New Arrivals
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.
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 "…
Mother Tongue
A Senegalese Griot singer, an Amsterdam improviser and a Puerto Rican jazz drummer find eachother on an open playground, a stage build for improvisation, an old cinema now used for minute made story telling. Equiped with an m'bira, a xalam, a drumkit, a voice, percussion, house hold tools and an electric chlavichord on 220 volt, they sit down and take off: Wrrrrrraaang! Singer and percussionist Mola Sylla is in many ways a musical explorer. Born and raised in Dakar, Senegal, he grew up in the tr…
Elephant
Brooklyn-born trumpeter and composer Adam O’Farrill, hailed as a leading light of the new American jazz scene, announces his bold new quartet project Elephant. With this ensemble, O’Farrill expands his sonic language into a fresh, genre-blurring space that fuses the intimacy of the jazz quartet with the emotional depth of 20th‑century minimalism and the rhythmic urgency of contemporary electronic and dance music.
Elephant features a powerful lineup: O’Farrill on trumpet and electronics, Yvonne R…
Eavesdrop, 2024
Benefit compilation with exclusive tracks from live performances & installations at eavesdrop festival 2024. All revenues go to charities providing medical aid and food sovereignty in Gaza.
Time Images
Katharina Schmidt is a percussionist, composer, researcher and radio host. A frequent collaborator, her artistic portfolio includes film music, sound art installations, and radio pieces as well as multichannel compositions. After years of playing drums and piano in various bands, her solo work is influenced by indie, experimental, and improvised music.
The pieces experiment with emergent harmonies, rhythms created by interferences between sine waves, and textures abstracted from field recordings…
Santur & Kamancheh for Electronics
In this collaboration, Maryam Rahmani and David Esser investigate the sonic and expressive potential of the Santur and Kamancheh beyond the frameworks that traditionally define them. Both instruments, central to the language of Iranian classical music, are repositioned within a new constellation where inherited structures meet contemporary sound practices. Tradition and modernity are not treated as opposing forces but as interwoven layers within a shared field of resonance, a dynamic that rarely…
If protozoa connotes
Soft Items sends out their third release through Sensorisk Verden — An exercise of bringing another being to mind. Translating unconscious material into images or sounds, perhaps a past- or future self. The protozoa. A message abrubts. A door slams. A strange whistle. Personifying these noises as bridging entities between the known and the unknown.
Vistas Fijas
The sole 7" EP by three key figures of Mexico's underground (1985). Minimal synth, ambient textures, post-industrial drift. Nearly 18 minutes of haunting electronic experimentalism at its most spectral.