| MERZBOW ON DISC: |
"Rainbow Electronics" CD Released by Alchemy Records (Japan) 1990 Booklet says: WORKS ALL CUT UP FROM WORKS Transformed From About 21 Hours Tapes For 14 Fragments Raw Material Tapes Were Recorded In 1987-90 ALL DECOMPOSED BY MASAMI AKITA |
| One of Masami's earliest releases on CD and the culmination of his 80's tape loop work. An exhausting listen for sure, this is perhaps the greatest single noise recording ever, one untitled 73 minutes track of junk noises and overloaded tape feedback scrambled and endlessly recycled. Pure sonic automatism indeed. Air raid sirens, power drills, jack hammers, radio static and contact mic hum played simultaneously and recorded with extreme distortion. Then reassembled with the addition of effects and the sounds of tapes at different speeds and the buzzing hum of electronic equipment interfering with each other. Then reassembled and remixed. Endlessly. Not the all out singleminded roar barrage that later ("Green Wheels"/"Electric Salad", the Relapse titles) Merzbow would become, there are moments of subtle delicacy (try the pulsing high pitched tones around the 15 minute mark or the quiet scrapes and moans at the 28 minute mark) and the humor of recognizable snippets of found sounds sped up or slowed down in messy waves cutting from left to right channel. Also, the surprising sounds of drums make a rare appearance around the 35th and 39th minute, played in a stumbling near-metronomic beat over intense buzzings that are more Neu than anything else Masami has done. There are also moments of intense psychedelic confusion like around the 54th minute, when the sped up tape seems to be echoing back into itself, like some quantum physics paradox. Fucking trippy, man. It all ends in a blizzard of synth squiggles and high-pitched feedback squeals. The final 3 minutes are some sort of masterpiece of controlled chaos, as deep engine hums begin to drown out all other sounds before short bursts of distortion (jumping at you from channel to channel) erupt out of brief moments of silence. |
| "Music For Bondage Performance" CD Released by Extreme (Australia) 1991 "My Bondage Art research was started from researching Fetishism. Fetishism is related with spiritual thought as spirit is revealed on void object. Shaman using fetish dolls for their rituals, sometimes he puts the nails on Dolls body. It's very primitive symbolic act as Christianity use nails on cross. Symbolic meaning of nails is Binding (Death) and Metamorphosis(Resurrection)." Interview with Dixon Christie. Masami's soundtrack work for bondage videos, which I won't even pretend I'm familiar with, although judging from the CD booklet photos they look about as nice as any sleazy porn you could hope for. Quite surprising at the time, this release on the Australian "post-industrial" Extreme label saw a gentler kinder side of Merzbow's music. Harsh, yes, and the subject matter as disrespectable as ever, this might still be the most serious and "musical" of Masami's many releases. Unlike many releases on Extreme, there is no conscious attempt to be "musical" by appropriating ethnic rhythms or euro-disco beats. Deep murky rumbles and echoes dominate a mix upon which metallic scrapes and rings sluggishly fade away in the distance. Somewhat similar to Coil's "How to destroy Angels" and many other "dark ambient" atmospheric records of the last couple of years. All sounds remain muffled and submerged, totally unlike anything before or since in Masami's oeuvre. Booklet also contains an essay by Masami about Kinbaku, the art of Japanese bondage, some very nicely done diagrams of rope binding methods and some bleak photos of tied up young girls. |
| "Great American Nude (live in U.S.A. 1990) Crash For Hi-Fi" CD Released by Alchemy Records (Japan) 1991 "There is no difference between Noise and Music in my work. I have no idea what you term "Music" and "Noise". It's different depending on each person. If "Noise" means uncomfortable sound, then pop music is noise to me." Interview with Oskari Mertalo Sort of the "Frampton comes Alive" of the noise-set, this is like most live albums some sort of exercise in vanity plus a gift to the die-hard fan. Check out the constant unchanging roar provided by Masami on "live electronics and found metals" and Reiko A. on "bowed instruments and metals". Perhaps this is Masami's homage to America as filtered through J.G. Ballard, as the title and front and back covers of the CD attest, and as all tracks are recorde live in various American cities. Regardless, in a live setting this actually sounds pretty much like various electric drills and power saws working over a radio station tuned to static and white noise-amazing to see in person I presume, but too muffled and unchanging to make a lasting impression other than, "this is really noisy". Each track however, being edited out of a long uninterrupted performance begins quite suddenly with a startling burst of noise that is pretty disorienting, as each track on the CD gives way to the next. The last track "Crash For Hi-Fi" is partly a humorous tape collage presumably taped off American radio with the voice of Ozzy Osbourne (and many others) put to good use amidst flailing mic fuzz and wrinkled tape squeaks, as well as some superior briskly cut-up explosions of sound. |
| "Artificial Invagination" CD Released by Vanilla Records (Japan) 1991 Short, sweet and very cute little 3 inch disc with some fine very fast moving (sped up?) tape and screech work with "voice" from Masami's wife Reiko A. A nice starting point (if it was more widely available) as it compresses into 20 minutes the whole Merzbow arsenal of flowing, free-form noise work. Tapes of a live performance form part of the basis for this release. As Merzbow himself put it in an interview with Arthur Potter: "...I formed a new performance project called TRUE ROMANCE : me, Bara and Seido (he is the machine maker). The first TRUE ROMANCE show was at the Art University last month (10/91). We used many latex creatures (almost formed as testicles and guts) and plenty of medical equipment. Noisy sound.It was a hyper-splatter performance which used only SFX. The idea was based on SIMULACRE AND SIMULATION by Baudrillard. I used a photo from that event on my forthcoming CD single". That photo appears on the splendid obi strip, and it is a very cool multi-colored thing. |
| "Venereology" CD Released by Release (USA) 1994 "I'm influenced by death metal from the early '90s. My biggest influence was grind drumming. So, I liked bands with good drummers like MORBID ANGEL, early NAPALM DEATH, early CARCASS. Secondary, I found similar artistic taste in early CARCASS, early CADAVER, etc. I liked those extreme medical/dead artworks. For MERZBOW, it's more abstract influenced as speed or grindcore, the edge guitar sound of death metal. Also, I started using lots of DOD guitar pedals." Interview with Oskari Mertalo Looking like an early SPK cover (especially an early live cassette whose title I can't recall), this release was Merzbow's conscious attempt at ingratiating himself to the gore worshipping extreme death metal crowd. The Release label, is after all, a sublabel of Relapse, one of the last remaining cornerstones of the genre. It features a long "thank you" list, in the grand tradition of underground Metal albums, although Masami's is not even half as long as the average Napalm Death list. Not particularly different than other releases of this time, this is mainly imprtant for its sick autopsy artwork and widespread availability. I've seen it in some pretty mainstream record stores, and hopefully many pimply faced metal punks stumbled on it by accident. The photo under the CD (within the clear jewel case) is a mighty fine monstrosity- enjoy! |
| "Noisembryo" 'Psycho-Analytic Study Of Coital Noise Posture' CD Released by The Releasing Eskimo (Sweden) 1994 "I found Processed Audio Mixer and it's able to control feedback. Feedback sound of equipment is basic idea of MERZBOW. I was extreme Materialist. Feedback makes automatically storm of noise and it's very erotic as Orgon energy. Magnetic exploitation of electronics. So, I found Pleasure of Noise. Then I tried to develop different variation of pleasure Noise." Interview with Dixon Christie. Beautiful (in completely different ways) front and back cover, the front one in a high art collage way, the back in a pervert Asian babe way- these Swedes aim to please. The printing on both sides is very glossy and fine. The music is pretty classy too, with some nice mic-inside-the-mouth vocal gymnastics on the first track, and some stuttering machine gun farts nicely echoed through out most of the tracks. Very chunky fast moving sonics permeate, with the fuzzed up tape static on most tracks resembling surf or the furthest white-noise reaches of the radio spectrum all scrambled up in a very listenable fashion. The vocals reappear throughout, sounding tortured and deranged, perhaps sexual in intent, they resemble gastronomic anomalies more than orgasmic ecstasies. Of course, depending on the observer, that may be one and the same. Regardless, I seriously doubt there is much of an intentional connection between a Merzbow track's title (or album title) and musical content. There is an intent to confuse, in the surrealist sense, by juxtaposing an odd set of objects (or sounds in this case, or cover graphics) and a title that may or may not have any connection to it. The subtitle for this release is a good one, and the back cover photo of a naked oriental girl surrounded by balloons an apt companion. |
