Masami Akita, known best as Merzbow, has always been an artist I have respected from afar, unable or unwilling to delve into his body of work much further than surface level. My first exposure to him was in high school. I was kind of fascinated in a weird way with his recordings while my friends mostly thought he was just funny (in a bad way). Yes, I respect 1930, but wouldn’t really say I enjoy it. I wanted to listen to Merzbient but couldn’t be arsed to actually obtain it. I had one of his collaborative albums with Boris but never really listened to it; it just sounded like noise on top of typical Boris fare (this is probably the point, though). So no, I don’t find myself ever really getting many releases that Merzbow has put out or is involved with, but I felt it necessary to get this live, collaborative album with avant-garde guitarist Richard Pinhas that was recorded on 9/24/2010 at the La Maison Francaise (aka the French embassy in Washington D.C.), mostly because I actually attended the show. I mention Merzbow first and foremost not because he was the star of the show, but because I didn’t know who Pinhas was at the time, though I would find out that he was not simply playing a supporting role here.
It turns out that being music director at a college radio station gets you some perks. Boatloads of promo material are one of those perks, and free concert tickets are another. When I saw that Merzbow and some guy named Richard Pinhas were coming to town for the Sonic Circuits festival of experimental music, I felt like I kind of had to go for whatever reason. It turned out that I could in fact swing getting some tickets, and it seemed stupid to pass up seeing a noise music legend whether or not I was really a fan of him. I couldn’t find anyone to go with me (it’s hard enough to find anyone my age who even knows who Merzbow is let alone wants to see him live). So I took a cab all the way to the embassy up in Georgetown, waited for maybe two hours in the spiffy lobby with mostly older, artsy people, and sat through the modern and marginally interesting sets of Blue Sausage Infant and TL0741. Then Akita, this short, unassuming looking middle-aged Japanese guy with glasses and long hair, comes out and sits at a table with two laptops and a big mixing board of some sort, and the taller, puffy haired Pinhas sits at a chair with a guitar, and they start.
The first thing I remember is that the show was loud, not loud enough to merit the earplugs I brought (and quickly ditched in exchange for better clarity of sound) but loud enough that I had a hard time hearing what I was hearing. I mean, I knew there was a lot of sound going into my ears, but it was hard to make out exactly what I was hearing, especially because Merzbow’s roaring wall of noise kind of took over the atmosphere. It was hard to tell exactly what Pinhas was doing in terms of sound, but there was a weird tonal basis to all of it, which gave the sound a vaguely emotional framework.
On this recording, the rough edges of the show are smoothed out a lot. Akita’s crushingly loud noise is toned down so that it is easier to hear Pinhas’ arpeggios and improvisation, and the two artists are split between the left and right channels respectively (maybe not completely though). This is good because you get a better idea of who’s doing what, but the vastness of the recording is diminished in some parts, though there are still some parts that sound a lot like how the show sounded at the time. This is an album that is meant to be cranked, to give the songs more life and keep them accurate to how the show sounded.
As for the music itself, Merzbow’s noisy experimentation is interesting as usual in a sort of masochistic way, and Pinhas does some great things with his guitar that makes this album have some really beautiful moments. The closest comparison I can make is to Yellow Swans’ final record, Going Places, which ended up being my favorite album from last year. What we have here is some beautiful, Fripp-esque guitarwork hammered with Merzbow’s harsh noise. And it sounds really cool. This is a psychedelic record just as much as it is a noise record or an avant-garde record. The album comes with a DVD of the performance, which I sadly do not have for financial reasons, but I can tell you that this show sounded much cooler than it looked. Merzbow didn’t do much moving throughout the entire show, but Pinhas seemed like he was a little busier than his partner. It was impressive that they seemed so zoned in and calm while creating such huge sound. In any case you should get ahold of this album if you are a fan, casual or devoted, of either artist.
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