Arsenal was Santiago Durango's brief follow-up project after
Big Black. As far as I'm aware the band never performed live and it's quite possible that it wasn't really a full band at all. I think it was basically just Santagio playing all instruments and was strictly a studio project, although I may be wrong on this. It doesn't quite pack the same punch that Big Black did but you can definitely hear his contribution to the band in these records.
*[EDIT] So I was wrong about Durango recording these albums alone. He did have a bassplayer on both recordings. Thanks to someone leaving a comment I've been reading up on
Malachai Ritscher who played bass on
Manipulator. His life seemed very interesting but also very tragic. He was an extreme political activist that committed suicide as a sort of anti-war protest just like the monk protester from that famous Vietnam war photograph. This whole
self-immolation thing just makes no sense to me. I can't seem to stop thinking about it since reading about this guy. I have a difficult enough time just trying to understand suicide in general but I just can't seem to understand how this could possibly benefit your cause. Really how does it change anything? Am I missing something here? Even if he managed to torch George Bush himself would it really change the outcome of this war? And if you feel like you had to do this couldn't you find a less painful way to do it than to set yourself on fire? Anyways this is old news that goes back a few years and if anyone is interested Pitchfork wrote an article on the guy
here. I just can't help but notice the irony of his death considering he was in a band called
Arsenal with the guy whose previous band's most well known song was titled
Kerosene. I think most readers of this blog will probably already know what that song's about.
