Listen/purchase: The Razor Wire: Answering Machine (1990 - 2000) - Behind the Wall of Incarceration by MBRS
MBRS is the work of Michael Bjella and Rob Skrzynski. Titled 'The Razor Wire: Answering Machine (1990 - 2000): Behind the Wall of Incarceration' their debut album documents Mike's experience working for a charity for convicted non-violent offenders in the United States during the 1990's called The November Coalition. Looking largely at the war on drugs, the charity set up a phone line to collect calls and stories of these prisoners while also running a publicaton titled "The Razor Wire" which was distributed in prisons throughout the United States. It was through this publication that they invited prisoners to call and share their stories: I received these calls on a compact disk from the organization in the late 1990s. On the disk are over 25 calls from prisoners and their families, all of them shared in the hopes that their stories would reach the world and relief would come. I believe the recordings where distributed to radio stations and everyone involved with the organization in some way, but other than that nothing else was ever done. For years they sat in a box in my garage and I would often think of digging them out and making them into something bigger. I felt their stories could reach a larger audience if only presented in the right way. During my last move I discovered the cd and set it aside for a future project. I knew through my collaboration work with Robert and the music he was making that it would be a great project for him and I to work on together. We talked about juxtaposing drug culture, music, movies etc with the harsh realities of the drug war found in these recordings and began to work - Michael The end recording is an album that pulls together these long lost oral histories and arranges them around non-input mixing board sessions, cassette loops, field recordings, found sounds and samples gathered, archived and cataloged by Rob over the last 18 years with Michael collaborating, editing/ distorting the samples and providing rhythms pushing a DAW to the edge. It's a unique, graphic and desolate look into the failings of the criminal justice system and the devastating effect it has on families and communities.
