Merzbow
Merzbeat

A tear in the night. No, more than a tear. Thunder, lightning, and flashes and a deafening racket. Then, a mighty thud. And again, thunder, lightning, and flashes accompanied by chattering in a foreign and unsettling language. The aliens have arrived. The glass of my window is fogged up, I am all wrapped up in my soft and warm blanket, sipping a steaming cup of lemon tea, shivering.

I try to spot them, but they must have hidden. They will try to take me from my sweet home when I least expect it.

Tea time is very English, an "All You Need Is Love" in the background, and we're all happy... But when your head is burning, there's a crazy storm outside, and you see little green men, the perfect soundtrack is Japanese, very japanoise. 

So with a red and shiny nose, half-closed bloodshot eyes, greasy hair, a body in the throes of chills, I stretch out on the sofa, grab the mp3 player (and so what? I don't buy Merzbow's records myself! He might be a genius, but he doesn't always hit the mark, does he?) and put on the perfect music to relax a bit. "Merzbeat"! My mother approaches me, touches my forehead, and notices it's hotter than before. She brings the thermometer and measures the temperature. Meanwhile, as the underarm thermometer clings perfectly and stays there motionless, the first track starts blasting: it consists of a very sensual and hypnotic wall of sound, repetitive like a drone, intense like certain metal, and unexpectedly 'danceable'. It's not the first time I've heard Mr. Masami Akita, aka Merzbow (the Japanese noise guru, and probably its greatest exponent, especially due to the huge quantity of records he's produced), but I've never before enjoyed hearing his magical and alien distortions this much. Usually, no offense to Masami, but without the right focus, or perhaps the right mood, I can't enjoy an entire album of his.

The flaw that often significantly undermines his works is, in fact, prolixity. This time, we notice, even with small and shiny eyes, that on the mp3 player's display, the track lengths of Merzbeat are not absurd. They're fairly normal, and there's even a shorter track than usual (which turns out to be the most bizarre and exciting of all).

Unlike me, a poor wretch, Mr. Masami Akita doesn't have the time to lie on the sofa, suffer from the flu, and rave about the storm outside...

Better said, he doesn't have time to get sick, because the Reverend of Noise is hyperproductive (the Eastern version of John Zorn, or Frank Zappa if you prefer), and the amount of chaos produced each year is so incalculable and dispersive that it makes even a methodical and precise person like Mr. Scaruffi throw up his hands (yet he still managed to draft a 'fundamental discography' for the artist: an admirable effort!).

The temperature has risen considerably, and my head burns more and more, so much so that I see my mother all strange: a psychedelic, confused, watery vision... The only symptom I'm missing, fortunately, is a headache, and its absence allows me to lose myself in these sweet notes of the well-known harsh-noiser... I realize that this time Merzbow has outdone himself: this album sounds fresh, almost catchy for a noise record as white as egg whites and... it doesn't tire you immediately! I find I can savor it without getting bored after a few seconds, and this is due to the fact that Masami Akita hasn't limited himself to doing run-of-the-mill work: he's given life to a piece more memorable than many others. The pulsing and lively electronic inserts, of course, greatly enliven the material and make it varied and unpredictable, like the third track Tadpole...

When I hear Tadpole and the fever is at forty, the nausea sky-high, for a moment I manage to detach from the world. I am dragged into a solitary and sunny dimension: I glimpse a stunning oasis rich in lush, green vegetation... but preceded by miles and miles of sand. The heat scorches and suffocates me, the omnipresent sun is like the alien loop that haunts us throughout the song, the veiled noise squeaking beneath is the hot, sandy road that separates me from my oasis... I'm not far from the hour of my catharsis and recovery. However, some obstacles emerge, some noisy frisbees (little crazed shards like bedouins armed with scimitars) that try to hit me. I am unflinching and move on toward my no longer forbidden salvation.

And when I get there, I'm greeted by many little green men, they give me a cocktail and send me back to the real world. Oh well, there my dear mom must have given me some unpronounceable antibiotic and I feel that in a few hours I'll be healthy or maybe the temperature will just drop. For sure I know that during the moments of flu delirium my ears were not bored at all, indeed they became accomplices of two delusions simultaneously (sonic and psychic) until they fused to create a unique and unsettling trip... As if I had been whisked away by aliens for an out-of-the-ordinary experiment, all thanks to Merzbow's intense and suffocating (but slightly more 'easy-listening' than his other works) avant-noise. At the end of the long, psychedelic and twisted journey of 'orchestral whitenoise with avant-garde hues,' I am finally back but... I still see deserts, bedouins armed with scimitars, distant oases, and flying cows covered in green spots.

I truly fear that the effect of the antibiotic has been temporary. The delirium begins again...