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Merzbow, "Merzbeat"
Not noisy beats, but beats made of noise.
Important Records
The first time I put on Merzbow's Venereology CD, I was prepared for "noise", but the instant that it started, I literally thought that my stereo had somehow exploded at the same time rendering the most abrasive and physically jarring sound ever to come out of my speakers. I thought I was prepared for "noise", but as it turned out, I had just been expecting "noisy". No friends, Merzbow is Noise, with a capital N even. So the prospect of Merzbeat, Merzbow's excursion into beat-oriented music is of course worth at least a casual listen. For a man who's mastered and then run into the ground the concept of solid noise as music, working with beats actually seems more experimental and exciting than taking on yet another palette of screeching feedback and squalor. And Merzbeat indeed sounds experimental. The first two songs never establish anything other than the sense that the artist is toying with the idea of running beats through distortion effects. Thanks, but this has been done, and if the beats here were in themselves compelling, Merzbow's take on them would likely be interesting, but for the first two long tracks, we are left with simple, repeating beats passed through various filters and eq settings until there is no longer any doubt that the experiment is no longer interesting to listen to, musically speaking. On the third track, the epic Shadow Barbarian (Long Mix), Merzbow finally hits his stride, taking what he's learned from the first two attempts and abandoning almost all of the rules that made them sound like second-rate DHR b-sides. At about ten minutes into Shadow Barbarian, the true Merzbow surfaces as the beats give way to rhythms made of near pure noise. The compositional schema of applying a cyclical, linear path of effects settings to a constant loop is still present, but now the tracks begin to survive on pure brutality alone. Synths and guitars round out the sounds that are inevitably drowned out by bloody wails, but all of that is gravy by the time Looping Jane (Beat Mix) kicks in to a voracious breakbeat that pummels through walls of feedback. When you think it isn't getting any louder, it gets louder. Tracks three through five are alone worth the price of admission if you are fan of beats or noise or both. Then, regrettably, we sit through 60 (count them) SIXTY, three second tracks of silence to get to the "hidden track" that is so graciously unhidden for us by the liner notes. Burried on track 66 is the most curious anomaly of the record: a remix by renouned beat-master Jack Dangers, on a record called Merzbeat, that is beatless! It's such a letdown that the trademark Dangers' beat work didn't mix it up with the signature Merzbow noise that I can't even describe this song other than to say every time I have tried to listen to it, I have scanned through it waiting for a beat to come in. Let's pray there's a remix.
The first time I put on Merzbow's Venereology CD, I was prepared for "noise", but the instant that it started, I literally thought that my stereo had somehow exploded at the same time rendering the most abrasive and physically jarring sound ever to come out of my speakers. I thought I was prepared for "noise", but as it turned out, I had just been expecting "noisy". No friends, Merzbow is Noise, with a capital N even. So the prospect of Merzbeat, Merzbow's excursion into beat-oriented music is of course worth at least a casual listen. For a man who's mastered and then run into the ground the concept of solid noise as music, working with beats actually seems more experimental and exciting than taking on yet another palette of screeching feedback and squalor. And Merzbeat indeed sounds experimental. The first two songs never establish anything other than the sense that the artist is toying with the idea of running beats through distortion effects. Thanks, but this has been done, and if the beats here were in themselves compelling, Merzbow's take on them would likely be interesting, but for the first two long tracks, we are left with simple, repeating beats passed through various filters and eq settings until there is no longer any doubt that the experiment is no longer interesting to listen to, musically speaking. On the third track, the epic Shadow Barbarian (Long Mix), Merzbow finally hits his stride, taking what he's learned from the first two attempts and abandoning almost all of the rules that made them sound like second-rate DHR b-sides. At about ten minutes into Shadow Barbarian, the true Merzbow surfaces as the beats give way to rhythms made of near pure noise. The compositional schema of applying a cyclical, linear path of effects settings to a constant loop is still present, but now the tracks begin to survive on pure brutality alone. Synths and guitars round out the sounds that are inevitably drowned out by bloody wails, but all of that is gravy by the time Looping Jane (Beat Mix) kicks in to a voracious breakbeat that pummels through walls of feedback. When you think it isn't getting any louder, it gets louder. Tracks three through five are alone worth the price of admission if you are fan of beats or noise or both. Then, regrettably, we sit through 60 (count them) SIXTY, three second tracks of silence to get to the "hidden track" that is so graciously unhidden for us by the liner notes. Burried on track 66 is the most curious anomaly of the record: a remix by renouned beat-master Jack Dangers, on a record called Merzbeat, that is beatless! It's such a letdown that the trademark Dangers' beat work didn't mix it up with the signature Merzbow noise that I can't even describe this song other than to say every time I have tried to listen to it, I have scanned through it waiting for a beat to come in. Let's pray there's a remix.samples:
