Packaged in an austere b/w layout, and showing only cryptic tags as a tracklist, I/O's debut cd immediately and stubbornly asks you to focus on (and lose yourself into) sound. A young quartet of drums, guitar, voice and upright bass, I/O (Input/Output) fragment linear playing and rhythm in nerve-breaking sessions of free-form play (in the double sense of the word), recorded live without overdubs. Relying on quiet/loud dialectics, more physical parts emerge from subdued pluckings and sparse sounds, and guitar is then played like a percussion. Voice is no voice but a perfect fourth instrument, with emphasys on phonetic power rather than words or conventional singing - a glossolalia where language is stretched, compressed and finally mangled. Demanding and almost solipsistic in their alchemies, I/O reminded me of Starfuckers (especially those of "Infrantumi") or Storm & Stress, for their oblique but physical approach to improvisation and anti-melodic destructuring, but also of Artaud's and Beckett's experiences in language implosion and revitalization.