Review: Merzbow – 'Life Performance'

MERZBOW
'Life Performance'
COLD SPRING RECORDS

Out of the vaults by way of Cold Spring records comes a long overdue reissue of some very rare classic noise. Originally released on his own ZSF Produkt label, 'Life Performance' by Masami Akita (AKA Merzbow) dates back to 1985 and was originally put out on cassette. Fast-forward thirty years and Akita has dug out the original master tapes and given them a remaster for 2016.

The album title suggests this is a live performance, but it isn't. The pieces 'Nil Vagina Mail Action' parts 1-5 were recorded in Akita's own Merz-bau Studio. With a discography in the hundreds of releases (in one format or another) so far there were plenty of other candidates for the remaster treatment, but 'Life Performance' is one of those nice succinct time capsules that demonstrates some of Akita's great analogue experimentation in an era when the synth was being pushed harder than ever before.

'Nil Vagina Mail Action Pt. 1' unloads with a wall of static noise that slowly evolves into a drone and then into heavily distorted minimal rhythm before once again becoming engulfed in a swell of static noise eventually punctuated by bass. 'Nil Vagina Mail Action Pt. 2' begins with a dissonant sample overlayed with distorted waves and swirling static before reverting to piercing pitches and becoming engulfed in layers of heavily distorted samples. 'Nil Vagina Mail Action Pt. 3' like the first track opens with a swell of static noise, this time punctuated by piercing notes and gurgling distorted synths that evolves into a dark droning wall of sound thick enough to bludgeon you with.

'Nil Vagina Mail Action Pt. 4' opens with a distorted vocal loop slowly becoming in a blend of static and rapid monophonic bleeps that sounds like a dial-up modem being possessed by the devil. The final assault on the senses, 'Nil Vagina Mail Action Pt. 5' continues on somewhat from the previous track with swirling tape sounds and heavy static creating a psychedelic dial-up sound.

The summing up above doesn't really do the pieces justice though. The heavy atmosphere and sustained attack of them (they're twelve-to-fifteen minutes long) are endurance testers for even hardened noise fans.

In terms of production it is hard to tell this was a mid-1980s cassette release. Yes it is primitive and analogue from the ground up, but it has been remastered really nicely and to a high quality which gives an extra level of clarity to the din of sonic dissonance.

This will be one for the collectors or very, very intrepid explorers. It isn't Merzbow's most stunning works, but it is a relentlessly hard lesson in noise music from one of its undeniable masters. It is intense but rewarding if you are a fan of noise.  

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Review: SCOTT MILLER / LEE CAMFIELD / MERZBOW – ' No Closure'

SCOTT MILLER / LEE CAMFIELD / MERZBOW 
'No Closure' 
COLD SPRING RECORDS 

The bed of the arrangements were recorded in abasement in San Francisco, and indeed the vibe does evoke a subterranean vibe nearly to the point where one can smell the musty walls. 'No Closure consists of two twenty-two minute tracks, but each is clearly divided into distinct sections that don't so much bleed into each other as shift direction several times.

The rhythm section of the fist section of 'I' evokes a mental image of hoboes jamming in a rusting boxcar in an abandoned siding as they await the one sent of for the sterno and gasoline. The repeating riffs sit below Masami Akita's (Merzbow) sonic manipulations juxtaposing the two ends of the collaboration instead of having them coalesce. The sound feels like it was captured live by someone adept field recording. The next section is a launch into a melancholy tremolo picked black metal melody as the electronics kiss the boiling psychedelic sky. This must mean the sterno has arrived and in the siding brains set to tweaking and the gas huffing can commence. Off we go into an organ drone over which the electronic noise grows increasingly frenetic until it trails off at the end.

Funeral doom riffs kick off 'II' with layers of what may be heavily distorted voices low in the mix or we may have a case of electronic voice phenomena haunting the track. This track has more of a metal flavour than the first, but probably only to those more familiar with blackened ambient noise terrorists like Abruptum or Swiss funeral doom precursors Mordor. Here the portentous filthy drums, electronic howling and melodic chanting sit together in quite a complementary way. The end section is like a banishing ritual to cleanse the headspace of the listener of the unclean entities the preceding sonic ritual called forth. Only too fitting for such a shamanic creation.

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Review: MERZBOW Vs NORDVARGR - 'Partikel III'

MERZBOW VS NORDVARGR  
'Partikel III' 
COLD SPRING RECORDS 

'Partikel III' is the third in a series of collaborative releases from noise sculptor Masami Akita (Merzbow) and industrial experimentalist Henrik Nordvargr Björkk (MZ.412, Folkstorm, Toroidh).One would be hard pressed to think of a more natural pairing for collaboration. Both highly prolific and influential in the worlds of power electronics and noise, the combination is more art than terror. The four long tracks hold the listener's attention throughout.

The combination of electronic feedback and synthesis is at once meditative and monumental. This is an arena that is often oppressive with dystopian visions and invocations of mechanistic terror. 'Partikel III' is the Machine gazing into a skrying bowl and communicating with angels born of the singularity. If mind expansion though psychedelic consciousness enhancement could be distilled into sound, 'Partikel III' would be it.

With an underlying layer of rhythm beneath the low-end drones, 'Heterotic String Hybrid' is cut through with stabs of noise and electronic sounds like the firing of they synapses of the hive mind brain. On 'Lorentz Covariance' the feel is ritualistic, with a slow percussive pulse and drones like the synthesized chanting of Tibetan monks whose consciousness has been digitally uploaded to a now sentient network. 'Submaton Color Pt. 1' develops slowly with high notes held for minutes at a time, occasionally rising and dipping with a breath-like portamento. Distorted rushes of sound and drones move below the surface, heightening the trance inducing character of the piece. This segues seamlessly into 'Submaton Color Pt. 2', with low and mid frequency drones like electronic pranayama and synthetic and electronic noise playing in the space opening out like bursts of kundalini rising.

As one can rely on from Cold Spring Records, the production is flawless and graphic design fits the meditative and artistic sounds of the release. These sounds are from masters of their art that discerning collectors will treasure.

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