Age of 369 / Chant 2
(Extreme) Used 2xCD $20.00
1996 reissue of mid-’80s material from ZSK cassettes, when the focus was on “cheap musique concrète elements, noise electronics, turntablism, and tape loops…. The recordings here are slow-paced, atmospheric, full of groans and the occasional (but persistent when they appear) high pitches…. The chirping modulations and distortion that mark much Merzbow’s mid-1990s work is … present…, but melded into the tape loops and other sounds instead of dominating them like they later would.” Bonus track “Itomakiei” from a Korm Plastic comp from the same era “starts of with distorted noise electronics and chirps before it falls into a maintained undercurrent of looped junk metal percussions mixed in with other tape loops.”
Music For Bondage Performance 2
(Extreme) Used CD $25.00 (Out-of-stock)
“An all-around solid work” from 1996, according to the ever reliable Amazon. “One of Masami Akita’s earliest indications that he wouldn’t be content with the same old harsh assault with each release. Quite varied works, with … a focus on textures and strange rhythms…. While it’s not entirely laid-back or subdued, Merzbow displays a much different form of … hostility here. Lots of creepy ambient passages, glowing feedback, metallic rattling, and other sounds.” Six tracks recorded in 1993, including remixes of the EPs Electroploitation (Lunhare 1994) and Electroknots Parts 1 & 2 (Cold Spring 1995); four originally recorded for “Kinbaku-bi 2” CD-ROM (Cine Magic 1994); plus a bonus track from Music For Bondage Performance (Extreme 1991).
Music For Bondage Performance
(Extreme) Used CD $25.00 (Out-of-stock)
“Atonal, quite creepy, and offering a bit of an aesthetic counterpoint to the rest of the discography. Merzbow is here immersed in a calm atmosphere, sometimes bordering on ambient. No sound wall to pierce, no surge of all-out noise; instead a peaceful succession, a minimalist perspective which brings us closer in certain aspects to a more “classical” electro-acoustic music…. All of this is meant to be pretty unhealthy, of course…., adding the sharper, more acid color of … distorted bell sounds…. ‘Aimei nawa’ becomes more threatening: slow and heavy percussions install an oppressive ritual, more creaking distortions arise, and a pattern of pain gradually appears…. [S]ounds mutate in your mind into human screams … [and] an electric guitar.... Oriental bell, gong, roaring, barking, blowing in pipes, and strident squeaks [cast] a dreary and devastated soundscape.” From 1991
The Night Before The Death of the Sampling Virus
(Extreme) Used CD $10.00
Disjointed voices, a rush of sounds and then silence, almost sinister. There is a dazzling array of sound sources, intended for playback in random shuffle mode — live recordings, the prerecorded, the appropriated, etc., the common thread being the voices of the Japanese people. Notable inclusions in this area are Yamatsuka Eye and Tenko, with their distinctive abilities. Otomo is careful in his selections, leaving some alone in their spare original states, manipulating others are into a cacophonous fury, the light and dark. From 1993