I almost thought to post this in the "Playlist" section, but the more I think about it, I realize it's more appropriate to discuss here:
At this moment, I am finishing a listening of Merzbow's Pinkream. The sun over Philadelphia has a strangely salmon tint to it, the birds are traversing around Rittenhouse park; it all feels like perfect backdrop for this intense psychedelia to hit. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a supreme recording from Masami. All the hallmarks of this era for the project are present; overbearing synth blears, spitfire scrap abuse and tons of mechanical loops. Oh, how those loops hit.
As time goes on, I start to think to myself "this record is pretty damn incredible. Why do I not hear much chatter about it? But I also thought that about the last Merzbow of this era that I heard. What's going on here?"
So I ask the masses here -- what is going on here? Do you see (mostly) everything Merzbow touched in this era to be incredible? If so, how do you go about weeding out the "essentials" from the "you can skip it" records? After hearing so much from this time period, I would honestly not even think to recommend a first time listener to check Venereology, which may sound absurd to many of you!! Still a great record, but I've come to find that there are even better records! And the margin of error between them is beyond razor thin. It hurts my head a bit!
Another separate question I'd like to ask regarding this work -- initial introductions I had to this era of the project were that it was very "technical" or "busy" work. After so much time listening, I start to understand less and less how this perception was created. Maybe "dense" or "meticulous" would be more apt terms when describing Merzbow around this time, but certainly not "busy." To me, it sounds like he's usually working with 2-3 sound sources at a time on a majority of his work and mastering is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Would you agree? How do you perceive this sound?
