In latest WCN noise, Roemer / Macronympha talking about cut-up noise, and came into conclusion that Evil Moisture must have been one of the early ones to really start to do head spinning cut-up work, and he concluded at the same time Rodger Stella was doing it, and soon came Kazumoto Endo, Sickness and so on....
It made me think if it has ever been really carefully evaluated when and by who the cut up noise really got going? Where one would set draw line on the obvious lineage? Since tape and tape cutting is for obvious reasons always been there in recorded experimental music. Simply because it was recorded on tape, and tape itself was major instrument itself. But should all sorts of vintage musique concrete be considered cut-up noise? I doubt so.. Regardless how great and obscure those are, they may be part of the early history and technical foundations, but moment where something really became CUT-UP NOISE is vastly later.
Killer Bug/Kazumoto End earliest releases are from 1995. Certainly there has been cut-up noise before this. Of course, Merzbow would have it in a a lot of releases here and there, but more as methods used among others, not as main method/style.
Masonna comes obviously as one name, but also his earliest works are not as heavily cut-up as a bit later. I think it was invention of mini disc when he got into more careful cutting of sound? When you listen 1989 works for example, they are energetic for sure, but still very long pieces of noise, even complete songs, without abrupt cuts.
When you fast forward to 1997 or so, it is already a sub-genre for sure. You can list ton of HARSH NOISE artists who are on the route of developing it to logical extremes we know today.
So what all happened there? It is unlikely one could establish (or need) exact history of cut up noise, but perhaps one good way could be earliest recordings one heard, realizing this must be something else. Distinctly something else than what was done by Incapacitants, Hijokaidan, Aube, CCCC, or the electro-acoustic, musique concrete, tape-loop academia type of thing. But lets say real deal (harsh) noise.
I remember being quite confused, when hearing the swizz scene for the first time. R&G, Sudden Infant, etc. WTF is this?!
Then we are in question if something like Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck – Bei Abwesenheit Jeglicher Genussempfindungen (1989) is really cut up noise. It may not be HARSH pedal oriented, feedback drenched crunch, but it sure it cuts of noise assembled.
On the field of actual HARSH noise, I got to hear tape dub of very first Pain Jerk tape probably 1994. There was not yet much PJ stuff circulating, it took couple years when PJ really blossomed and started churning out ton of tapes. Very first tape A-side, felt already back then like this is pushing harsh noise into something else. It may not feel so drastically something else in 2022, but that time it may have been like first signs that noise is about to transform into way more technically advanced and skilled sound. Including being heavy, distorted, jumping all over the place. Burst of sounds, but still yet to hear stutterloops or gaps of silence and so on.
