Merzbow : S/D

What I want to know is what you guys think of this year's Kim Cascone. It took me a while to really get into it but then I started to appreciate its sprawling, meandering quality with moments of beauty.

Batztoutai/Loop Panic dbl CD
Merzbow Loves Emil Beaulieau CD
Pornoise CD

So, ya know, for like eightteen bucks you can get some good merz. jams. I would recommend it. RRRon deserves your money as much as just about anyone.

Dharma. Also Animal Magnetism (love the chickens).

I don't think I've made it all the way through any Merzbow album even once.

More opinions, please!

listening to a recent one right now, feddyyellow mix.1. pretty nice esp at the end where he got some "basic spectral sonic decantation" thing going on

I've mentioned this on a couple other threads, but the FIMAV album with Pan Sonic is fantastic.

that remix CD alluded to above (Scumtron) really is quite good. I also have soft spots for the Batz-Tou-Tai double on RRR (early clank/scrape), Pinkream (heavy analog noiz), the Music For Bondage Performance discs (quiet, very different), and the collaboration with Christoph Heeman.

hahaha i just did the rolex sweep to paralysis (hypnopompic mix satori so whacki

ooh also search the Frog LP, most excellent.

I recommended Merzdub with Jamie Saft on another thread, it really is a pretty channelling of the Merzbow noise along more "musical" routes. All the electro-acoustic stuff I've heard from the Merzbox has been nice too.

picked up tonight:

Venereology
1930

in the mail:

Synth Destruction (w/ Carlos Giffoni)
Electric Dress (w/ Carlos Giffoni & Jim O'Rourke)
Live Destruction at No Fun 2007

the only Merzbow stuff i'm familiar with is his work with Boris -- Megatone, Sun Baked Snow Cave, Rock Dream -- so i figured a good approach would be to check out a couple of his more 'acclaimed' albums, plus some of his work with Giffoni and O'Rourke, both of whom i'm already pretty familiar with.

... any thoughts?

i have this v pretty merzbird shirt btw: http://www.importantrecords.com/images/apparelimages/merbird_shirt.jpg

wow that album-by-album Merzbox review of Michael's upthread is most impressive.

Anyone read the Merzbook?

I have it, but haven't checked it out.

so... no thoughts, then.

i think you should read the thread, dude.

i think i've already read the entire thread, dude.

i was looking for some opinions that maybe weren't 4 years old. not that those are necessarily bad ones upthread, but maybe some of the newer posters here can offer some of their comments too. just a thought.

Welcome to 2009!
Important is starting off the new year with the beginning of our 13 Month/13 CD Merzbow series titled 13 Japanese Birds. Available to hold your 13 CD set is a deluxe screen printed, numbered, limited edition hand built bamboo box. More info about how to order it can be found here:
http://www.importantrecords.com/bird_box/bird_box_details.html

I need $300 for the version with a painting by Masami.

How's the album with Richard Pinhas?

I need $300 for the version with a painting by Masami.

I shelled out for it the other night, whilst drinking. Oh boy...

Ouch. I've resigned myself to not getting it.

Out of all of the Merzbox I've heard so far, I'd say Cloud Cock OO Grand is the best because...there's just so much STUFF in it.

Daddino was so right about Cloud... I listened to this last night looking for fucking catharsis after a bad-ish evening (to the extent that I knew it ws going to be before it happened; I unconciously left the CDR on top of the speaker just before I left), and all I found was DETAILS that ate away at you. People tend to dismiss him as junior Metal Machine Music. Although I'm sure it can lapse into that it does not here, not that -- (i) it should be necessarily a bad thing, and (ii) doesn't that give everyone an excuse to not bother sampling the huge catalogue: listening to music should never feel like work and yet its a strange reaction, to excuse yourself of what should never be a duty. I suddenly remembered a Lou Reed interview w/Lester Bangs where he talks about MMM having bits of Beethoven and Xenakis -- he ws joking (or ws he?) but here its like I hear all sorts of music, processed and yet retaining enough of a character to make an impression. I forgot to cut the sound of the TV completely off and a gap of silence (one track to the next) became what I thought was a sample of Will Smith in Fresh Prince of Bel Air!!

Another Merzbow Records "It compiles tracks from various other compilations and splits from 1991–2001, most of which are out of print". That fact puts me in a good mindset, makes me feel I'm covering a lot of Merzbow when I'm not and never will. This is another fact.

I actually went to get this because it compiled Ab Hunter, the first one of his I fell in love with (yes, there is room for love in Merzbow's world. This is a fact.) and I'm finding all sorts of joy -- pounding dance bits, metal, burstings of lava hot swooshes, wind machines turned up to 11000 (never mnd 11!) even the odd quiet moment dropped in!

This must be good to meditate to. This is another fact.

collabo with Mats Gustafsson out in Nov

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx37c2PNM3I

Search:

pic.twitter.com/ff4PSrs7rY

— 🐖🐐🐓Merzbow🐄🐏🦃 (@MerzbowOfficial) June 9, 2018

Strange days. There's this Merzcast podcast thing wherein two US dudes talk about selected Merzbow albums with various guests. They only play tiny clips of the music. They also have a Patreon account wherein subscribers can access further podcasts, although these don't feature any of the music either. In the last few days Merzbow, or his earthly representative, has made clear his disapproval of the project and now they are plastering "Merzbow Disapproved" all over the podcasts (they haven't stopped doing them or taken them down AFAIK).

I approve. People should listen to more (unfiltered) Merzbow and less podcasts.