| "Ecobondage" CD Released by Distemper (USA) 1994 "Christianity have great bondage art form past before. I think Christ is king of masochist. So, European bondage tendency is Female domination. But almost woman dominant is bad bondage skill. Few exception is John Willie. He is good bondage artist." Interview with Dixon Christie. More reissues of early Merzbow material, this time a 1987 album not too dissimilar to the Extreme 2CD release, though perhaps a bit less harsh and more "pensive" in that some portions of these track slowly drift by in waves of echo, as opposed to the usual breakneck speed of Masami's editing method. The pieces also seem more carefully assembled than on "Age of 369", more recognizably improvised than the automatist randomness on that earlier release. Very live sounding collage of subtly banged trash percussion clanging chains and distant voices and (muffled ) tape squiggles, all with attention to the recording meter- meaning that the sound never goes "in the red" as the usual Masami CD's always eventually do. Somewhat reminiscent of Faust's collaged material, the floating sections of Guru Guru's masterful "Spaceship" (on the Hinten LP) or some of the Fred Frith/Chris Cutler (or any other free improvisers using electronics) live sessions I've heard but much more clinical and sinister than that might imply. This is Merzbow after all, and the 30 minute title track conjures up any sort of depraved activities your mind can visualize to attach to these chain scrapes, moans and weird rustling sounds. Track 2, the astounding "Ha Ha Ho Bari" picks up the volume slightly, and approaches distortion on occasion, but in general retains a less harsh muted appeal that relies heavily on deep bass rumblings of electronic static and microphone hum. After about 13 minutes you get some loud blasts of (tibetan-like) horns, and some rituallistic sounding echoed metals, all sorrounded by whirring tape effects that sound like a swarm of insects hovering nearby. Yes it's that good, and it dissolves into a muffled "ambient" section very much like the first "Music For Bondage Performance". At the 20th minute, a constant mechanical beat appears- and it sounds like Autechre for about 20 seconds before the scraped percussion turns free form and spastic. Truly one of Masami's greatest tracks. The last track is a pretty fine thing- very subtle and percussive with a sort of oriental techno (?) feel, like an acoustic YMO jamming in a buddhist temple. Booklet folds out into a stunning and startling full color photo collage of a shiny and pink naked Japanese woman (or is it a mannequin?) tied up in a pose reminiscent of a christian martyr, surrounded by fragmented industrial images. The printing on this is very well done, with the colors coming out very deep and rich. One of the best looking (American) CD's I've seen recently- even the printing on the disc itself is outstanding. |
| "Green Wheels" CD Released by Self Abuse Records (USA) 1995 An oddly packaged thing, it strikes me as outtakes from Pulse Demon (don't laugh at the thought of a Merzbow "outtake") in that every sound seems purposely generated as a massive "fuck you" to the listener as it dares anyone to blast this out of their stereos. Some feel that all Merzbow CDs sound like this, but who knows, really?. The industrial/noise/underground necessity for bizarre packaging has always baffled me- I own a lot of records and CDs and I like to keep then all together- if something comes out in an outsize package it pisses me off more than anything, no matter how beautiful it is. OK maybe that is not entirely true- those (slightly) oversize Mego folders are too gorgeous to not like. Yes I understand the concept of these odd object-packaged CDs- it's been done, lets move on. There is enough creativity left to explore within the LP album format, regular jewel case booklet and digipack printing (especially NOW with a computer in every household). Regardless, this box is a pretty shitty looking garage sale thing. The track titles seem like parodies of Carcass song titles ("Myo-inositolasanessentia Growthfactorforhumancellsin Testosteronepropionate Anabolicaction" anyone?)and I have a hard time believing they came from Masami himself. Whatever. The little 5" vinyl disc is pretty cool thing though, especially since few turntables will actually play it- would anyone care to guess what it sounds like? "Meattrapezoid" is a nice title though. |
