Cop Shoot Cop
White Noise

Only "White Noise" is missing to complete the trilogy of the great albums by Cop Shoot Cop on DeBaser, tempestuous sonic innovators in the Big Apple in the early '90s.

Chronologically placed between the harsh urban apocalypse staged by "Consumer Revolt" and the more polished major debut of "Ask Questions Later," "White Noise" is perhaps the most significant work of the ensemble led by Tod Ashley: the best intersection of compositional ideas, experimentation, and impactful violence.

Within the multifaceted noise scene of NYC, Cop Shoot Cop represents, along with Unsane, a kind of "third way". Not ostentatiously intellectual like Sonic Youth or Pussy Galore, not simply brutal and brazen like Helmet or Biohazard: the poor metropolitan scenarios and the attack on the system are presented by our group in a more ambiguous and lethal manner, probably more effective.
In the era of the peak of guitars (between grunge, industrial, and crossover), in the sound formula of Cop Shoot Cop instead of incandescent lava flows erupted by the six-string, there are unusual solutions: a double bass played simultaneously and a sampler used as a real instrument, capable of releasing venomous electronic waste.

The results are surprisingly subversive: the tearing and aphasic atmospheres that envelop anthems like "Discount rebellion" or "Coldest day of the year", the sarcastic "Feel good" or the haunted electronic vaudeville of "Hung again" certainly deserve an adjective like "claustrophobic", which will be too often overused in the following years. Also impressive is "Chamaleon": the interaction between obsessively bruised basslines, furiously powerful percussion, and a deafening sampler creates moments of absolute fury, while Jack Natz obsessively repeats "Change what you cannot accept / do not accept what you cannot change". A perfect cinematic visualization of the cyberpunk scenarios that writers like William Gibson propose in those years, an ideal soundtrack for a sequel to the post-apocalyptic settings of Blade Runner.

Some shards fall into this groove like "Where's the money" or "Corporate protopop", delirious and scathing advertising fragments, between skewed samples and loops, of a dehumanized civilization. The message of the poignant "If tomorrow ever comes" and the bitter "Traitor/Martyr" is clear: the end has already come, heroism and struggle are the last frontier of dignity.

This combination of music charged with emotional tension and the weltanschauung copshootcoppiana probably finds its zenith in the sulfurous noise symphony (the seminal Foetus is just around the corner) appropriately titled "Empires collapse": the terminal nightmare of a society on the brink.