But don't you think listening to podcasts might make people listen to more Merzbow?

he "disapproved" after 3 months prior posting a link to said podcast

promoting it ... and ostensibly ... approving it?

also dude can't take a joke

He's been shutting down online fan talk for at least 5 years:

http://merzbow.proboards.com/thread/223/proposed-deletion-forum

He's admittedly not heard Merzcast but took offense to GX Juppiter-Larsen's anecdote of touring porn shops together in Holland.

lol he was like, "my work isn't about that now." it's pretty much, control freak, stop you are embarrassing meeee tantrum ... someone posted a mock-up of a "merzbow-disapproved" t-shirt and he blocked them

enjoying this new semi-ambient joint with Vanity Productions this morning.

thinking about that guy brushing his teeth at the merzbow show again pic.twitter.com/CNprrkSGVQ

— ▀▀▀▀▀▀ (@immolations) October 4, 2020

le sigh

Cavity-free canines to maintain that neo-dada noise dude edge.

sad LOL at all the female concertgoers you can see eyeing him warily

don't want to be in splatter range when he drives that thing through his soft palate, probably

lol for a second I thought you were talking about the sheer sonic impact of a live Merzbow gig

Merzbox discs 44 & 45: #44, Liquid City, starts off full bore noise wall but settles into more varied stuff. #45 is unreleased stuff from 1995 or so including personal fave Pinkream, first use of EMS synth, lots of wild squiggly oscillations.

so far none of these later discs are as noisy as other contemporary releases of his.

well "noisy", I mean it is Merzbow

disc 47 "Rhinogradentia" - continues the same surprisingly varied noise textures that he explored in the 90s

previous disc 46 had a sweet Reiko A solo piece on it with some dense low end snarl

OK Disc 48, "Space Mix Traveling Band" is genuinely harsh, moving into the nu-Merzbow era of the 00's and beyond

ian weighs in:

"FINALLY the genuinely harsh years (laugh emoji)"

I was surprised too!

there are plenty of super harsh 90s releases for sure, but the box doesn't really focus on that

earliest full on HNW is Akasha Gulva from 1996, but basically any of the "live performance, single 1 hour track" releases from that decade are full on blast furnace action

even the last track here on Disc 48 is doing some weird cosmic record skipping shit right now

holy shit disc 49 "Motorond" is a total blast furnace HNW with added deep hoarse screaming thru some light effects, just brutal

two 30+ minute tracks

also some high volume indecipherable muttering

Merzbox 50 Annihiloscillator

do I even want to listen to this?

*dies*

so that was fun. here are my ten favorites:

Merzbox 02 Metal Acoustic Music
Merzbox 15 Dying Mapa Tapes 1-2
Merzbox 16 Dying Mapa Tapes 2-3
Merzbox 21 Pornoise Extra
Merzbox 23 Mortegage/Batztoutai Extra
Merzbox 33 Scissors For Cutting Merzbow Vol. 2
Merzbox 36 Cloud Cock OO Grand
Merzbox 40 Music For True Romance Vol. 1
Merzbox 43 Exotic Apple
Merzbox 45 Red Magnesia Pink

and the ones I liked the least:
Merzbox 12 Nil Vagina Tape Loops
Merzbox 20 Pornoise / 1kg Vol. 3
Merzbox 31 KIR Transformation (w/Achim Wollschied)
Merzbox 50 Annihiloscillator

Well done! btw he's released 13 albums this year already.

i sometimes wonder if there’s a collector maniac out there that has all of it. just seems impossible, even for merz himself.

that said, i do want to believe that someone does and that they even have the mythical merzbow car

further research in the excised Reiko A discography

Flare Gun - 12", 1 side 45 and all MA himself, b side is 33 with Reiko and some amazing guttural vocals from (I assume) Bara, cool shit
Great American Nude CD - 1990 US tour excerpts, blinding HNW for the most part, the live stuff just lacks that oomph, bonus studio track is great though w/lots of skipping digital freakouts
Metalvelodrome 4CD - a bit overwhelming, haven't done it all, includes the Rod Drug 93 7" which is one of my fave concise singles.

I listened to Pulse Demon this week. I'm not sure Merzbow is for me, because although I love noise, I like it when there's some structure to it. but after a bit it did start to make some sense. I liked Tokyo Times Ten. it does grow on you tbf

oh no, he's using AI for cover art now lol

What is AI art if not visual harsh noise?

lol fair

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0614813853_16.jpg

dense electronic oosh Merzbow is my favourite Merzbow and it's...interesting that I can enjoy that and not enjoy the grim splurge of AI shite but I think there is an analogy there somehow

this new one actually sounds very cool, and not like any others I have heard

https://slowdown-merzbow.bandcamp.com/album/spirulina-green

same with this one - actual piano!!!

https://slowdown-merzbow.bandcamp.com/album/parakeet

^ Looks like AI is fairly shit at doing clocks then
(xpost)

wow Merzbeat is really great, eh? One late pass please.

https://masamiakitamerzbow.bandcamp.com/album/merzbeat-remastered

I always got it confused with Scumtron which is the remix album

dude is slacking, only two albums this year, just released another piano-based one

https://slowdown-merzbow.bandcamp.com/album/mimesis

OK I have a new recommendation for newcomers/interested parties, go straight to Merzbeat

there’s always a new one or four going but this newish collab with kiku hibino on superpang (great label imo) is sounding good to me:
https://rococo-infinity-echomatter.bandcamp.com/album/rococo-echomatter

not particularly harsh. sounds more like various noise boxes and other things (voice, sax, moody keys) cut up and sputtering. no goify ai slop art either. good one!

loved the one with john wiese from last year btw:
https://johnwiese.bandcamp.com/album/akashaplexia

this one _is_ harsh. crack open your windows, play it real loud, and enjoy four discs of various crunchy sounds.