Merzbow
Masami Akita was born in 1956 in Tokyo, Japan. Akita is a graduate of Tamagawa University, Art Department, and majored in Painting & Art Theory. Akita formed the premier Japanese Noise group Merzbow in 1979. Merzbow have released over 300 recordings, on tape, LP and CD, to date, working with many different media such as video, film and CD-ROM, both in the directorial and soundtrack role.
Masami Akita was born in 1956 in Tokyo, Japan. Akita is a graduate of Tamagawa University, Art Department, and majored in Painting & Art Theory. Akita formed the premier Japanese Noise group Merzbow in 1979. Merzbow have released over 300 recordings, on tape, LP and CD, to date, working with many different media such as video, film and CD-ROM, both in the directorial and soundtrack role.
Kookaburra
"There is no argument; Merzbow stands as the most important artist in noise music. The moniker of Japanese artist Masami Akita has appeared on over four hundred albums since 1979. The name comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' famous work Merzbau, in which he transformed the interior of his house with found objects. This is reflected in Akita's junk art / collage aesthetic. Other influences on the Merzbow philosophy range from ritualised eroticism (fetishism & bondage), surrealism to extreme…
2017-2020
"2017-2020 is a box set of five original albums by Merzbow released on Slowdown Records. Since 2018, Merzbow has been running an archive series on the same label that contains mainly unreleased and unearthed material from the past, and while each series is organized according to production period and musical concept, this box is a collection of original albums produced individually. However, this box is a collection of original albums produced individually, and each one has a very different musi…
Double Beat Sequencer
"The fourteenth series of the Merzbow archive series, which began in 2018 and focuses on unreleased and unearthed material, is a collection of unreleased recordings from 2014 that were performed with a sequencer in the background: Double Beat Sequencer Vol. 1, Double Beat Sequencer Vol.2", "Double Beat Sequencer Vol.3", "Double Beat Sequencer Vol.4", "Double Beat Sequencer Vol.5" and "Double Beat Sequencer Vol.6". Double Beat Sequencer" is a boxed set of all six of these works. The sequencer use…
Horizon
"The thirteenth series of Merzbow's archival series, which began in 2018 and focuses on unreleased and unearthed material, includes six albums recorded between 2011 and 2012: Insect 801, Kumo No Zettaichi, Sugamo Flower, Bit Blues", "Kotorhizome", and "Gman+". Horizon" is a boxed set of these works. In 2011, Merzbow released "Dead Zone" on the Ukrainian label Quasi Pop Records, which focused on the radioactive contamination caused by the nuclear accidents in Fukushima and Chernobyl, and also rel…
Drum & Noise
"The 12th series of the archive series, which started in 2018 and focuses on Merzbow's unreleased and unearthed recordings, includes "Drumorph", "Ensemble Drums", and "Arijigoku (Test Mix)", which contain recordings from 2008-2009, when Merzbow developed a style that incorporated drum performance. Arijigoku (Test Mix)", "Red Brick", "Groon Lesson", and "Pi-Eggplant". The boxed version of these albums is called "Drum & Noise".Masami Akita was originally a drummer who was greatly influenced by psy…
Arrangement
"This is the eleventh release in the Merzbow Archive series by Slowdown Records, which began in 2018. This box (Arrangement) contains six albums from 2004 to 2005: "15 August 2006", "27 August 2006", "Bloodour", "Coma Test", "Yono's Journey", "Feedback", and "Purple Yellow". Other Merzbow's works during this period include "Minazo" (Important Records, 2006), "F.I.D. (Fur Is Dead)" (Fourth Dimension Records, 2006), "Bloody Sea" (Vivo, 2007), "Merzbear" ( Important Records, 2007), and Peace For An…
Flare Blues (LP)
Tip! Flare Blues reimagines two of Merzbow’s long out of print EPs from 1994, Flare Gun and White Blues. Revisiting the original pieces and adding previously unreleased materials recorded during these sessions, Flare Blues tethers together a set of Merzbow’s most exploratory work, creating a visceral linkage between a pair of vital works. Originally recorded in June 1994, Merzbow's Flare Gun is a pulsating and hammering collection of pieces that grinds ever forward with a sense of bludgeoning de…
Collection 001_010
Joining their long-standing effort to reissue the most important and difficult to obtain artifacts from Merzbow's sprawling back catalog, Urashima returns with “Collection 001_010”, an absolutely stunning 10 CD box set comprising the entirety of the project's “Collection” releases, originally self-released between 1981 and 1982 on Masami Akita's Lowest Music & Arts imprint. Capturing some of the band's earliest explorations, when it was still a duo of Akita and Mizutani, these are some of the mo…
Collection 008
* Numbered edition of 200 copies in a folder cover. * Recorded and Mixed at Lowest Music & Arts, Telecom Studio 1981 - 1982. Percussion, Recorder, Effects, Artwork – Masami Akita (Merzbow) violin – Kiyoshi Mizutani. Remastered from Original Cassette Tape in Feb 2018 at Munemihouse, Tokyo. Originally Released on Cassette by Lowest Music & Arts in 1982.