| "Electric Salad" CD Released by Etherworld 1995 Another beautiful looking cover (and inside photos) adorn another domestic marathon release from the master. The thought of a 60 minute track seems at first like an awesome endurance test- somehow it doesn't strike me as harsh as the Pulse Demon release. It still borders on unlistenable, but it features great use of echo and dynamic changes in volume in a very speedy self-assured way. The mixing is alive and outstanding- sounds pop out from channel to channel endlessly, and there is always some new synth explosion or percussion rythm thing careening at you as the track develops. It doesn't really feel like a 60 minute track. Last track is another spaceship soundtrack, with perhaps a motor scooter barging in ocassionally (carrying a theremin?). As for the packaging, well the CD itself has a really nice op art pattern design printed on it in yellow and maroon. The cover and inside photos features what is apparently (though perhaps not) the interior of Masami's house which as you might have guessed has some pretty far out decor consisting of mannequins in bondage gear and gigantic plastic bubbles like something out of an Allen Jones Barbarella wet dream. The back of the CD shows what looks like Masami's "studio"- effects pedals and old record sleeves (and polynesian fetishes?) litter the floor. A nice glimpse into the man's psyche and an overall great release. |
| "Pulse Demon" CD Released by Release (USA) 1995 "The visual of "Pulse Demon" was my homage to French 70s Electro-Acoustic records as Philips Contemporary Avantgarde series. Basically, this shiny silver is the color of Heavy Metal. I mean it the way William Burroughs said it. "Pulse Demon" is one of 3 CDs I recorded at the same time, "Magnesia Nova" and "Electric Salad" are the others. These two releases contain more Synthesizer and music concrete sound." Interview with Oskari Mertalo Track titles: Woodpecker No. 1 Woodpecker No. 2 Spiral Blast My Station Rock Ultra Marine Blues Tokyo Times Ten Worms Plastic Earthbound Yellow Hyper Balls The second Merzbow CD on this label and its a stunner. Especially the Op Art CD digipack- a totally beautiful black on reflective silver fold out thing. If this had come out on vinyl in the same package I would have bought every single available copy and framed them up on my wall, right up there next to the first Sonic Boom LP. The titles on these tracks are pretty "killer" as the average fan of the Relapse label would say, evoking the unintetionally hysterical antics of the classic early grindcore rock and rollers Bolt Thrower or Morbid Angel. "My Station Rock"- wasn't that a Krokus song? Seriously, though, this lives up to the artwork with its harsh bad-trip psychedelic insanity. The first two tracks on this should have been released as a single- they are pretty amazing compressions of Masami's antisocial side. You can actually ocasionally discern the sounds of stuttering death metal being mangled by Masami's Godzilla sized tape machines. The beginning of Track 6 actually drops the distortion somewhat except for some whiplike squeals, and lets the percussive trashcan loop dominate until the whole thing dissolves into a (loud) spacy drone and high pitched spaceship sounds- very nice. |
| "Rainbow Electronics 2" CD Released by Dexter's Cigar (USA) 1996 "nothing is really destroyed or disappears, as recycling is part of production. It's a natural and necessary part of post-capitalism. There should be no illusion of only production, as was the case with early industrialization. We no longer use a dialectical approach in our disposal/recycling system, only a forward movement to the reproduction of reproduction." From RRReport. Ostensibly a reissue of the original "Rainbow Electronics" CD on Alchemy, or at least being marketed as such, this is actually two minutes longer than that one track release, and appears to be a different mix of the 1987-90 source materials used for the earlier release. Which means its not a reissue at all. This makes much better use of dynamics than the 1990 version of Masami's music- there are echoed portions that lead into brief moments of silence that are almost completetely absent from the original release's nonstop roar. Which doesn't necessarily mean its better- just an example of how Masami's noise techniques have evolved over the last seven years. Interestingly, among the instruments Masami gets credited for playing is "electronic shaver", a picture of which I was not able to acquire. Very nice pop art meets op art graphics on the cover. |
