Location: Japan
Members: Masami Akita
Mix & mastering: James Dunn
Remastered: Martin Bowes
Artwork: Abby Helasdottir
Type: double-CD, gatefold eco-pack / digital
Duration: 104:59 minutes
Genre: Japanoise / Harsh Noise
Masami ‘Merzbow’ Akita needs no introduction anymore. This x-th album by the founding father of the so-called Japanoise genre is a live registration of a performance from 2016. Actually, it deals with a double show done at Café OTO in London, UK, on October 1st, 2016, and it has initially been released under the working title 1.10.16. This reissue has been remastered and comes with different artwork (courtesy of label’s closest visual art collaborator Abby).
Both ‘songs’ (Untitled Knife I and Untitled Knife II) on this live album, Café OTO, clock over fifty minutes, and they do represent this prolific composer’s known aural artistry. Armed with cables, pedals, computer, knobs, handles, sound processors, amplifiers and other electronic equipment, Merzbow constructed, and deconstructed, two walls of dynamic, rhythmic, and intoxicating Harsh Noise with his own characteristic touch of experimentalism.
Untitled Knife I (50:06) immediately brings forth the basic content of this Japanese sound-terror industry, though an abrasive white-noisy radio-wavy drone-like rumble / mumble. It takes more than two minutes, yet then a fierce polyrhythmic interplay develops mercilessly. It’s a blasting start with the knowledge that escaping might be impossible. And step by step, this permanent evolution and expansion crawls forth. After about seven minutes, things turn rougher, with metallic mechanics and horrific, somewhat sci-fi-like machinery overwhelming the experience. It’s static, yet rather like ‘static electricity’ than ‘static paralysis’. At thirteen minutes, the discordant cacophony gets smoothly replaced by pulsating drones with, indeed, a hint of Ambient Noise Wall (ANW) within the concept and execution. A few glitchy additions, however, tear down any hope for retracting feedback. At the background, an echoing and repetitive bass-pulse permanently causes a state of self-hypnotic infliction within a controlled environment, yet about half of this first Knife chapter, things really turn nasty. Loud frequencies of noise-terror, vibrating oscillations and sadistic, confronting glitches take control. Probably forbidden techniques of mind-manipulation through sound and anti-sound overwhelm the audience. More manipulating glitches appear (at about thirty-six minutes, for example) in multiple presence, causing stroboscopic mind-convulsions. The last ten minutes, then again, return to the harsh reality, bringing paradoxical sonic machinery, causing chaotic hallucinations and mind-twisting manipulations. The very end brings both relief and confusion, with pleasure and pain…
Untitled Knife II (54:52) takes off with a monotonously-looping sound-wave, soon penetrated by psychedelic textures and squalling sound-piercings. That combination, that interplay, works amazingly conversant and surprisingly solid. But expect no peaceful continuation, for this second registration unfurls its demonic vision slowly yet inevitably. The better part of the first half has a deep-droning sound-palette, with reverberating textures and mesmeric pulses. As from twenty minutes, the glitchy and experimental efforts arise once more, with abstract electronics and caustic distortion. It’s astonishing to notice the equilibrium in between harsh, high-pitched violence, and deep-bass-oriented frequencies. Towards the end (and then I am not talking about a couple of minutes, yet several hands full; remember the length?), Knife II shows its sharp teeth once more through ardent electronic manipulation, until the bitter end…
I guess this live performance was not part of an average family trip, with kids and parents in law joining to have a beer at the OTO Café. Yet the selected audience could witness a prominent, influential artnoiser who, despite his age (Masami is born in 1956, for what it’s worth), still knows how to capture his public.
https://coldspring.bandcamp.com/album/cafe-oto-csr331cd
https://coldspring.co.uk/csr331cd
https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/shop/merzbow-11016/