Hysteria, the CD on Verato-Project that was ltd. to 60 hand-made copies is now available as re-mastered CD on Gears Of Sand in the U.S.A. and as download from Noecho Records in the U.K. - the re-issue was mastered by Kris Klubo, thanks.

Hysteria:

Slowly b°tong builds an interesting body of work that moves in various directions at the same time. From dealings with ambient and isolationism on one hand and experimental music, ranging from the soft microsound end to the more engaging noise end, in a clever combination of ideas. Its a bit hard to say whether this is a concept album of sorts, but it could just be as well. b°tong works here with a variety of sounds and ideas, using electronic processing of (his?) voice, adding to the notion of hysteria. As said, various interests are combined here and make solid impression on the listener. 'Damage Receive' and 'Fragile Package' are soft and meditative pieces, where 'Diaspora' has multiple layered voice treatments, embedded in a bit of computerized noise. These are the extreme boundaries of this work, but throughout they make a very coherent work which works very well. Well-made album, thought out, carefully constructed, rich in ideas and detail. That's the way to do these things. Bravo for b°tong.
Frans de Waard @ vital weekly 09