Black Pus

Black Pus is the even noisier and more intense solo project of <a href="spotify:artist:2og3FOCLYXT9H7IYE6QPUq">Lightning Bolt</a> drummer and visual artist <a href="spotify:artist:7BlrmDRvku2hLFjVFzP88i">Brian Chippendale</a>. The project started out as a home-recording experiment while <a href="spotify:artist:2og3FOCLYXT9H7IYE6QPUq">Lightning Bolt</a> was already in a full-swing mode of activity in the mid-2000s, but allowed an outlet for <a href="spotify:artist:7BlrmDRvku2hLFjVFzP88i">Chippendale</a>'s surplus of uncontainable and unruly sounds. Black Pus operates intermittently, with early lo-fi recordings giving way to full-length albums like 2024's <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Thrill+Jockey%22">Thrill Jockey</a>-released Terrestrial Seethings.

Black Pus began in 2005 with <a href="spotify:artist:7BlrmDRvku2hLFjVFzP88i">Chippendale</a> recording at home and layering his frenetic drum style with multi-tracks of free jazz saxophone. The end result of these recordings was a series of Black Pus CD-R releases beginning in early 2006. While still dedicating a good deal of his time to touring and recording with <a href="spotify:artist:2og3FOCLYXT9H7IYE6QPUq">Lightning Bolt</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:7BlrmDRvku2hLFjVFzP88i">Chippendale</a> began working more on the Black Pus project, eventually playing live shows and issuing several smaller-scale releases. By 2011, <a href="spotify:artist:7BlrmDRvku2hLFjVFzP88i">Chippendale</a> had refined his approach to playing solo and dropped the jazz-based instrumentation, opting instead to complement his bombastic drumming and garbled vocal style with drum-mounted electronics that produced dark and noisy frequencies. The first proper full-length, Primordial Pus, employed this new sound and was released in 2011 on Providence, Rhode Island label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Load+Records%22">Load Records</a>. <a href="spotify:artist:7BlrmDRvku2hLFjVFzP88i">Chippendale</a> followed in 2013 with All My Relations, the most well-produced document of his often caustic sounds to date, released this time on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Thrill+Jockey+Records%22">Thrill Jockey Records</a>. The following year, Black Pus released a split LP with Chicago thrash/noise metal band <a href="spotify:artist:1eV5PI4mo2MQjY40K4NNiF">Oozing Wound</a>, as well as an LP reissue of a 2012 limited tour-only release Pus Mortem. As the 2020s dawned, more sounds from the Black Pus archives were reissued in wider-scale formats, and <a href="spotify:artist:7BlrmDRvku2hLFjVFzP88i">Chippendale</a> also collaborated with <a href="spotify:artist:58XGUNsRNu3cVOIOYk5chx">Ty Segall</a> under the <a href="spotify:artist:6B6Zaw2G4akhtCzvDVqKzX">Wasted Shirt</a> moniker. In 2024, a new set of Black Pus material emerged in the form of the full-length Terrestrial Seethings. The album, released once more with <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Thrill+Jockey%22">Thrill Jockey</a>, returned to <a href="spotify:artist:7BlrmDRvku2hLFjVFzP88i">Chippendale</a>'s early approach to the project, mixing ragged improvisation with layered overdubs, heavy on bassy keyboard lines, blasting drums, and hypnotic repetition. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi