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MERZBOW / M.B - Merzbow meets M.B.

Format: LP + 7inch Label & Cat.Number: Menstrual Recordings LH47 Release Year: 2013 Note: first ever album collaboration by two of the most important and well known industrial and harsh noise artists => "Dissonant Abstractions" and "Surreal Distortions" are characterizing the music quite aptly, these are wall of sound drones with lots of subtle distortion and distant harmonies appearing... comes on multi-coloured vinyl and with a bonus split 7", only 267 copies were pressed in total !! Price (incl. 19% VAT): €26.50 More Info First ever collaboration album between the two most important noise artists on the planet! 7" is a noisy split. Xeroxed cover with numbered insert. Lp is green/blue/yellow splatter vinyl and 7" is fuchsia. www.menstrualrecordings.org "Masami Akita and Maurizio Bianchi are without question amongst the pioneers of harsh, abrasive electronic music. Both of their careers began quite prolifically around the same time, and since Bianchi's return in the late 1990s have continued as such, with both producing a massive number of albums each year. These two albums act nicely as reference points on their long careers, with the 10" capturing pieces each submitted for the Mail Music Project compilation, here appearing unedited for the first time, and the LP being a recent collaborative work that stands amongst both artists' best material as of late. The material on Merzbow Meets M.B. is recent work from both acts as a true collaboration, and the bonus included 7" makes for a nice split release to compare to the 10" as far as the individual artists' work goes. "Dissonant Abstraction" initially is all roaring, cavernous Merzbow noise, but kept restrained and under control. Low register swells and patterns make for an ersatz rhythm, with haunting passages of synthesizer clearly marking Bianchi's contributions. His work here has shades of his more recent new age material, but it works, balancing out the harsher end of Akita’s harsh noise. In some ways it sounds like each artist’s solo work mixed together, and it is rather effective. The other half, "Surreal Distortions," is overall more in the noise spectrum of things, with muffled, bassy noises and thin analog electronics. There is not the same hints at melody as on the other side, and instead focuses on harsher textures. Bent oscillators and electronic chirps mark this a clearly analog piece, and with the occasional use of phasing and flanging it calls to mind some of CCCC and Astro's best work. Here it feels more like a collaboration between the two, with Akita’s use of chaotic mixing and Bianchi’s use of synthesizer sounds. The 7" single included with the LP features each artist contributing their own recent solo works as well, and while both are excellent, neither are surprising. Merzbow's "Fragment B" is all scraping metal and bleeping electronics, so in some regards is a throwback to his early 1990s junk noise sound without the overly loud electronics. An occasional rhythm sneaks in here and there, but for the most part it is pure chaos. Bianchi's "28th Flux" has the bleakness of his early works, but a more modern, higher fidelity sheen covering the pained electronics and darkness. (...) As both artists are ridiculously prolific, and I personally have a fondness for their earliest work in both cases, I tend to only occasionally dabble in either of their new releases. In this case, the recent collaboration work is exactly what I hoped it would be, mixing the best sounds of both artists together splendidly. Coupled with the vintage material on the 10", and it makes for a pair of releases that demonstrates the best facets of these two long respected artists." [Creaig Dunton] "Masami Akita from Japan and Maurizio Bianchi from Italy are both active inside experimental music since roughly the same time, the late 70s. They both came from the world of cassettes and have a legendary status by now. Merzbow is probably the more well-known musician, due to the fact that he plays many concerts all over the world, and both have a ton of releases under their belt. The difference is, perhaps, that Bianchi has moved more over the musical spectrum and Akita is more a man of strict noise. There has been a split release by them on the same label earlier this, but as far as I recall not a joint release. Here we have a LP of collaborative music with a bonus 7" of solo pieces. It seems to me Merzbow is taking the lead here, as this is all more in his territory than in that of Bianchi. You can figure out what Bianchi does here, as sometimes his chilly electronics leap out of the noisy hot bed that Merzbow created. When this is less apparent, it seems like a fine Merzbow record, and not like a Merzbow plus someone else record. That perhaps is the odd thing about this record, but says nothing about the quality. If we turn to the 7", then we'll see that Bianchi can be noisy too. His solo piece is quite loud, like a power drone stuck in a high voltage charger. Organic? Organ-like! This is a fine reminder of the old M.B. from the early 80s when this sort of violence was common ground for M.B. and he was the unquestioned master of the genre. For his solo piece, Merzbow also goes back to his earlier days and comes up with something that reminded me of his days, circa S.C.U.M.: various unrelated tapes and electronic sounds are stuck together and make up a fine musique concrete tres brut. Heavily cut up and chopped up into a fine pieces, grinded together. Excellent noise music throughout." [FdW/Vital Weekly]