MERZBOW
– peace for animals
(CD,
quasipop)
What better way to start the year than with the
mightiest of all noise artists? Masami Akita has been ripping eardrums for almost
three decades or longer now and has been around so long and so many places
and is still releasing records in double dozens per year so probably
everything has been said about him and his music already and everything else
that is being said is redundant and trite. But next you find yourself
listening to some of Akita’s super-heavy slab of pure noise and once again
wonder and wonder how he does that? Merzbow still is the most energetic, the
most dynamic and the most complex of all musicians and experimentators going
for pure intense noise. Where other artists are mono-causal in their
auditive attack – and honored for that like Masonna or Aube - his tracks
are multilayered pieces of shrieking piercing and burning noise
interferences. Where others go for slowly evolving dynamics or chaotic
bursts or shock-elements, he builds and destroys and re-erects them
masterfully over and over again without once losing the force of the overall
wall of noise.
Over the years he has turned his art into more and more
refinery and denseness. Listening to old classics in comparison, like
“pulse demon” or “space metallizer”, I think that he has probably
started to bring more space inbetween the layers of noise he peruses. I
might be mistaken because I still find it hard to discern one layer from
others, sometimes wondering if those layers are in my mind or actually in
the music, and next wondering if there is a difference between the two and
then if it would make a difference anyhow? And then wondering about the
whole thing on yet another meta-level, which has always been the impact that
Merzbow has had for me. This new clarity in sound – if it really exists
and if the word is ever possible to be used in the same context with Merzbow
– adds a interesting atmosphere of openness and freshness to the sound.
Actually, I have been bored out by many noise artists just going for the big
ka-woom and nothing else. I found resolve in structure and the sublime folds
of electroacoustics. But Masami Akita still has the refreshing energy that a
total, stupefying blast of noise is able to infuse. If you ever experiences
Merzbow’s sound live, you might know what I mean.
Another transformation of Masami Akita is to be found
in the issues he deals with and represents on his record sleeves. The
question, if these issues are to be found in the music or not has been
discussed at length at some places, and I would opt for the viewpoint that
within these total blasts of noise there is neigh a place for any kind of
meaning or sense, so no messages as well. But of course there is a reason
that some issues always come up on the covers and sleeves and info-parts of www.merzbow.net
and it usually is that Akita is just as obsessive in his extra-musical
interests as he is in his musical endeavours. Well, probably, not as much,
because when I first fell over Merzbow now almost 20 years ago his main
interest seemed to be the old Japanes art of Bondage (and that of course for
some time influenced the view I had on his music) and now it is all animal
liberation. From saving whales to records “about” frogs and a
special walrus to the white doves represented on the cover of – see! –
“Peace for animals”.
Leaving asides aside, Merzbow is still raging and the listener is still better of being careful and attentive. A pierced eardrum never heals proberly. And also because there is so much detail and points of interest in minimal sizes within these megalomanic walls of sounds. All kinds of epic terms and enormous connotations apply to Merzbow, but I guess most of you knew that already. During the heyday of the Japan Noise-hype around here in around 1995 Merzbow’s music by a lot of listeners was regarded as some kind of bravery test or endurance test of the listener’s ability to stand the noise. And that is the wrongest kind of way of going at it that could possibly be. Of course it is music, if you can’t hear that better check your ears.
