Bish Bosch is the 2012 album by Scott Walker, who died at the age 76 in 2019, and was 69 at the time of its release. Bish Bosch is not a pleasant listening experience, and definitely not an easy one to digest. It sports barren song structures, weird song writing that usually consists mostly of sporadic “sound effects” lined up for the duration of a song, almost no melodies or riffs or licks or what have you, and even where there are some melodies, there are barely any recurring musical motifs to latch onto. But there is one pleasant aspect anyone can immediately tell upon hearing it that sets this album apart from the rest of the experimental schlock: Scott has a beautifully gorgeous baritone voice that dare I say is very unrivaled in its magnificence. And that brings me to my first point, the interesting background of the artist behind this album.
Scott Walker has been a baroque pop singer in the sixties, and one third of the band The Walker Brothers, whose most famous hit was the 1966 single The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore. They were fairly famous for their own time. Maybe not as famous as bands such as Beatles, but they did have the same kind of appeal and generated a good amount of buzz. Scott Walker’s magic and fame mostly happens with his Scott series of albums, Scott 1–4 released from 1967–69. Very moody and dusty baroque pop adorned by Scott’s magnificent voice, the Scott series is probably his most impressive and strong body of work before we get to his darker “trilogy” of albums: Tilt, The Drift, and Bish Bosch, all released from 1995–2012.
So it’s not like Bish Bosch suddenly appeared out of nowhere curtesy of some college grad avant-gardist or some old avant-garde dude who hasn’t caught up with times yet. It wasn’t even that out of nowhere in Scott’s own career. The man behind Bish Bosch had a solid career behind him, and interestingly, Scott himself never claims he wants to make avant-garde music, or he doesn’t want the audience to not get what he’s going for. Quite the contrary in fact, he’s said he hopes the record will connect with people the way it’s intended to, however limited the number of those people may be. And it’s not just my opinion that Bish Bosch is an album that is difficult to digest. If you look up Bish Bosch on any internet community or music magazine, you’d see most enthusiasts and critics being confounded by it. The reception to the album is overall pretty polarized and it does enjoy a pretty unique position in his discography.
A Muddied Window
Now I can bombard you with all manner of information about Scott’s discography, his trajectory as an artist and the footprints of Bish Bosch in his earlier works, but I’m not going to. I can also attempt to explain all of the references, and guess at the meaning of the lyrics for an entire article, but I’m not going to do that either. There are people who have spent that time and effort already and have written pretty good articles on it, if you want to read that sort of thing. And I don’t personally really believe in the fruitfulness of such endeavors either, to be frank. Instead, I want to come from the perspective of someone who’s just picked up this album with all the buzz and polarized opinions surrounding it, and tell you what I think about it.
To be honest, I don’t like the attitude either party has taken towards this record. There are people that write this off as self-indulgent junk and think it has its head too far up its own ass, and while I do partially agree, I think dismissing the entire album will also dismiss a lot of its actual good points and contributions, or the interesting buzz surrounding it. There’s also another group of people who sing its praises, swearing by it being honest, genuine, and genius art. While I get that a bit too, I also can’t help but cringe at it. Because let’s be real: my man, you’re listening to fart SFX in an actual song. The fact that some in their right mind and good faith can call this genius art is baffling to me. To be fair, even setting the absurdity of farts in a musical work aside, I do generally feel Bish Bosch is a bit too tough to crack for its own good; so much so that the process in doing so can get un-enjoyable, unless if you’re really into researching like a mad academic. There are also, however, shimmers of brilliance in parts here that do surpass this problem. As in there is something here, but it’s too muddied and overly veiled to be clearly seen.
The album’s sound is pretty unconventional. Like I said, most of the album does sound like long sequences of sound effects stringed together that’ll occupy the length of a song. There are instruments too, but the instruments are played too simply and spaced too far in-between for them to create anything tangibly musical. If we say “alright, the key to enjoying Bish Bosch is clearly in the lyrics, not how it sounds,” we almost sound sane. But the problem is that even the lyrics in Bish Bosch are impossible to budge and decode, because of how abstract and surreal they get. It’s not uncommon for you to not be able to understand an entire verse because none of the words are remotely familiar. That’s how difficult the language on Bish Bosch can get. So, is that the extent of it? Can you only enjoy Bish Bosch if you’re a literary scholar who also likes listening to machetes being sharpened for minutes straight? Well, actually, I would say no. But it needs a lot of benefit of doubt and dedication. Let me explain.
Terrifying Hawaiians
I can make a case that there are bits and pieces in the lyrics that are pretty interesting to read and understand on their own, but we’re here to listen to music, not read a book. Rather, I think one of the easiest ways to understand and enjoy Bish Bosch is watching the music video for “Epizootics!” which is track five off the album. Not only is Epizootics one of the easier to digest and musical tracks of the album, but the music video brings a lot of imagery that helps more in understanding what Scott is going for. What’s interesting is that the video tries to directly represent and respond to both the music and lyrics of the song, like a helpful, companion piece. When I first watched this music video, something clicked for me. Bish Bosch is more akin to a cinematic, arthouse film experience, than a conventional musical album. And it is easier to enjoy when you realize that fact.
