Merzbow : S/D

omg Merzbox Disc 26 "Live In Khabarovsk, CCCP (I'm Proud By Rank Of The Workers)" is free jazz! complete with piano and drum set. plus screechy noise tapes on the first side.

"Recorded live at AMUR Jazz & Experiment Music Festival"

Not sure if they’ve been montioned yet, but the ones with boris are always good fun.

speaking of collabs, I've consistently gone back to those two two partikel records with nordvargr. they're quite good. RIYL the harsher pansonic material or would be curious to hear "merz goes idm" or something like that.

most of these late 80's releases (specifically Enclosure, Vratya Southward, the live Russia album, and Storage currently) are very much not harsh noise walls, they are spacious and even delicate at times.

If ever in the company of a colicky baby: I dub thee Merzbawl!

so it's fair to think of Cloud Cock OO Grand as the big leap forward given it was the first DAT recording and all, but I just got to Scissors For Cutting Merzbow (Discs 32 & 33) and dang. This record was stupid rare back in the day so I never heard it, but it seems to have all the ingredients of 90's Merzbow present (i.e. what is referred to in the book as "hell's garbage disposal"). it's also clear that his collaboration work w/Achim Wollscheid was super influential on his approach and technique, this record is a great example as he is recycling and deconstructing and editing/cutting up his whole back catalog here. the silences here are much shorter, and as a result you don't get much of the clang/scrape echo-in-a-cave sound of the previous period (discs 25-30).

(the record itself is originally from late 1989, to be clear)

and the next disc (Severances) is almost straight rock music! there's a sliced-and-diced super noisy instrumental cover of "Wild Thing"!

took me a while to give Cloud Cock OO Grand a good listen, the (now sadly excised, see above) howling maelstrom of "Modular" definitely points the way forward. The previous long tracks are a joy, very varied and crunchy sounds.

more notes:

Merzbox disc 39, "Stacy Q, Hi Fi Sweet Leaf" continues the longform trend over teh last few, this one has lotsa loops and more of a slow grind at times,still not anything like a harsh noise wall
ooh Rolling Stones samples popping up out of the murk and churn!
only 6 minutes in to this 26:28 track and a ton of shit has happened already
yeah this is a fun one, a Merzbox exclusive!

disc 40 is totally different, military drums!
sounds way more like mid-80s stuff e.g. Batz-Tou-Tai, lots of loops of classical Japanese music
"Injured Emperial Soldiers Marching Song" is quite a title
ah consulting the MERZBOOK reveals that these are the first recordings with Bara (their butoh dancer in the 90s) and are video soundtracks, that explains why they are so different.

I don't think I have the stamina for the next one just now, it's called Brain Ticket Death and is from my fave overall period, 93-95

01 Metal Of Doom
02 Electric Peekaboo
03 Iron Caravan
04 Brain Ticket Death

OK lol "Brain Ticket Death", the track, is in fact a brutal noise remix of Brainticket, applause

Merzbox disc 43 Exotic Apple
"I used samples from Arthur Lyman lots on this album. Apple Rock was recorded after period of Dadarotenvator LP and which tend to make material for Flying Testicle. But finally didn't used."
much quieter, sounds like distorted Berlin school electronica or maybe TG sometimes, really cool stuff.
has more mass appeal than I think any of the other box discs so far

Merzbox discs 44 & 45: #44, Liquid City, starts off full bore noise wall but settles into more varied stuff. #45 is unreleased stuff from 1995 or so including personal fave Pinkream, first use of EMS synth, lots of wild squiggly oscillations.

so far none of these later discs are as noisy as other contemporary releases of his.

well "noisy", I mean it is Merzbow

disc 47 "Rhinogradentia" - continues the same surprisingly varied noise textures that he explored in the 90s

previous disc 46 had a sweet Reiko A solo piece on it with some dense low end snarl

OK Disc 48, "Space Mix Traveling Band" is genuinely harsh, moving into the nu-Merzbow era of the 00's and beyond

ian weighs in:

"FINALLY the genuinely harsh years (laugh emoji)"

I was surprised too!

there are plenty of super harsh 90s releases for sure, but the box doesn't really focus on that

earliest full on HNW is Akasha Gulva from 1996, but basically any of the "live performance, single 1 hour track" releases from that decade are full on blast furnace action

even the last track here on Disc 48 is doing some weird cosmic record skipping shit right now

holy shit disc 49 "Motorond" is a total blast furnace HNW with added deep hoarse screaming thru some light effects, just brutal

two 30+ minute tracks

also some high volume indecipherable muttering

Merzbox 50 Annihiloscillator

do I even want to listen to this?

*dies*

so that was fun. here are my ten favorites:

Merzbox 02 Metal Acoustic Music
Merzbox 15 Dying Mapa Tapes 1-2
Merzbox 16 Dying Mapa Tapes 2-3
Merzbox 21 Pornoise Extra
Merzbox 23 Mortegage/Batztoutai Extra
Merzbox 33 Scissors For Cutting Merzbow Vol. 2
Merzbox 36 Cloud Cock OO Grand
Merzbox 40 Music For True Romance Vol. 1
Merzbox 43 Exotic Apple
Merzbox 45 Red Magnesia Pink

and the ones I liked the least:
Merzbox 12 Nil Vagina Tape Loops
Merzbox 20 Pornoise / 1kg Vol. 3
Merzbox 31 KIR Transformation (w/Achim Wollschied)
Merzbox 50 Annihiloscillator

Well done! btw he's released 13 albums this year already.

i sometimes wonder if there’s a collector maniac out there that has all of it. just seems impossible, even for merz himself.

that said, i do want to believe that someone does and that they even have the mythical merzbow car