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Batztoutai Mix

by Merzbow

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about

The song "Batztoutai - The Nightingale's Song" appeared on "Battoutai with Memorial Gadgets", one of the most prominent Merzbow albums of the 80s. The song was released many versions on "Battoutai with Memorial Gadgets" 2LP (1986 on RRR Records, USA), "Battoutai with Material Gadgets" CD (1990 on RRRecords, or 2004 on Merzbow's Self Release), and "Mortegage/ Batztoutai Extra" (containing "Merzbox", released by Extreme in Australia in 1999). The version included here is a different long mix of the 1990 CD ver.
In the mid-80s, the period in which this album was produced, Merzbow established his own style of industrial noise through the use of a variety of tape based sources, the use of mechanical loops, and a thorough radicalization of distorted tones, all of which resonated with the industrial movement that had emerged around the world since the appearance of Throbbing Gristle. It can be said that this is the first achievement in his career.
Among them, "Batztoutai", which has multiple versions, is a work selected and edited by RRR from multiple tapes originally produced between 1984 and 1985 (when it was released on CD in 1990, extra tracks were added to bring it closer to the original form). This is an important album that can be regarded as one of Merzbow's best albums of this period, and is regarded as one of the best examples of his tape collage/concrete style in his career.
In the long mix included here, various sounds, such as the military song "Batztoutai" composed by Gabriel Leroux (French composer) during the Meiji era (1868-1912), which gave the title to the album, and INA-GRM's music concrete records, are edited and mixed in rapid succession.
This is a must-hear album, which is not as noisy as his other works, but it contains a variety of sounds with different characteristics, and the sense of selection and mixing shows a side of his sensibility that does not come to the fore in his other works.

yorosz (aka Shuta Hiraki)

credits

released July 13, 2021

All Music by Masami Akita
Recorded & mixed at ZSF Produkt Studio, Tokyo 1984-85.
Remastered from original cassette tape at Munemihouse, Tokyo, August 2018.
Yasuyuki Nakamura (slowdown records) : A&R

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Merzbow Tokyo, Japan

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