In one of the interviews, if you allow me to paraphrase, Scott does say his process for writing the album was writing the lyrics first and making the music for those lyrics afterwards. And that was probably done in such a direct and literal way that the end result has ended up sounding hardly musical. Now does that mean you have to subject yourself to it if you’re not getting anything out of it? Absolutely not. But if you do want to understand why this album exists and what was the intent behind it (like I did), there’s a way to do that that doesn’t require extensive, braindead research of the lyrics with a dictionary next to you. When you realize the fart sounds on the track Corps de Blah is supposed to literally be a joke that is even reflected in lyrics, you get what Bish Bosch is about. You are meant to laugh at it for its sheer absurdity. It’s not disrespecting or misunderstanding the art. Is that a good thing? I honestly think that yes, it is. It is funny, and effective. But the uptight, high-brow attitude that is taken towards “art” stops us from truly enjoying such banters.
Like souls of insects
From threshing haze
The scent of spider lilies
With all that said, I still don’t think Bish Bosch is amazing or perfect. It is an honest and genuine attempt, which I find pretty admirable, and that’s why I hate that people write it off as experimentation for the sake of experimentation. No, there is a genuine rhyme or reason to Bish Bosch. But I also think the bloatedness, the misses, and maybe the lack of translation of the ideas on Scott’s part or maybe the efforts that are not taken in making the thing more easier to digest do impede its brilliance. I don’t mean I want Scott to spoon feed Bish Bosch to me. Maybe I just wanted him to remember we, the audience, exist; to some extent. That, I think, makes Bish Bosch is not the masterpiece Walker wanted it to be, even though it has a pretty clear vision. In a way, it’s like some audio theater of the poems he’s written, which when guised as a music album is still an interesting anomaly nonetheless.
In another interview Scott does say (again, I’m paraphrasing) he wishes people would abandon their preconceived notion of what music is; and he possibly means it in order to have less apprehension when it comes to new, sonic ideas. Which is something I do partly agree with myself as well. That said, I have noticed an interesting juxtaposition.
Avant-Garde of Old Men Vs. A Zoomer’s Avant-Garde
Scott Walker has lived a long life, and only started dabbling into more experimental and avant-garde artistic ventures when he was in his fifties. Before that, he had spent his musical career in pop music, releasing only an art rock album in his forties at best. I’m not saying this is true for all avant-garde or experimental artists, but it’s not uncommon for them to start seeking more out of the art form when they don’t get anything out of the conventions anymore. Let us be real, that is probably a symptom of old age and having seen a lot and gone through a lot in your life. And it is perfectly reasonable, in my view.
Let’s talk about the younger, zoomer avant-garde fans, however. Sadly, because avant-garde art is harder to understand and grasp and stomach, it has created this dogma especially among younger people that those who’ve dedicated their life and time to understanding and studying them must be inherently smarter, and see avant-garde as having more inherent worth than the conventions. After all, if it wasn’t so good why would people like Scott Walker throw their entire careers away to dedicate the last leg of their life towards it? “Scott Walker needed to live 50 years in order to understand the genius of avant-garde! If I do while I’m still in my 20s, I’ll push art even more beyond its limits!” or something along those lines, I imagine. And they proceed to inflate their ego with that notion, or the likes of it.
What I mean to say is not at all that it’s bad or stupid to dedicate time or effort to avant-garde and trying to understand it. There’s a lot of great avant-garde pieces of art that provide amazing insight. What I think is stupid is misunderstanding where avant-garde comes from and what was the necessity for it, and also thinking avant-garde has inherently more value than conventions. But there are no facts or evidence supporting such beliefs. And you have to agree you are making avant-garde your own conventions, not what it actually is. And that’s totally fine as well. It’s only that some conventions suit certain people more, or even suit one person more at different stages of their life. So one should not feel shame or take unnecessary pride in dedicating time to either of them, in fact.
The Verdict
Well, this has been my personal attempt at getting something out of Bish Bosch and understanding it. I don’t think I’ve understood it completely, but that’s been more of a personal decision on my part. I’ve found ways to enjoy it and there are some tracks I do genuinely like. Hell, I’ve even enjoyed some parts of the 21 minute monster on this thing, although I do not like the entirety of it. And that goes for the album as well.
Overall, I think albums like this are only as important as you decide them to be, and whether you decide to dig into and get something out of it, that’s on you. I just suggest that you’d stop if you’re seeing yourself not getting anything out of Bish Bosch. But is it a stupid, meaningless piece of high art junk? Absolutely not, I genuinely don’t think so. Is it the masterpiece of the millennium?? I hesitate to say that either. To me, this is just an album. It’s not special to me, but it could be to you. Whether you decide to hold it to a high regard is really up to you. And saying anything but that is just disingenuous and stupid.
