Merzbow
 

Merzbow is the moniker of Japanese noise artist Masami Akita.
The name is taken from a work by Kurt Schwitters called "Merzbau,"
which was basically a room filled up with random junk (or found art, if you will).
This gives you a pretty good idea of what the music is like...
a thunderous maelstrom of digital and analogue noise, heavily distorted samples,
complete chaos yet at the same time meticulously structured.
I see it as punk rock stripped completely bare until only the most visceral and intense elements are left,
other people see it as aural torture. In either case, it's a lot of fun.

http://www.industrialart.eu/festival...7/merzbow2.jpg



If you're interested in exploring his VAST back catalogue,
a good place to start is Merzbeat since the noise is at least looped and has a beat.
Aqua Necromancer similarly is based off of old prog-rock drum beats (not that you'll really be able to discern them, but oh well).
1930 is considered by many his masterpiece, and it is pretty mind-melting.

Yeah that is aural torture! I will never denounce this sort of experimentation but it is just unlistenable to me. I enjoy very chilled ambient monotonous music and I can see why people would be completely bored by it. It's the same here in reverse. I need some structure and I can't hear it. It is probably there but my ear is looking for a straight line and not zig zags!

it actually works really well as background music for me... i find it to be mentally stimulating

Yeah but i'm an old geezer settling down with a cup of cocoa. It's all too much for me! Now where are my favourite comfy slippers....

Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music makes for some great background music if it's quiet enough.

Anyway I listened to Aqua Necromancer about a year ago and hated it. To be honest, I find "noise music" intriguing but ultimately unrewarding. I love it when feedback/dissonance/noise is used in a SONG, in something with more structure. Noise-rock is one of my favourite genres. A good song that can meld noise and melody (wrong word but ya know) is one of my favourite things in music, and a much more impressive accomplishment that merely just noise. Pure noise is too often boring and directionless, and devoid of ideas I feel. It's all too easy to make a noise album really, and while I'm sure there are good ones, a lot of it is just thoughtless sound created by people who are compensating for a lack of creative and technical ability.

Merzbow is a cool guy though, I like his collaboration with Carlos Giffoni and Lee Ranaldo. Given his good rep, I'm sure he's got some goods, and I'm sure one day I'll find out what they are. One day I will probably dig Aqua Necromancer. But right now I'd rather listen to Funkadelic or Can or something.

I will add that if Merzbow ever came round these parts, I wouldn't hesitate to go see him live.

That's the one environment where I currently do like noise. Seeing it live is a whole lot more interesting, since there can be some interesting playing techniques and some rather crazy people as well. There's a pretty thriving noise/power electronics scene where I'm from, and I know a few people involved and regularly go to noise gigs here. I went to a festival once where this ****ing MENTAL russian artist called Monopolka played self-proclaimed "dadaist noise terror". He went on stage, absolutely wasted, and almost naked. Half way through the set he picked up his almost empty litre bottle of vodka and started smashing it over his equipment. I was standing near the front and we were hit by bits of glass flying into the crowd, while this crazy unrelenting Russian went nuts and removed the few clothes he had on. Dadaist indeed. It was a while before the next band could go on.

But digressing over, it'd be interesting to see Merzbow live.

Yeah, noise shows do tend to be absolutely insane. I went to a show where the band all picked up giant amplifiers with blasting feedback coming out of them and ran at the audience with them. It hurt, but it was fun.

I like his work with Boris
and that album he did with Genesis P-Orridge was subLIME
but I can't say I enjoy what I've heard of his other albums. It's probs an acquired appreciation.

I always imagined Merzbow to be one of those "you get what you put in" acts. So I intend to give it another chance.

I always thought merzbow was some hentai thing =o

more of an s&m thing, really

i have loads of Merzbow releases here and i love every single one of them.

I love that album

merzbows good background music, but you do have to be in the right mood for it

I remember that. God that was ****ing annoying.

Sometimes I love Merzbow.
Sometimes I love Jandek.

Sometimes I think I'm a twat.

I have a strange love/hate relationship with anything noise. Does anyone else have this problem?

^yeah, I do step outside myself once in a while and realise I am shut in a poorly lit room on a Friday night listening to seas of gargling feedback at intense levels on headphones; that's usually a sign to go and do something else...
Otherwise I will happily join Merzbow on his quest for higher noise consciousness in a poorly lit room, on a Friday night.

Look at it this way, from what I've read on here Merzbow seems to be our version of cheap, supermarket 'Chillout Classics' compilations. People who know nothing about music turn to Moby, we have experimental noise drones from Hades. We're texturally accomplished, very cool and not at all pretentious. look a football :soccer:

Hah, it's not just me then. Thanks :)

I listened to some the other day, sounded like the inside of a volcano. I'd like to hear what its like live, but i think id have to go insane before listening to it casually at home.

