Sphere Sessions
Sphere Sessions suggests three-dimensional sound constructions - recordings enveloping listeners in dense, immersive noise environments. Akita's spatial awareness reached new sophistication in these mid-2000s productions - creating environments rathe…
1633+
1633+ exemplifies Merzbow's confident command of laptop production techniques refined over five years of intensive experimentation. The numeric title resists interpretation - perhaps a date, perhaps a catalog number, perhaps pure abstraction. 1633 sa…
Yoshinotsune Metamo
The title references Yoshitsune, legendary Japanese warrior-hero - though "Metamo" suggests metamorphosis, transformation. Yoshitsune's story involves disguise, flight, and tragic loyalty - themes resonating with Akita's own constant transformations.…
Enclosure
Enclosure suggests both confinement and protection - sound as shelter, sound as prison. The title carries multiple resonances: the enclosures that contain animals in zoos and farms, the enclosure movement that privatized common lands, the sonic enclo…
Antimonument Tapes
The "Antimonument" concept looms large in Merzbow lore - the original 1985-86 album is considered a landmark in noise history, a foundational text for the genre. *Antimonument Tapes* offers invaluable context, documenting the creative process that yi…
Insect 801
Three tracks from the production of Konchuuki (Essence Music, 2015). The 28-minute centerpiece employs oscillator-modulated rhythms from a vintage Mach Rhythm Box RB-801, creating distinctive rhythmic patterns throughout—the album title references th…
Pi-Eggplant
The Merzbow Archive series by Slowdown Records, which has released ten editions so far, enters its twelveth edition. This edition consists of recordings made between 2008 and 2009, when Merzbow developed a style that incorporated drumming. Although M…
Groon Lesson
Recorded during the height of the 13 Japanese Birds series production, these three performances capture Merzbow at peak drumming-era intensity. The centerpiece - a commanding 32-minute second track - demonstrates the extended improvisational structur…
Red Brick
Test mixes for Arijigoku (Vivo, 2008)—Merzbow's first full-fledged combination of live drums with improvised noise performance. Drums were recorded separately in a rented studio, then mixed with noise at a later date. This preliminary version offers …
Ensemble Drums
Alternate mixes from two essential albums: Protean World (Noiseville, 2008) and Microkosmos (Blossoming Noise, 2009). Drumming was recorded separately in rented studio space, capturing Akita's return to the instrument after decades.
The first track f…
Drumorph
Primarily computer-based but incorporating sampled drums, this album documents the earliest experiments leading to the full drum integration that would define this period. Finely cut drum sounds ricochet through space in the first two tracks, with fi…
Interrupteur / Tautologos 3 (CD)
1999 re-issue on Blue Chopsticks of the EMI LP with two landmark instrumental compositions respectively from 1967 and 1970.
Chansons Pour Le Corps / Et Si Tout Entière Maintenant (CD)
Two intriguing late 1980's pieces respectively for voice and instruments and a symphonic tale with memorized sounds released on Mode in 2002.
Archives Génétiquement Modifiées / Société II (CD)
Excellent 2008 CD-only release on Robot of the 2000 piece for for memorized sounds coupled with the only CD re-issue of the 1968 recording of the 1967 piece for 4 soloists and 16 instruments.
Chantal (CD)
2004 CD-only release on Avatar/OHM of the touching 1978 portrait of a villager in collaboration with Brunhild Meyer-Ferrari.
Les Anecdotiques (CD)
2004 CD-only release on Sub Rosa of the evocative 2002 radio piece composed using recordings made during trips.
Symphonie Déchirée (CD+DVD)
Wonderful symphony for 17 instruments and memorized sounds composed in 1998, performed by Ars Nova Ensemble and released by L'Empreinte Digitale in 2013 as a set including a DVD with Jacqueline Caux's film of the perfomance plus estras.
Feedback Purple Yellow
Recorded as prototype material for the Here album (L. White Records, 2008) but ultimately unused. Deafening self-made instrument sounds run parallel with dull, boomy distorted noise, their synergy creating a strong sense of speed.
Very few sounds ide…
Coma Test
Coma Test pushes toward sensory overload approaching coma-like disconnection, testing how much the nervous system can absorb. The title suggests medical experimentation, perhaps referencing animal testing practices that Akita opposes, or simply the e…
Bloodour
Bloodour's visceral title ("blood" + "our") suggests shared complicity - the blood is ours, we are responsible. These recordings emerge from the Minazo/F.I.D./Merzbear period, when Merzbow explicitly addressed animal cruelty with unflinching directne…