The Summer Of Merzbox:

[Balor/SS1535]

Disc 8 actually gets noisy rather than sound-collage!  I find the recording strategy of just maxing out mic volume and amplifying small sounds around KM's apartment really interesting.  I should give that a try...

[Balor/SS1535]

I can see where others associate the contents of disc 9 with the Collection albums, but something feels different here.  In a way, this reminds me most closely of the very recent collaboration with Lawrence English, not in regards to specific instrumentality but in overall atmosphere.  Very dark, almost brooding.

[Balor/SS1535]

Disc 10: Solonoise

I like the reference to Bataille, and I like the noise as well.  Strong overall, but some parts are definitely more to my liking than others.  In the Merzbook there is a comment that can sort of be taken to imply that Akita supplied the noise while Mizutani worked in a more "free improv" direction.  I'm wondering if they might have gotten into some tension over this?  From the little of Mizutani's later work that I have heard (just the disc on Pure), he seems to have taken a different direction from Akita.

Also, the most interesting (though perhaps not my favorite, aesthetically speaking) was the portion of track three where one or both of them were clearly rubbing pieces of styrofoam together.  Very physical.  It got me thinking that as Merzbow became more "harsh noise" as time went on, the physicality seemed to disappear as well?  Then to computer noise, and AI art being embraced over the trash-collages of yesteryear.  Has Akita's implicit post-humanism extended to an erasure of himself as an artist under the sheer weight of his output?

[Balor/SS1535]

One more question that came up while listening today (though it might be more appropriate when we get to the Pornoise CDs...): Does Merzbow have any relationship with Pop Art?

His descent from Dada and Surrealism is well-attested, but he also engages with popular culture (usually as trash) and mass production. However, the nature of that engagement has certainly changed since he went vegan.

[Balor/SS1535]

Disc 11...

I don't know why the Merzbook reviewer doesn't like this one!  While there are a few areas of return to the prior, Collection-era racket, most of this is very strong feedback tones, often bass-heavy.  I would love to hear a contemporary remaster of this one!

(This is, honestly, one of my favorite Merzbow albums overall.  I will definitely return to this one on a future commute, so as to hear it on my car speakers---which are much better than my headphones.)

[Balor/SS1535]

Not too much to say about DISC 12.

I remember having a hard time getting through this one when listening to the Merzbox for the first time, and things were not exactly much different with this attempt.  I find loops interesting---provided they are interesting.  These have moments of promise and interest, but feel, overall, like raw material that should/would/could be cannibalized for other Merzbow recordings (apparently track one on this disc was part of Solonoise 2?).

[Balor/SS1535]

Disc 13: Very good, I can see why this became the first Merzbow lp!  I used to characterize early Merzbow in my head as falling under the general heading of Surreal/Dada music-goes sound collage, but I am realizing that there is a very strong industrial phase at this time as well.  This also feels a lot more cohesive than some of the other collaboration efforts between Akita and Mizutani---not that the Collection albums were not consistent in their own way---but that there seems to be a unified vision rather than an aesthetic compromise between what seem to be importantly (though not necessarily very) different artists.

[Minus1]

(I admire and thank SS1535 for carrying on the good work here, and I wish that I had his/her/their resolve, but the gaf factor here caused me to cease the necrohippoflagellation. There's a great thread at S+W though, for all of you dead horses.) 😂

[Balor/SS1535]

(I admire and thank SS1535 for carrying on the good work here, and I wish that I had his/her/their resolve, but the gaf factor here caused me to cease the necrohippoflagellation. There's a great thread at S+W though, for all of you dead horses.) 😂

I am a proud Merzbox-solipsist.

[Minus1]

But was Bishop George Berkeley really a solipsist? (We may get some participants now!)

[Balor/SS1535]

But was Bishop George Berkeley really a solipsist? (We may get some participants now!)

Technically no (but, in a weird, Christian way he sort of was), but his picture is on the solipsism Wikipedia page!

[Balor/SS1535]

Disc 14: I appreciate the verbal aspect of the title of this album.  Most titles seem to try and capture an overall tone of the album rather than a shift that occurs at a certain point in its duration.  Here mechanization takes command in the transition between the first two tracks.  Faux-exotica dominated by seemingly identifiable samples suddenly overcome by electronic noise.