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.
Telecom Live
Another excavation from Merzbow's formative period, Telecom Live preserves the raw energy and experimental spirit that characterized the duo's earliest explorations. The "Telecom" title suggests communication systems—appropriate for recordings that document Akita and Mizutani developing their own sonic language, transmitting signals across the boundaries of conventional music.
The recordings crackle with the excitement of artists discovering a new sonic language in real-time. Unlike later Merzbo…
Cretin Merz
Cretin Merz emerges from the earliest Merzbow sessions, when the project existed as an improvisational duo exploring the boundaries between music, noise, and performance art. The provocative title—merging "cretin" with "Merz" (the Dadaist concept developed by Kurt Schwitters)—announces the irreverent spirit that has characterized Akita's work from its inception.
These recordings, previously recycled as raw material for other releases, appear here in their original unedited form for the first tim…
Por#1&2 Vol. 2
The second chapter documents Merzbow's genesis—the formative years when Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani were developing the sonic language that would reshape global underground music.
Por#1&2 Vol. 1
The first chapter documents Merzbow's genesis—the formative years when Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani were developing the sonic language that would reshape global underground music.
雀色 2 Sparrow Color 2
The companion volume to Sparrow Color 1 continues Merzbow's exploration of keyboard-driven synthesis, pushing the methodology established in its predecessor into bolder territory. Where the first installment introduced the parameters of this unusual approach, Sparrow Color 2 expands upon them with increased confidence and complexity, demonstrating that Masami Akita's creative restlessness knows no bounds.
The continued use of the EMS SYNTHI 'A', Moog Mother 32, and Behringer Model D creates a so…
Kaerutope
The title Kaerutope fuses "kaeru" (frog) with "biotope," creating a neologism meaning "frog habitat"—a characteristically poetic gesture from an artist whose veganism and animal rights advocacy have profoundly shaped his work since 2003. For Masami Akita, sound itself becomes ecosystem, a living environment where listeners immerse themselves in complex, interacting sonic organisms.
This album showcases Merzbow at his most texturally adventurous. Bit-crushed noise collides with sampled instrument…
雀色 1 Sparrow Color 1
Sparrow Color 1 marks a significant departure in Merzbow's methodology - a rare instance of Masami Akita returning to keyboard-controlled synthesis after decades of predominantly laptop-based and analog noise production. Here, he employs a carefully curated arsenal of classic instruments: the legendary EMS SYNTHI 'A' (beloved by everyone from Brian Eno to Pink Floyd), the Moog Mother 32, and Behringer Model D, all manipulated via a Korg Monologue keyboard controller.
This configuration yields re…
Indigo Dada
Celebrating four decades of uncompromising sonic exploration, Merzbow marks the 40th anniversary of his artistic journey with Indigo Dada—released simultaneously with its companion piece Kaerutope in 2019. This twin release strategy itself constitutes a statement: even at this career milestone, Masami Akita refuses to rest on a single achievement, instead offering parallel visions that illuminate different facets of his current practice.
The album pays homage to the centennial of Dadaism with "D…
Kaoscitron
Masami Akita, the relentless force behind Merzbow, delivers a crystalline distillation of his sonic universe with Kaoscitron. This album represents a remarkable synthesis—a deliberate reset that channels decades of noise experimentation into something startlingly fresh yet unmistakably essential. After more than four decades of relentless sonic exploration, Akita proves that reinvention remains not just possible but inevitable.
The album unfolds as a triptych of sonic approaches. Opening track "…
Nocturnal Rainforest
The first collaboration between Japanese noise titan Masami Akita, aka Merzbow, iconic Brazilian drummer and producer Iggor Cavalera and forward-thinking Italian guitarist and sound designer Eraldo Bernocchi, 'Nocturnal Rainforest' terraforms a sonic landscape that's almost overpoweringly dense and disorienting, but never aggressive or chaotic. It's a fully immersive experience that re-contextualizes the trio's years of work in extreme experimental music by concentrating on texture, atmosphere a…
Akashaplexia
Akashaplexia is the culmination of Merzbow and John Wiese’s decades-long partnership, offering over three hours of new music across four CDs. Recorded together in Tokyo, the album balances Merzbow’s psychedelic intensity and Wiese’s meticulous sonic architecture, presenting a vast and intricately detailed landscape of noise, improvisation, and unpredictable dynamic shifts.
