Ecobondage (Another Mix)
The provocative title merges ecological and fetishistic imagery - characteristic Merzbow juxtaposition refusing easy interpretation. "Ecobondage" suggests nature constrained by human activity while carrying erotic connotations connecting to Akita's longtime engagement with transgressive sexuality through his Pornoise label and BDSM-influenced imagery.
Ecological themes would become increasingly central following his veganism adoption, but even here, years earlier, Akita demonstrates awareness of…
Material H2
Material H2 strips Merzbow's sound to elemental components - pure sonic matter awaiting transformation. The "H2" designation evokes hydrogen, the simplest element, suggesting return to first principles. Just as hydrogen combines to form more complex molecules, these basic sonic elements combine to create Merzbow's elaborate constructions.
Akita works with sonic substance like a sculptor with clay - shaping, texturing, building structures from raw matter. The "Material" series title acknowledges …
Crocidura Dsi Nezumi
The title references the Japanese white-toothed shrew (Crocidura dsinezumi) - an early indication of animal themes that would become prominent following Akita's veganism adoption in 2003. The shrew exists in perpetual urgency, eating constantly or dying - a quality resonating with Merzbow's relentless intensity. These tiny creatures live at the edge of metabolic possibility, their hearts beating impossibly fast.
This prescient animal reference - predating Akita's formal commitment to animal righ…
Environmental Percussion Vol. 2
Continuing the percussive investigations begun in Volume 1, this installment pushes further into the liminal space between rhythm and chaos. Where the first volume established the conceptual framework, Environmental Percussion Vol. 2 explores its implications more deeply, finding increasingly complex rhythmic patterns within seemingly formless noise.
Together, the Environmental Percussion volumes document Merzbow's engagement with rhythm and pulse - dimensions often overlooked in discussions of …
Environmental Percussion Vol. 1
The "Environmental Percussion" series finds Akita exploring the rhythmic potential of non-traditional sound sources - objects, spaces, and acoustic phenomena pressed into service as percussion instruments. These experiments anticipate the more overtly beat-driven work of later periods while connecting to musique concrète traditions of treating all sounds as potential musical material.
Akita transforms everyday acoustic phenomena into percussion, finding rhythm where conventional listeners percei…
De-Soundtrack
De-Soundtrack inverts conventional film music logic - rather than supporting images, these sounds demand visualization, compelling listeners to construct hallucinatory cinema in their minds. The "De-" prefix suggests removal, negation, reversal: this is soundtrack stripped of its images, music freed from visual servitude. Akita's late-80s work often evokes dramatic scenarios: chase sequences, explosions, moments of suspended tension.
The listener becomes director, editor, and audience simultaneo…
Jinrinkinmouzui
Jinrinkinmouzui exemplifies the dense, layered constructions that defined Merzbow's late-80s output - recordings so thick with information they seem to exceed human perception. Each listen reveals new details buried within the sonic sediment: textures, events, and micro-structures rewarding patient engagement. The title itself resists easy translation, its syllables suggesting bodily processes and material transformations.
The recordings operate on multiple temporal scales simultaneously - micro…
Batztoutai Mix
The "Batztoutai" period represents a significant evolution in Merzbow's methodology - a turning point that would influence countless subsequent artists. Moving beyond the collage-heavy approach of earlier years, Akita began incorporating record scratching and sampling in more rhythmic, cut-up configurations. This shift was partly technological: new sampling equipment enabled unprecedented manipulation precision.
The late 1980s saw Akita acquiring increasingly sophisticated tools - samplers, effe…
Antimony
Named for the toxic metallic element with a long history in alchemy and medicine, Antimony embodies the corrosive, transformative power of Merzbow's mid-80s work. Throughout history, antimony has occupied a liminal position: useful in small doses, deadly in excess, capable of both healing and harm. Medieval alchemists prized it for its ability to purify gold, while Renaissance physicians employed it despite knowing its dangers.
Akita's noise operates similarly - like alchemists seeking to transf…
Agni Hotra (2nd Mix)
Agni Hotra" references the ancient Vedic fire ritual - one of Hinduism's oldest ceremonies, performed at sunrise and sunset to purify the environment and establish cosmic harmony. By invoking this concept, Akita suggests that Merzbow's harsh frequencies might serve purifying rather than merely destructive functions. The fire ritual burns away impurities, leaving clarity and renewal in its wake.
This alternate mix reveals how studio decisions shape ostensibly "raw" noise - the fire ritual metapho…
Age Of 369
By the mid-1980s, Merzbow had established itself as a defining voice in the emerging global noise underground. International cassette-trading networks carried Akita's recordings across borders, connecting Tokyo's experimental scene with kindred spirits worldwide. Age Of 369 documents this confident period - the numerological title invites esoteric interpretation, as 369 appears in various mystical traditions, most notably Nikola Tesla's theories about universal patterns.
The number 369 held part…
Le Sang Et La Rose
The French subtitle - "Blood and Rose" - evokes the surrealist and decadent literary traditions that have long influenced Masami Akita's aesthetic sensibility. From its inception, Merzbow has drawn on European avant-garde movements: Dadaism, Surrealism, Fluxus, and the transgressive literature of Georges Bataille and the Marquis de Sade. The lotus flower itself carries rich symbolic weight across Asian traditions - representing purity emerging from muddy waters, spiritual enlightenment rising fr…
Musick For Screen
The evocative title hints at Merzbow's engagement with visual media- Masami Akita has consistently maintained interests in film, photography, and visual art alongside his sonic practice. Musick For Screen suggests soundtracks for films that may never have existed - or perhaps for films of the mind. The archaic spelling "Musick" connects this work to pre-modern musical traditions, when sound, magic, and spiritual practice remained intertwined.
Expanded Musik 2
Expanded Musik (2) reflects the duo's growing ambition to push beyond conventional noise parameters into territories where sound becomes sculptural, architectural, almost tactile. The title references Gene Youngblood's concept of "Expanded Cinema"—the idea that film could transcend traditional constraints to become a total sensory experience. By extension, Akita's "Expanded Musik" suggests sound freed from musical conventions, operating on purely phenomenological terms.
Yantra Material Action
Yantra Material Action stands among the most significant documents of early Merzbow. Recorded during 1981—a watershed year that also produced Collection 010—this album captures the project at a moment of intense creative ferment. The "Yantra" concept, drawn from Hindu and Buddhist traditions, refers to geometric diagrams used as meditation aids. By invoking this concept, Akita signals his early interest in spiritual and philosophical frameworks as organizing principles for sonic chaos.
This reco…
Collection: 010
The "Collection" series holds legendary status in Merzbow historiography—a cornerstone of the project's early catalog that established methodologies Akita would refine for decades. Between 1981 and 1982, he released ten volumes on his own Lowest Music & Arts label, each created by mixing multiple tapes into dense sonic collages. Collection 010 represents the culmination of this early methodology.
Originally recorded on October 26, 1981—the same fertile year that produced Yantra Material Action—t…
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.