The strawpoll spoke, and now I must submit myself to the Merzlord, for like two days straight. It's going to be cool.
>Merzbow – OM Electrique
The first ever record by Masami Akita, from 1979.
The centerpiece is the title track, which is 39 minutes of sonic experimentations over a lo-fi bass-heavy drone, that changes basically just one time during the whole song. During the first 15 minutes the track goes into a sort of progression, moving from simple sonic manipulation to crude, metallic percussions to a little “climax” of distortion, raw noise and rhythmic madness. After that, it returns to the drone and the minimal percussions for the rest of the track.
I can see why a lot of people could find this boring, but for me it actually never was: the meditative, almost tribal atmosphere of the quieter parts was enjoyable enough, because it actually had some little variations of the drone and the percussions, plus the noisier bit was pretty good.
"Untitled Taped Drum Solo" is where it’s at: after a couple minutes of sound manipulations over a drone, Masami starts to improvise with an extremely lo-fi drum kit (which sounds awesome), accompanied by some digital noise. This was really enjoyable: the grooves are here, the skills are here, the performance is varied and entertaining, and the production is fantastic; what’s not to like?
“Untitled Guitar Solo” is basically a string of sounds experiment, ranging from electric noise to experimental guitar playing to what I suppose is water or some liquid. It’s pretty interesting and varied, but maybe not that much remarkable.
As a series of sound experiments, this was really enjoyable; don’t get me wrong, nothing here is really that mindblowingly awesome (except for maybe the drum solo), and yes, the title track could have been a lot shorter, but it was entertaining enough, and it left my ears satisfied, with those raw tones and metallic aesthetic.
6.5/10