Paulownia
Paulownia by Merzbow is a 2025 full-length statement comprising two lengthy compositions that fuse intense electronic manipulation with Merzbow’s enduring fascination for natural phenomena. Across both pieces, the album merges organic inspiration and harsh digital process, producing a hypnotic yet confrontational experience.
Ideal Secret Circle (11CD Bundle)
Mega tip! *80 copies limited edition bundle.* Ideal Secret Circle It's an 11 CD limited-edition set of albums packaged in digi packs designed by Philip Marshall. The series is curated by Joachim Nordwall.1. Sins For Beginners - We Don’T Need No Music (For Pita)2. Susana Santos Silva - The Fabrication Of Time 3. Merzbow - Gareki No Niwa4. Jim O’Rourke - Subtracted5. Spykes - Memoirs Of Pogonophores Vol. 2.6. A. Bolus - Evil Moisture Plays Music In The Style Of Organ Of Corti7. Eternities - Foreve…
Animal Magnetism
*Limited Edition of 299 copies. Black vinyl * Masami Akita has been making noise since before most people understood noise could be made on purpose, and Animal Magnetism is what happens when forty years of sonic terrorism suddenly decides to sit you down and explain itself without raising its voice. Originally released on CD in 2003, this double LP reissue—remastered by Lasse Marhaug and pressed on black or purple vinyl in a gatefold sleeve featuring Akita's own photographs—adds a previously unr…
Live At Knitting Factory
*2025 stock* The live recording from New York’s Knitting Factory captures noise guru Merzbow in transcendent form, serving the audience with subtle hypnotic pulses to go with rich textures of raw to low frequencies. The immersive baths of sonic clusters, sine wave swoops, rumbling low mids and glissandos jumping off of rooftops diving down to dervish dance of bit fragments offer the listener a rare glimpse of what it means to find soothing charm and calm in the chaos.
Sharing the bill and the st…
Earthen - A Cold Spring Sampler
With two exclusive tracks by Coil and Psychic TV.
Red Magnesia Pink
First released by Extreme in the massive, infamous 'Merzbox,' "Red Magnesia Pink" is extracted and recontextualized as a standalone release for the first time. Recorded in 1995, "Red Magnesia Pink" sees Merzbow in peak form. A psychedelic whirlwind of synthetic transmissions; harsh, wet, screeching sounds that could only be produced by Masami Akita. Featuring two previously unreleased bonus tracks from the same era.
Mimesis
Tip! Tip! Tip! This work consists of sound and a collection of AI-generated images. The image collection is a compilation of AI-generated images used in a projection at the Merzbow Free Noise concert held on January 6, 2025, at WWW in Shibuya, Tokyo. The use of such visuals in Merzbow is rare in recent years, and of course, the use of AI-generated images in a live performance is a first.
The concert was divided into two parts, and one of the rehearsal recordings of the songs performed in the fir…
Hatonal
Nobody feels the sound fracturing as Masami Akita, nobody understands noise better than Merzbow. This Japanese artist is for more than forty years the maximum exponent of a style that has been catalogued and denominated with perhaps, the most descriptive word of modern music. Noise can have very diverse connotations, however, when we transfer this term to the pleasure and enjoyment that a piece of music generates in the listener, when we treat non-music as music, we understand that sound express…
Merzphysics
*300 copies limited edition* First released in 2012 on Japanese label Youth Inc. as a 10xCD Box and long time sold out. After 13 years this completely re-mastered Super-Merz-Sonik album is finally going to be re-released on OEC!
The Merzphysics set features previously unreleased recordings from 1993 to 1995, focusing on pure noise made before the introduction of synthesizers and other electronic instruments. The noise is described as being linked to grindcore, having a sense of speed, and was re…