Merzbow Anyonw?

i'm more up for the fushitsusha show on the friday.

i say GO. i don't even like whitehouse, but i'd still see him live.

merzbow is playing revolver? are they fucking insane?

Sunday night! I really hope some dazed clubbers who've been there all weekend wander over.... "THESE PILLS ARE REALLY FUCKING BAD", etc. hahaha

http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?z=y&EAN=877313001150&itm=1

I'd buy.

Hi. I just dropped by to say that I'm enjoying Merzbear. It's solid. Analog + 'junk guitar'? hmmm, excellent.

It has actually inspired me to buy a merzbow t shirt (that merzbird one). Good times.

yeah, most of the "merz" albums are really good.

I am slowly listening to Houjoue or whatever it's called. So far I like Rice best because it is the least abrasive. Perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree.

I have been listening to a lot of Merzbow recently, and I'm finding him strangely addicting. I'm not sure why exactly. For all the talk about how harsh, abrasive, etc., noise music can be, there's something about it that allows me to listen to it for very long, extensive sessions. I can't put my finger on it, but I can listen to Merzbow all day at work in a way that I could never listen to, say, pop albums over and over. It's like the music is so crazy and intense that I somehow finding it calming. I think I've read somewhere that Merzbow thought that noise can induce a kind of "Zen-like" state of calmness, i.e. a kind of calm in the center of the storm. Not to get all meditative...but I think this is interesting.

I've heard it suggested elsewhere, but I think there are a lot of similarities between noise and ambient (and the same goes for stuff like doom metal, another type of music that I can listen to for very long sessions). There's something endless (rather than epic -- there's not many narratives in a lot of these genres) about these types of music. I listen Wolfgang Voigt's Gas stuff and Eno all day at work in the same way that I listen to Merzbow.

But I don't think I could listen to other "noisy" music the same way (ambiently), i.e., Coltrane's Ascension, other loud free jazz (and though free jazz can be definitely be noisy, I don't know if I would call it "noise music"). Is it the drones, then? What do other people think about the similarities between ambient, noise (esp. Merzbow), and possibly metal (esp. doom metal)? If this has been spoken about in detail elsewhere, please let me know! It's something that's really interested me lately.

Also: has anyone heard the Boris/Merzbow record (and on another note, the Boris/Sunn O))) record)? I've read a few reviews but most of them are lukewarm. I'd like to know what more people think.

By the way, some Merzbow albums I really enjoy are Animal Magnetism, Amlux, Tauromachine, and Merzbuddha. To be honest, these are some of the only ones I've heard (Sphere, Dharma, being the other ones from which I've heard only a couple tracks). I actually just ordered Minazo Vol. 1 and 1930, and they arrived yesterday from FE but I haven't listened to them yet.

I own "Dharma" and enjoy it that way too. The final 30 minute piece sounds like a plane taking off but the effect is calming and immersive, no screeching or Whitehouse-y high pitched squeals. Aube's "Solid Pressure" is not half as loud but contains certain high tones which are unbearable even at low volume, it makes me want to puke.

The Boris/SunnO))) is very good but quite "musical". It has drums, different vocalists and the feel is more like separate songs rather than endless drone.

"It's like the music is so crazy and intense that I somehow finding it calming."

This is exactly how I feel about a lot of noise and Merzbow in particular.

I'm building up a solid collection. Sometimes it feels like he's the only artist I really enjoy. Must be him and Ryan Adams really.

Does anybody here have the merzbox?

One day I will download the Merzbox. That'd probably be one of the first things I bought if I came into loads of money.

I'm not as rabid a fan as I used to be. There was one summer where it was all Merzbow all the time, but he's probably still my favorite noise musician. I tend to prefer the more harsh material (Noisembryo, Green Wheels, Venereology, etc.). Still lots I haven't listened to. I have the Pornoise cassette box still unlistened, as well as Batztoutai With Material Gadgets 2CD. I'll get around to those soon enough.

Did anyone catch him at No Fun Fest? Intense shit.

Merzbow/Pan Sonic's V is one of my favorite discs of all time.

The Merzbow/Boris album is pretty good, actually. Kind of reminds me of that thing he did with Kim Cascone... His contributions are (mostly) a bit more subtle than what he's known for.

Personally, I'm a big fan of "Animal Magnetism." For some reason, that one really "clicks" with me in a way that "1930" and some of the other ones do not. Probably the coolest Merzbow "rarity" that I have is the "Time Hunter" box... It's 4 of those little 3" CDs packaged in a faux leather day planner.

I just downloaded the Merzbow/Jamie Saft "Merzdub" collaboration the other day. Haven't listened to much of it, but so far it seems much more on the "dub" side of things than on the "Merz"...

That "Ikebana" album of remixes from "Amlux" is mostly good, too.

I am slowly listening to Houjoue or whatever it's called. So far I like Rice best because it is the least abrasive. Perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree.

I think you'd dig Merzbear then, PJ.

Also: has anyone heard the Boris/Merzbow record

which one? there are several now. only one i've heard is sun baked snow cave and i dug it.

Got my ticket to Merzbow next Sunday.

I hope he'll do better than Whitehouse, who played the same festival last year and were a bit disappointing.

Smoking live show at Instal in Glasgow a couple of years back. People were dancing,

Is he still using the laptop live? I heard he was back to using that metal thing through fx.

Well, he used two Mac computers, and also a weird metal contraption with coiled wires he strummed with a metal disc. It is like a robot guitar he shreds on while headbanging, hair on face. Some people in the audience gave him the devil's horns in approval.

It was incredibly loud and I tried earplugs, but the problem is they blocked the high frequencies and dulled the distortion, turning the noise rather boring. So I put them on and off each couple of minutes to enjoy the insane volume while (hopefully) avoiding permanent damage.

Other artists were Radian (an Austrian electronic/postrock trio), Cosmic Shenggy (a Chinese girl doing noisy but cute space music on an ancient Korg MS-20) and Cooptrol, an Uruguayan guy who just played some video clips from a laptop (they were really good, though).

I recorded some crap videos with my phone and made a Youtube playlist.