| "Spiral Honey" CD Released by Work In Progress (UK) 1996 "The origin of Noise can be explained in various contexts, but more closely related to me, the origin of my noise is coming from 60-70s heavy psychedelic/progressive rock and live electronic music. I have a concept in sound itself. Composition is always influenced from a way of noise as film art. Mostly, my music is dedicated to music which I am influenced by." Interview with a Portuguese fanzine. A simple but distinctive silver digipack holds more of Masami's heavily distorted free-style freakouts. I've been able to listen to this for extend periods of time, so it must have something that sets it apart from "Green Wheels"or "Venereology". Perhaps its the nice graphic of a sylized bee on the cover. The disc opens up with a really nice trick- at first you think Masami is just going to jam on his Moog ala the fat sounds of Heldon but 39 seconds in he just jacks up the recording meter and blasts you with a nonstop (almost static) barrage of tape fuzz. Things calm down eventually, but the star here is still the distortion over which synth tones and theremin whistles float in and out. Track 6 repeats the opening track ambush but this time its a jungle (as in a fake 50's "jungle adventure" soundtrack) rythm on the drum machine that gets swallowed up by the intense waves of noise. Track 7, "Great Deceiver (Long Mix)", the "bonus" track may or may not be a cover or hommage to the King Crimson track of the same name. |
| "Music For Bondage Performance 2" CD Released by Extreme (Australia) 1996 "In general, Fetish Fashion is realising desire of changing personality by sexual way. My first level of interest in Bondage is same reason I'm interested in Fetishism - sur- humanity. Secondary, in my study of "Japanese Bondage Art" mean more narrow interest in especially hemp rope style. This style is fit with Japanese woman reason that their shape of body and colour of skin." Interview with Dixon Christie. Another release of pieces by Masami for Japanese Bondage videos, this time perhaps a bit harsher than the first volume of this series. The photos in the booklet are of very high quality, for all you porn aficionados out there and look much more fetching (in a sterile Penthouse way) than the sleazy documentary style fuzzy photos in the booklet of the first CD. Truly stunning and disturbing, as alien and mysterious as they are erotic. You also get another essay and some nice etchings of traditional torture methods which have become standard procedure in Japanese bondage practices. Unlike the MFBP 1, which seemed like a departure from his usual style, this is much more recognizably a Merzbow CD, not dissimilar in portions to "Electric Salad", except the recording levels have been lowered slightly, presumably to allow you to focus your attention on the porn. Opening track features some jet engines and what sounds like the "waltz" setting on a drum machine. Harsh rhythm loops, tape speed sounds and video game bleeps over echoed junk percussion dominate most of the tracks. Track 8 features a twitching hypnotic loop that seems very congruent with Panasonic (or maybe even Suicide), if you ignore the car crash sounds and bell tones crashing in the background. When the tempo picks around the 2 minute mark, the Panasonic/Sahko analogy gets even more accurate- then out of nowhere a delicate pretty piano line that doesn't sound sampled, emerges. All the while of course, the regular distorted noises scream out in the background. Rather confusing, and if you imagine what must be happening on the video as this music plays, it's rather disturbing as well. Track 10 is perhaps the loudest track to ever have the words "Ambient" in its title, and ends with a rythm box and looped wet burp (or is it something else?) workout that fades into something that sounds recognizably ambient. Track 11, the 30 minute bonus track starts with some painful violin scratches and spooky rumblings. It's apparently a leftover from the first MFBP and is a pretty magnificent thing. It has a horror soundtrack feel in a Goblin way, with some deep synth chords appearing occasionally amidst long drawn out squeals and metal scrapes and all sort of mysterious sound efects all heavily processed and muted in the manner of the other tracks on MFBP1. |
| "The prosperity of vice, the misfortunes of virtue" CD Released by Che (UK) 1997 "I was very influenced by pre-surrealist poets like Arthur Rimbaud, Lautreamont, Jean Genet, etc. because these poets are very close to rock'n'roll. I was an art school student and painting every day. My first influence was George de Chirico and Dali. Then I read a book by Marcel Duchamp. This book talks a lot about Dada and Surrealism. I found out why Dadaists destroyed all conventional art form. I decided to destroy all conventional music." Interview with Oskari Mertalo. Roughly along the lines of the "Music For Bondage Performance 2" CD or maybe even Masami's very early tape-loop collage material (Ecobondage being the best available example of those) with occasional bursts of that trademark red hot distortion. Which means this is very listenable, especially since he seems to have lowered the recording levels on his tape machines, though just as difficult and unapproachable as his super loud-super long recent material. Very abstract and random in the best automatist tradition, some tracks feature recognizable sounds of scratches, bells, violins, horses and human voices floating above shimmering electric tones and echoes. Impenetrable and disorienting. Other tracks, like the opener, and track 6 are simple patterns that wouldn't sound too out of place on the Mego (or maybe even Sahko) label. Perhaps he's damaging his own CD's and recording the result before Oval beats him to the punch. Track 11 is a pretty good one and features a rockabilly sample falling into a vortex of spinning cut-up feedback farts. Apparently a soundtrack for a theater production of the Marquis de Sade's "Juliette", an obvious Surrealist hero done justice by Masami's extreme surrealist tactics. Very sharp digipack features photos of the theater performance- looks mighty creepy in a Ken Russell meets Les Miserables style. The last track is one single electric tone loop that sounds like an air raid siren but may be a theremin- a pretty minimal and great way to end this wonderful disc. |
| "Scumtron" subtitled: "Remixes and original recordings" CD Released by Blast First (UK) 1997 Not content with being known as the American Homestead, or the poor man's Mute, Blast First enters the japanese noise sweepstakes with this CD bringing together the Euro (plus token Yank) branch of the post-whatever establishment and our man Masami Akita. What can one say about remixes that Wire, Option and Spin haven't said already? Okay how about this: most of them suck-they have the peculiar ability to take a horrible track and make it even more hideous. When I think of "remix" I think of Duran Duran, Depeche Mode and Madonna. The best remix music I've heard has been Aphex Twin's "Ventolin" e.p. (and pretty much anything else the Aphex man has touched) and U-Ziq's "U-Ziq versus the Auteurs". The Aphex phenomenon is difficult to explain- the kid is touched by genius-lets leave it at that. Mike Paradina's masterful demolition of the Auteurs is something else. I don't mean demolition as in total obliteration of something that is despised- I mean a disassembling and reassembling of sounds generated with one intent (worthy or unworthy-it doesn't matter) and creating a new set of sounds, or 'tracks' if you prefer, that are as valid a listening experience (i.e. they don't suck) as any set of original material from any artist. The CD lists the particular track each remix used as source material, as if the listener is going to run out and find the original version of, say, "Elephant's Memory" to compare it to the Panasonic remix. Maybe the next Merzbow remix CD can be one of those extended play singles, with 10 versions of the same track, (like Aphex Twin's "Ventolin" or any average dance club hit). Pretty amazing package of a pink xeroxed booklet with just text and a bar-code on it and not much else except for the nice clear tray. 1.House of Kaya 4:12 (Jim O'Rourke remix of "Spiral Honey") Nondescript and meandering, this seems to try for that microscopic Oval damaged CD feel, but just sounds like when my headphone jack kept slipping out of my CD player every time I stood up. An accident so easily duplicated that having to sit through a similar experience without the shock element of fearing I've ruined another pair of headphones is not half as meaningful. 2.Eat Beat Eat #2 6:29 (Merzbow original track) Zoom Biff Pow its a full on noise piece from the master. Check the volume knob. 3.Elephant's Memory remix 11:15 (Panasonic remix of "Elephant's Memory") Panasonic are a happening techno-derived electronic outfit out of Finland who are (consciously or not) doing a pretty good job of stripping the happy dance face off "electronica" and paring it down to its Kraftwerk/ primitive Detroit synth blips roots. They make loops of scratches and tones out of Merzbow's sonic barrage and mix it up quite slowly and deliberately into twitching non-funky insect rhythms. Very well done, with a nice no-fi feel. The best track perhaps? 4.an.mon 4:51 (Rehberg/Bauer remix of "Antimonument") Two guys associated with the German Mego label provide almost Aube-like high pitched squeals looped into simple repetitive patterns floating from left to right channels with occasional buzz farts popping up. Sounds pretty amazing to me. Never gets as painful as some of Aube's tones can, but this is just as worthy. 5.micromedley 4:12 (Russell Haswell remix of various vinyl Merzbow records) Basic mix of several records played at once. Pretty standard noise recording- try it at home. 6.ecobondage [ending] Ae remix 11:22 (Autechre remix of "Ecobondage [ending]") Perhaps a bit too rhythmic and too reminiscent of Autechre's work somewhere between "Tri-Repatae" and their more recent work this takes subtle samples and arranges them into a fairly standard laid back techno beat. Not even half as noisy as some of the tracks on "Chiastic Slide" either. The mellow ambient (as in "ambient techno") fade out just makes the following track even more initially painful. 7.Eat Beat Eat #1 4:43 (Merzbow original track) Our man doesn't hold anything back on this track- LOUD supersonic channel hopping and extreme equalizer effects galore, sped up tape tricks and electronic hum- just try and "remix" this. 8.untitled II 1996 14:40 (Bernhard Gunter remix of tracks from "Music For Bondage Performance") For further ironic enjoyment this CD should have really been packaged with a sticker that read: CONTAINS AN EXCLUSIVE FOURTEEN MINUTE BERNHARD GUNTER REMIX. More conceptual pranks from this highly regarded composer. Not really the equivalent of a Mark Rothko painting, this is more like staring at a blank wall for a couple of weeks. I have to admit its mighty appropriate to end this CD with this track. These inaudible rumblings and silent echoes can be as discomforting and annoying as any high decibel Merzbow shriek. |
| "Age Of 369/Chant 2" CD Released by Extreme (Aus) 1997 "My first idea of using pornography is in mail art concepts. I sent them with my cassette tape. I was trying to make the very lowest form of sound and it seemed similar to pornography, because porno is the unconsciousness of culture, the libido of humanity." Interview with Oskari Mertalo. More reissues of Masami's early cassette material. As the man himself intended they are explosive and disposable- true junk music built out of taped snippets of radio static and contact microphone scrapes. Loops set up unintentionally musical rhythms that are quickly obliterated by free-form feedback distortion jams flying out of nowhere. The actual sounds of cheap and up-front recording equipment dominate- the whirring of tape reels and the static hum of mics, mixers and decks interfering with each other provide a backbeat for Masami's rustling metal objects and trash can percussion. Packaging seeks to duplicate the feel of those early Merzbow tapes wrapped in sheets ripped from porn magazines, but the Extreme graphic design department can't help but stylize and gussy up the filth by cleaning up the focus, emphasizing abstract flesh and overprinting with fragmented texts. Regardless, it still manages to look depraved-cool! The liner notes are extremely difficult to read due to the smart ass red ink letters on collage panty crotch photos. |
| "Hybrid Noisebloom" CD Released by Vinyl Communications (USA) 1997 Track titles: 1.Plasma Birds 2.Mouse of Superconcetion 3.Minotaurus 4.Neuro Electric Butterfly 5.The Imaginary Conversation of Blue Yet another domestic release for Masami, the second in fact on this label. Less abrasive perhaps, spacier in a Klaus Schulze goes to hell mode, with a wide use of fat synth blips and extreme right-to-left (and back again) channel mixer abuse. Track 2 for example takes loud swooshing spaceship synths worthy of the early to mid material of Schulze, Heldon's "It's Only Rock and Roll" or even (gasp) the sounds at the beginning of every Hawkwind song and gradually mixes in some trademark junk percussion, tape distortion and high pitched squeals. It never totally dissolves into roaring distortion, always maintaining those waves of classic synth bleeps and swooshes. "Minotaurus" has a post-noise disco flair worthy of Panasonic or the Mego label folks- a constant "beat" provided by a single synth bleep endlessly farting out its frequency. Nothing new for Merzbow, really, as the tracks on ""Age Of 369/Chant 2" attest. "Neuro Electric Butterfly" retains that rigid "post-techno" feel: it uses the tools and basic building blocks of Detroit techno while still managing to make even Panasonic sound like The Ohio Players. It's perhaps the best track here, with a great rythmic beginning and a dissolution into the free-form chaos we have come to expect from Masami, tempered by the synthesizer squiggles and occasional (non-linear) "beats". But don't worry-its still noise. Which is very tranced out and outstanding. The booklet has an amazing photo of Masami at the controls of his mixing board surrounded by electronic equipment, looking quite like Klaus Schulze (or Keith Emerson if you prefer) Some really cool track titles too. |