Collection 006
* Numbered edition of 200 copies in a folder cover. * Recorded and Mixed at Lowest Music & Arts, Telecom Studio 1981 - 1982. Percussion, Recorder, Effects, Artwork – Masami Akita (Merzbow) violin – Kiyoshi Mizutani. Remastered from Original Cassette Tape in Feb 2018 at Munemihouse, Tokyo. Originally Released on Cassette by Lowest Music & Arts in 1982.
Solonoise 1 & 2 (2CD)
* Compilation of the 1982 cassette releases Solonoise 1 and Solonoise 2. Limited to 300 copies. Released in digipak. * Merzbow re-edition of 2 historical tapes of the first Japanoise era! Special guest on "Solonoise 1": Kiyoshi Mizutani.This albums offers pure analog noise with varied timbre and string, keyboard, percussion. Inspired by DADA & Kurt Scwitters from which he took "MERZ" for his project name, this might be considered a New-DADA experiment....These early tracks are not the overwhelm…
Wildwood II
* 2021 stock* Masami Akita exercises his bestial side in a hairily psychedelic follow-up to his Wildwood (2016) CD, also for Dirter Promotions. Wildwood II is dedicated to the Wildwood Trust, who support British wildlife through protecting endangered native species and re-connecting people with the natural environment around them. In both parts Masami Akita a.k.a. Merzbow flashes his fangs and hypercolour fur in a torrent of digital noise that could be said to transcend the boundary between h…
Scandal
** Matte laminate and embossed sleeve, monochrome print and includes a full colour collage fold out poster from Masami Akita ** Scandal collects together three newly unearthed and revised pieces from Merzbow recorded between 1992 and 1995. Each of the pieces here typifies work that sits at a nexus between the experimental cassette and electronic collisions of Masami Akita’s late 1980s works and the emergent noise language that resolved into a series of now legendary recordings completed during t…
Triwave Pagoda
** Deluxe 40-minute Cassette, limited edition of 150, each with full-color six-panel j-card in clear Norelco case, plus full-color outer o-card featuring collage art by Masami Akita ** "Triwave Pagoda" is a blistering sonic depiction of space travel through rough and choppy atmospheres. Turbulence is ever-present and the cacophonic, dying equipment is about to give out. But the occasional shooting comet is still visible. And behind the controls is an impeccably credentialed master of flight who…
Live at Middle East Cafe Boston 21 Sep 1990
** 2021 Stock. Original Videotape, Numbered ** Vanilla Records presents Live at Middle East Cafe Boston 21 Sep 1990 by Merzbow. Perfomed by Masami Akita and Reiko Azuma. Remixed at Fuji Planning Studio. Sound mastered at ZSF Produkt Studio. Acknowledgment for Fuji Planning, Rightbrain, Ron Lessard (RRR). Recorded live at Middle East Cafe, Boston, USA 21 Sep 90.
10x6=60CD Box Set
Merzbow's unpublished/excavated archive series by Slowdown Records began to be released in 2018, and so far 10 chapters have been published. This 60CD box contains all those 10 chapters. They have been published in chronological order starting from 1979, you can trace the changes of the various styles of Merzbow by listening to all of them in the correct order.
Green Wheels
** Deluxe double vinyl LP version in gatefold sleeve. Limited edition to 299 copies ** Merzbow stands as the most important artist in noise music. The moniker of Japanese artist Masami Akita was born in Tokyo in 1979. Inspired by dadaism and surrealism, Akita took the name for his project from German artist Kurt Schwitters's pre-war architectural assemblage The Cathedral of Erotic Misery or Merzbau. Working in his home, he quickly gained notoriety as a purveyor of a musical genre composed solely…
Black Crows Cyborg
** Barbed Wire Swimming Pool splatter vinyl. LP with super deluxe embossed cover with mini poster ** The skylines of Tokyo and New York City are impenetrable. On the streets it is cold - the ravens have blocked out the sun. The barbed chicken wire that surrounds the cities wave scraps of plastic shreds of circuit boards like surrender flags. Ravens have become the society, they are now the rulers. Black Crows Cyborg is the first collaboration from noise titans Merzbow and Prurient. With more tha…
Kakapo
** Edition of 500 Green Translucent Vinyl. 2021 Stock ** Incomparable noise legend Merzbow releases a dense, flailing black hole of a droning noise track, 33 minutes spread over two sides of green vinyl. Aside from several very limited releases and multiple adventurous collaborations, it’s the first full Merzbow record to be released on vinyl for a couple of years.
Starting with an intense machine hum, “Kakapo” then shrieks, stutters and wails while maintaining the all-obliterating industrial dr…
Achromatic
** 2021 Stock ** The esoteric noise duo known as HEXA is the sonic union of Xiu Xiu’s focal point Jamie Stewart and sonic provocateur Lawrence English. Forged out of a mutual interest in exotic birds and the decaying charms of the post-industrial age, their collaboration explores the physicality of sound and its abilities to infiltrate and occupy the body. Their collaborative work has been described as being possessed by cascading low frequency pulses and tectonic plates of sound, suspended in c…