes, it's okay my little piss angel, yesss, you know you want it...” Ahem. Pardon me there. May I say something? I mean, look mate, the shit does not necessarily have to sound like this, okay? Not necessarily. But how can one assign blame when the vision is so purely, so convincingly, staked? Repetitive, crunch-filtered, epilepsy. No doubts at all, I am a convert. Hook me up to my Electronomicon and be done with it. FUCK! Massed junk armada: unload. Smash in. Smash through. Smash. Smash-smash-smash. This was in case you thought the Endo side wasn't percussive enough. A thousand shards of scintillating textural rrriiiiip." (Special Interests '14)"Damn! Started today by listening ENCEPHALOPHONIC / KAZUMOTO ENDO split 7", and haven't reached to move away from it. Just replaying side, and flipping once in a while.I don't know why, but I feel this is the best Kazumoto Endo for long time?! Everything about it, is faithful to Endo style, but lacking all those dramatic silences I dislike, and focus on fast, loud, ultra distorted harsh noise that is sliced into quickly changing cuts of noise, sometimes one thing happening at the time, sometimes little more density added in form of multiple layers coming and going. However, ENCEPHALOPHONIC remains still little bit more tastier. His style of composition, sounds and most of all ability to blend the transitions little better than simply razor sharp abrupt cut. Smoothly running solid harsh noise piece is something you could mix 94 Merzbow, 95 Pain Jerk and Sickness of 2000's, yet I feel artist operates in such a timeless approach of noise that comparing it to all the famous hardly does justice.I also feel, that as much as 7" vinyl might limit the forcefulness of loud harsh noise (compared to flat 0dB digital release), it actually made this material better than it digitally was?! Maybe that's exactly reason why Endo sounded so good too!Color vinyl, full color glossy cover. Small edition. And because of these qualities, little pricey. But for me, it already has rotated so many times it's well worth of money!" (Special Interest forum)