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About Merzbow
Merzbow -- Masami Akita -- is considered by many to be the undisputed
king of the extreme noise genre, which, to the best of our knowledge,
originated in Japan. Influenced by the surrealist and dadaist movements,
Akita-san took his "Merzbow" pseudonym from the collage piece by Kurt
Schwitters entitled "Merzbau." He has been releasing noise since 1980.
Originally conceiving of his project as the equivalent of audio porn,
most of Merzbow's earliest releases were hand-made cassettes packaged
with cheap pornographic imagery. Akita-san seemed to view his releases
as fetish objects of a kind.
In 1990, Merzbow released his first CD
"Cloud Cock 00 Grand," and from '90 on out, CD became the format of
choice. Developing his style and technique throughout much of the
early '90s, the mid '90s saw a flood of releases that embodied the
sonically aggressive, powerwash quality which helped put Merzbow on
the map in the US, originally as something of a novelty interest.
But, turning out to be more than a mere novelty to many listeners,
Merzbow's popularity grew rapidly throughout the late 90s, and releases
were plentiful, popular, and highly collectible. Adventurous releases
such as 1998's "Door Open at 8 a.m." (Akita-san's much-touted tribute
to free jazz) won him new levels of critical acclaim in the ever-merging
experimental genres which comprise the contemporary musical subculture.
Finally, with the turn of the millenium nearing and well over a decade
of work behind him, Akita-san's unreleased efforts (of which, apparently,
there were quite a lot) were compiled, along with an exclusive t-shirt,
medallion, book, and other miscellaneous knick-knacks, into the gargantuan
"Merzbox" release, from Extreme Records. This astonishingly expensive
document of Akita-san's work housed 50 CDs of otherwise unavailable
material along with all said merchandise in a durable, black leather
case.
With the release of the Merzbox presumably consuming much energy
on the part of all those involved, the year 2000 was fairly quiet
in terms of new Merzbow material, a hard-to-find disc called "Collapse
12 Floors" constituting the only fresh solo effort that I know of.
We shall see what 2001 brings.
Curious about what lies ahead, we e-mailed
Masami Akita in the hopes of an e-mail interview; as of yet, we have
not received a reply. If Masami should browse on through and wishes
to add or amend any information found on our site, however, he is
more than welcome to do so.
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