Borbetomagus, a New York trio, rose to prominence with free-jazz hurricanes for two saxophones (Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich) and guitar (Donald Miller), distorted by electronic gusts.

The first two albums, Borbetomagus (Agaric, 1980), with Brian Doherty on electronics and relatively close to the new wave of rock music, and Work On What Has Been Spoiled (Agaric, 1981), with Hugh Davies replacing Doherty, contain eleven Concordats that push the instruments to the limits of their sonic possibilities—whirlpools of random sounds with lacerating intensity. Despite its ambition to be terminal, definitive, unsurpassable, the music displays its own logical progression: the fierce and barbaric emphasis of No. 1 prepares the ground for the terrifying bellows of No. 6 and the spasmodic shrieks of No. 11.

The subsequent albums as well, created around a trio (Sauter, Dietrich, Miller) without electronics—III (Agaric, 1982), aka Black Album (1982), which assembles several live performances from 1979–1981, including Inroads (August 1981) and Aimi Studio (September 1981), still featuring Doherty, and Industrial Strength (October 1981 – Leo 113, 1983), additional “concordats” for a larger ensemble of seven musicians, all improvisers (trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, bassist Peter Kowald, cellist Tristan Honsinger, clarinetist Milo Fine)—mark an evolution in style: no more composed than before, indeed more atrocious than ever, yet at the same time more charged with primitivist pathos.

Barbed Wire Maggots (may 1982 - Agaric, 1983 - Agaric, 2005) contains one long jam divided into two parts (the sides of the original LP). It represented, in many ways, the culmination of the early violent and unbridled free-jazz experiments. First of all, it consolidated the infrastructure of Borbetomagus around the granitic of core Donald Miller's guitar and the twin saxophones of Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich. Second, this symphony of hyper-cacophonous electrical discharges, of demented improvisation from musicians who compete at wreaking havoc, shaped once and for all the trio's neurotic identity away from the beaten tracks of jazz and rock music.
The instruments create the initial tension by vibrating one against the other, almost testing each other's will to challenge conventions. Then the reeds start screaming like wounded animals, and a lava-like torrent of loud, abrasive, howling timbres erupt from the trio. Occasionally a fragment of a melody surfaces from under the sheet of hellish noise, but it is invariably welcomed by the sarcastic, deformed echo of the other instruments. Occasionally, one or both of the reeds indulge in long shrill phrases that end up sounding like parodies of John Coltrane. The pace is delirious. The reeds routinely shout louder than the guitar's manic distortions, but eventually (12 minutes into the jam) the guitar commands a pause of sparser dissonances. Now the concerto shifts towards a lewd exhibition of abominable timbres. Appropriately, this section cultimates in the instruments emitting rounds of high atonal squeaks like hyenas celebrating on the carcass of the prey. This orgy of hallucinated wild life decays into a storm of droning, buzzing and hissing sounds. The second part of the jam takes six minutes to pick up volume, and it never quite matches the first part's intensity until the Babel-ian chaos about twelve minutes into the track that creates an impenetrable wall of dissonance. Miller caps the mayhem with a devastating fractured guitar solo that makes Jimi Hendrix sound like a traditionalist. By the end of the 44 minutes, the pandemonium has tested the physiological limits of human hearing and the cognitive limits of the human brain.

Having become fully aware of their means, the Borbetomagus could afford to revel in them, entering a kind of personal “baroque” phase. On Bells Together (January 1985 – Agaric, 1985), a collection of duets between Sauter and Dietrich, the manic chirping of High I, the subsonic gargling of Monk Jimbo On Safari, and the spasmodic glissandi of Sykes stand out. The album, the most reflective and orderly of their output, can serve as a valid link between Chicago’s free improvisers and electronic ensembles.

Zurich (October 1984 – Agaric, 1985), with guitarist Donald Miller’s feedback prominently featured, contains two long, extremely agitated suites (Fleetwood DeKooning and Elaine DeFleetwood), among their most innovative works, overflowing with grotesque effects that would make even Anthony Braxton blush. Far from unfolding dramatically (as in the horizontal improvisation of jazz and film scores) or layering moods (as in the vertical improvisation of minimalism and new age), their total improvisation (like that of abstract painters) exalts the purely playful component of an uncontainable intoxication.

New York Performances (September 1986 – Agaric, 1986) documents four more bacchanals of telluric intensity, very close to the din of battle, with the uninterrupted crackle of countless machine guns, the shrill clanking of armored vehicles, and the deep roar of aerial bombardments.

Borbeto Jam (October 1981 – Cadence, 1985), recorded before Barbed Wire Maggots and at the same time as Industrial Strength, condenses a studio jam by the Zurich septet and adds four Concordats to the repertoire: the sound has lightened and become more rarefied while retaining its ferocious ugliness (Nos. 13 and 15 display especially evocative sax raspberries and whinnies, along with subsonic guitar detunings). Always hostile to the very idea of rhythm or melody, the Borbeto simply pile up irritating noises without concern for structure.

