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Re: [microsound] merzbow



That's not actually his early works.  Merzbow's been around since
1979, and releasing music since 1981.  There's a lot of variety across
his history.  The big noise stuff that most people are familiar with
didn't really start until the early 1990's.  Prior to that, there's a
lot of tape collage and loop based works, with a good base in
electroacoustics.  The same anti-music attitude persists throughout.

Most of that work is basically only available in the Merzbox, but
there are a few releases prior to Merzbow's laptop era that are
quieter and full of various recordings:

- Age of 369 / Chant 2: a 2CD of works from 1984-1986, compiled off of
a couple of early tapes.  Still generally available.

- Batztoutai With Material Gadgets / Loop Panic Limited: another 2CD
set available from RRRecords.  A de/reconstructed work from a 1986
record.  Lots of great "fake electroacoustic music" (as stated on the
cover) and turntablism.  "Loop Panic Limited" seems to be built from
tape loops used on a lot of early Merzbow tapes. Definitely still
easily available from www.rrrecords.com, and very recommended for
people curious about Merzbow's roots.

- Music for Bondage Performance 1 and 2: Separate CDs, both of which
are out of print, from the early 1990's.  Seeing the titles, I
expected harsh and brutal music.  Instead, these are very loop based
and quite ambient and lovely, similar in sound (but not quite in
structure) to Nurse With Wound releases like 'Spiral Insana'.  Again,
there's more of Akita's anti-music concepts in here than one gets with
artists like NWW, but these are in no way as aggressive big analog
noise releases that dominates the dominant view of Merzbow.  Very
recommended if one comes across them (I'm still trying to get volume 1
myself).


Of the new digital era material, some that might interest the crowd here are:

- Amlux: surprisingly quiet, fairly nice.  I'm not a big fan of this
one, but it might appeal to a lot of people here.  Still easily
available.

- Fantail: Out of print.  There's two halves of this release - a
collection of shorter tracks, and one long live recording.  The
shorter tracks here are great, and include tracks that seem to use
loops of doors and such.  Also some great Guitar based tracks.

- Tamago: A limited release of 350 in really cool packaging from last
year.  I don't know how available it is at this point.  But the
animals (Akita's own chickens!) that are in Animal Magnetism are here
also, in a release that's not so big and harsh in its noise - there's
a bit more variety than in Animal Magnetism (although that is a pretty
good release too).

- Merzzow: This is a really fascinating release that I still see for
sale a lot.  I like it because it showcases a lot of the variety of
laptop-era Merzbow.  There are a lot of musical guitar based tracks
with rhythms (although not as prominent as in Merzbeat) here.  There
are also some nice electro-acoustic tracks here.  And some noisier
ones.  The big thing here is a lot of variety, and a lot of shorter
tracks (3-11 minutes in length) instead of the more epic 20-30 minute
tracks that are on other albums.


Personally, I love the big analog noise era stuff.  'Pulse Demon',
'1930' (probably the best representation of big analog noise era
Merzbow's composition skills, combined with exceptional engineering),
and 'Oersted' are all phenomenal in my book.

--
J.Shell for Eucci + AODL
http://euc.cx/
http://euc.cx/aodl/


On Tue, 06 Jul 2004 20:08:21 -0700, Thad Biggerstaff
<instrumental@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> i was always turned off by the all out unrelenting onslaught of noise in
> his early works (i know- thats precisely what some folks like in him,
> but i never did. i found it boring). But it seems he has become more
> eclectic in his approach since he started using laptops and such (animal
> noises! field recordings! combine that with well orchestrated noise and
> now hes talking...)
> 
> just my taste buds-
> -Thad

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