PBK (real name: Phillip B. Klingler) is a composer that works in the genres of Noise, Drone and/or Ambient music.

Background

American composer, Phillip B. Klingler, better known as PBK, has been active in the experimental music underground since 1986. His work first became known through the homemade independent cassette culture scene of the 1980s, though later releases have also been in compact disc and LP format. His work has correlations to electroacoustic, classic industrial and free jazz genres. His compositions are created using extreme turntable manipulation, sampling, analog and digital synthesis. Improvising spontaneously and with little preconception, PBK creates pulsing, dense soundscapes of unknown sonic origin.

In the years 1992–1996, PBK lived in Puerto Rico

  • Narcosis (1990)

"This latest release by PBK continues his exploration of, ummm, noise. Flowing, churning, developing abstract noise textures. I've no idea how they were created or manipulated: they possess an authentic identity of their own somewhere between electronic, mechanical and environmental noise. PBK's aim is to use this unpromising material to reeducate our ears, show us that noise really is nice. His music has ranged in the past from the musical to the unlistenable, but this cassette is neither: it really does stand on its own merits, as a new listening experience. Post-apocalypse ambient atmospheres." (E.S.T. Magazine)

  • Shadows of Prophecy/In His Throes (1994)

"Difficult music for difficult times, there seems to be an impenetrability to PBK's music that acts as an obstacle for a full appreciation of his work. He's one of the few American sound sculptors who bypass notions of ambient or even the avant-garde, simply because he sounds like no one else, and because his music charters through those murky waters, assimilating and changing them as well. It's a mystery how these seemingly random pieces fit into any comprehensible scheme. Rhythm, melody, harmony, even dissonance achieve new meanings here; though those musical absolutes are absent, PBK somehow creates new definitions for them himself. Unearthly, unknown and unlike any 'music' created today." (i/E Magazine)

  • Under My Breath (2009)

"PBK... is attached to the old and the new, the younger generation of sound artists. Pieces on Under My Breath were recorded with people like Akifumi Nakajima (Aube), Christian Renou (Brume), Dale Lloyd, John Wiggins, Nigel Ayers, Slavek Kwi (Artificial Memory Trace), Tore Boe and Wolf Eyes. PBK uses natural or man-made acoustic sounds, digital glitching and turntable noise, but his goal is to create music that is organic and not (too) noise based. He blends his various source recordings together and makes up a sound that falls half way in the old ambient industrial school and the other half shows an interest in using computer processing for his sounds." (Vital Weekly)

  • Tongue of a Stabbed Host (2019)

"It takes the old PBK sounds that we first heard in the late '80s, into the 21st century. It is what we could easily be called industrial music, for the lack of a better word. The tools of the trade might have been changed (which, for all I know might not be the case), from analog to digital, or more likely a combination of both. But it remains seven wild noise-inspired pieces of music. Synthesizers sounding like a bunch of insects, brutal drones straight from the conveyor belt, and feedback in rotation. There might also be manipulation of real instruments in Misspent Genetic, which results in some brutal modern version of musique concrète. Pinnacle Of The Sand Priest is the moment of quietness here, but even in the quietest of moments, PBK has a great creepy approach to sound. Still strong, literally, after all these years, still powerful electronics." (Vital Weekly)

PBK posthumous Minóy project

In 2013, PBK worked out an agreement with Minóy's partner, Stuart Hass, to obtain Minóy's archive of recorded work. In it he discovered that among Minoy's master tapes were recordings made in the years after Minoy had stopped distributing his cassettes. Many of the unreleased works were released by various labels starting in 2013. In 2014 Punctum Books, in collaboration with PBK and Joseph Nechvatal, released posthumous recorded material on CD and cassette, entitled simply Minóy. These nine audio recordings, selected by PBK and Nechvatal, were accompanied by a Punctum book.

  • PBK Official Website
  • PBK Discography
  • PBK interviewed by C. Reider
  • Living Archive Interview with Philip B. Klingler by Don Campau
  • [https://archive.org/details/PbkLivingArchiveCollection] A six piece audio collection of the work of PBK at Internet Archive

References