The real turning point comes instead from electronics. Fish That Sparkling Bubble (March 1988) adds to the innate chaos a pair of external noise-makers, Voice Crack (Norbert Möslang, Andy Guhl). The result is deafening concerts for pneumatic drills, saws, electric shocks, workshop machinery, and sirens, riding atop the trio’s continuous stream of shrieks (We Don't Need No Warrior Goddess, for example). Of unparalleled violence, the music makes memories of Neu and Faust pale. Avalanches of sonic lava pour incandescent over the apocalyptic maelstroms of Vungavunga, and a succession of abrasive descents measures the toxic storms of My Tongue In Your Cheek. Live In Allentown (October 1985) and Seven Reasons For Tears (December 1987), with bassist Adam Nodelman alternating on tape manipulation (almost a return to the strategy of the first two albums), continue the most barbaric saga in the history of jazz.

Barefoot In The Head (June 1988 – Force Exposure, 1990), featuring Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth on guitar, is instead the least savage album of their output, with a long Concerning The Sun As A Cool Solid and Moore’s solemn impromptu on Tanned Moon.

Their motto is “free jazz free noise free spirits,” and their specialty is live performance, where ferocity has virtually no limits. They use dissonant saxophones at full volume as noise generators in suites that recall as much the orgiastic rituals of Throbbing Gristle as the aleatory works of Iannis Xenakis and Mauricio Kagel. Their primitivism manages to fuse the ferocity of the Pop Group with the dissonant jazz of Peter Brötzmann. Yet more than primitivism, it is a form of deliberate illiteracy: barbarism elevated to civilization.

Coelacanth (june 1992) was a collaboration between Borbetomagus and The Shaking Ray Levis (Dennis Palmer and Bob Stagner).

Live at InRoads (november 1982) documents a 1982 concert by the quartet of Sauter, Dietrich, Donald and Doherty.

The mediocre Snuff Jazz (august 1989), Buncha Hair That Long (march 1991 - Agaric, 1990), that collects different sessions and a George Harrison cover, Asbestos Shake (december 1990) with Voice Crack, the live Experience the Magic (december 1993), the live L'Atlas Des Galaxies Etranges (may 1993), Live in Tokyo (june 1996), the live Songs Our Mother Taught Us (april 1999), mostly document live performances that are rather self-indulgent.

Concerto for Cracked Everyday-Electronics and Chamber Orchestra (may 1994) was the third collaboration between Borbetomagus and Voice Crack (now the trio of Norbert Moslang, Andy Guhl and Knut Remond).

Donald Miller released the solo albums Here Below (Klang Industries), Flood (Warpodisc), Little Treatise on Morals (Audible), Homo Sanus (Kissy), and played in Lhasa Cement Plant (a quartet of two guitars, bass and drums), which released Chakra Full of Blood (Warm-O'-Brisk) and Back to Bolivia (Warpodisc).

Both Noises End Burning (may 2006) documents a live jam between Borbetomagus (Jim Sauter, Don Dietrich, Donald Miller) and Hijokaidan (guitarist Jojo Hiroshige, vocalist Junko Hiroshige, drummer Nao Shibata, and keyboardist Toshiji Mikawa).

Live In Allentown (Agaric, 2008) documents a session with bassist Adam Nodelman and keyboardist Scott Legrath.

Borbetomagus A Go Go (december 1998) documents a live performance, including a 33-minute Chiote A l'Esprit. The Rape Of Atlanta (Not On Label, 2010) documents a live performance of october 2004. Both feature the trio of Jim Sauter, Don Dietrich and Donald Miller. Another live performance by that trio is documented on Whole Lotta Vole (september 2005).

Biota's Cape Flyaway (ReR, 2012) contains 21 brief pieces performed by an ensemble consisting of Kristianne Gale (voice, guitar), Gordon Whitlow (organ, accordion), Tom Katsimpalis (guitars, clavioline), Mark Piersel (guitars), David Zekman (violin, mandolin), Larry Wilson (percussion), Steve Scholbe (rubab, guitar), James Gardner (trumpet), Randy Yeates (keyboards), Charles O'Meara (piano) and Randy Miotke (Rhodes, accordion).

Trente Belles Annees (Agaric, 2012) documents a 2009 concert by Borbetomagus.

The New Monuments were Don Dietrich, violinist Spencer Yeh, and percussionist Ben Hall.

Oneida's Kid Millions (drums) and Borbetomagus' Jim Sauter (tenor sax) recorded the vinyl Fountain and the cassette Bloom (april 2014 - Astral Spirits, 2015).

The Eastcote Studios Session (october 2014 - Dancing Wayang, 2016) contains two side-long tracks: Dis and Dat.

A Pollock Of Sound (Taping Policies, 2017) is a documentary about Borbetomagus by filmmaker Jef Mertens.

Don Dietrich released the solo albums Don Dietrich (Elevage de Poussiere, july 2002), a live performance, and Option (Feeding Tube, 2020).

Miller's Transgression!!! (august 2017) contains a solo performance on 12-string acoustic guitar.

Borbetomagus' Don Dietrich on tenor sax along and his daughter Camille on cello recorded Dietrichs (september 2016) and Catch The Leaves (june 2022).

Donald Miller died in 2024 at the age of 66.