Actually one of my bigger influences musically. If not for Merzbow I would've never re-picked up guitar after my old punk band split up.

Merzbow rocks my world!
I can sympathize with what others have said - not many people can listen to noise music 24/7 - but sometimes you just want the windows to melt - and i find merzbow does it better than almost anyone else.

Many have pointed to merzbow's super-prolific discography (over 500 albums) and denouncing him and his music as throwaway and lacking skill or technique. However i think thats exactly the point! look at merzbows junk-art aesthetic and love of dada / anti-art (like schwitters merz bau). Akitas music isnt meant to be refined or heavily 'technical' . Yet every album offers something new and his technique is masterful.

Obviously the most important thing is that merzbow satisfies purely on a sonic / aural level. For me it definitely does :)

My favorite merz album: Frog!

I got around to listening to this album and I actually quite like it. It provides good background... noise. I find I can read a lot better when listening to something without lyrics.

I have tried and tried to listen to 'Pulse Demon'but I cannot make it past the first couple of tracks. I hate it when music 'beats' me and becomes unlistenable but I have to draw the line somewhere.

^it takes alot to admit it I know... with Merzbow I can understand the appeal and periodically I will have a hankerin' for some deeply textured noise, but it just gets too much after a while.

However I do love the idea though of noise filling in the spaces; and should you choose to you can listen, picking out the nuances like you would in the silence of a quiet summer's afternoon - passing cars, distant birdsong. Except in this case the distant bird song is nails on an aluminium sheet drowning in a sea of white static. It's all relative.

merzbow/boris collab "sun baked snow cave" is amazing. anyone else like it?

I actually like Merzbow. And I don't even know why...
Their(his) discography is confusing though. I have some 80s/90s stuff, which are more or less noise(and my favorite), but some of the recent releases aren't that bad on the ears.
Check out '24 Hours - A Day of Seals' and 'Offering'. Both are very listenable actually.

I like Merzbow, but more as background music, or funny entertainment. It's not really my thing, but I respect the guy a lot for all the work he's put out.

Although, I am really into most of the stuff he's done with Boris. I recommend any of their collaboration tracks to anyone into both Noise, and good old-fashioned rock.

I'm thrilled that Skaligojurah introduced me to this man's music. He is already one of my favorite noise/noise rock musicians.

I haven't really heard enough to fully judge him, and I suppose some 90s music can be too technical and cold (for me certainly), but I'm not sure lower technical rigour necessarily would have to be the reason people would call it throwaway. Could be other reasons. I remember when I heard some of his music it sounded a little simple. And for some reason Japanese music is seen as particularly hip by some, but more when it uses styles already very familiar in the West.

Japanism adds a special sprinkle of sparkle. The cute accents of of the girl bands that sing in English is beauty that has been refined since Sei Shonagon. And the extremes that Merzbow insists upon take us to mountaintop Zen meditation epiphanies. That stuff deserves to be thought of as hip.

Japanese pop to me has definitely been the main part of their music, rock music often sounds more derivative of the West though. I do like some Japanese experimental music like World's End Girlfriend but some others like The Boredoms bore me lol.

Eh, I find a brilliance in it's painfulness. It's somehow relaxing to me, a psychotheraphy for my inner frustrations.

I have one or two of his albums, I've never really felt the need to get any more.

Stuff like this I prefer to listen to when they collaborate with other bands. Such as the stuff Nurse With Wound did with Stereolab.

Merzbow with 'Insert Band Name Here' would interest me.
But him on his own doesn't really do anything for me.

You mean like Boris?

Not really, I was thinking more of an artist that's about as far removed from noise or noise rock as you can get.

Kylie?

I have only listened to "Flare Gun" by Merzbow. Harsh Noise is not an easy style to adjust to for many people, I can even only listen to it in small doses, like 1 album a week. I could not imagine listening to it non-stop. But I can appreciate the style when done well anyways.

Masonna is greater than Merzbow from what I have heard though.

Thinking if colaborations, I enjoy Z-Rock Hawaii, which was Ween and Boredoms together. Kinda interesting if you like those groups.

I can't stand it
 

I'm pretty open- minded, but I can't stand Merzbow..

I can respect that.

Masonna's best stuff is his crazy fuzzed out acid rock

the new Merzbow...which is one of three concept albums involving the hindu worship of cows is a grower....but once it grew it blossomed into something truly wonderful

i honestly think that Merzbow is just one of the more consistent players in the genre of harsh/power electronics

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gDX7HyswiP...2011-BERC.jpeg
Merzcow?


edit: wow the fucker has released three albums since this one!!!!...so i mean one of the newer Merbow releases :)

that
is
awesome.

had a chance to get one but could not afford the $900

again

God Among Men

you are :)

^x2. Pretty jealous of those gems.