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Cat Of Shell Vol​.​2

by Merzbow

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1.
Cat Of Shell Part 4 33:58
2.
Cat Of Shell Part 5 17:06

about

The Merzbow Archive series by Slowdown Records, which has released six editions so far, enters its seventh edition. This edition consists of six albums of unearthed material from 1996 to 1998. A lot of unreleased material from 1996~97 was previously included in the 10 CD box "Merzmorphosis" (Youth Inc., 2012). However, they did not include material related to "1930" (Tzadik) and "Tauromachine" (Relapse / Release), which were produced during this period.
This is the first time for the material of this work "Cat Of Shell Vol.2" to be released, as it seems to be related to "1930" for a certain reason (to be explained later).
"Cat Of Shell Vol.2" was recorded in 1996, and was originally intended for release under the same title, but had never been released. According to the information provided by Mr. Akita on the occasion of the release, the DAT index of the master of this album has titled "Cat Of Shell" and "1930" on it, so it is assumed that this is a material related to the album "1930" released later, but the details have not been confirmed yet. The final mix of "1930" was done on December 24, 1997, and the sound source is completely different from this album, but since the mix of "1930" was done by running existing tapes through Polyphaze of Electro-Harmonix, it is possible that it was used as part of the material.
The content of this album was recorded at a time when synthesizer sounds were coming to the fore, so the dense noise sounds are the first major feature of this album. In addition, there are scenes where a powerful noise is transformed into a repetitive sound, and then the whole space is scratched with effects and filtering. As a result, there are many times when the sound is not a collection of multiple materials, but a single sound that is inextricably linked. As exemplified by the inorganic, sustained tone reminiscent of the sound of an excavator spinning at the end of the second track, the overall sound and the momentary characteristics of the tone are cold and unified.
At the time, Akita was also obsessed with modern architecture (mainly the reconstruction of Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake), and many of the artworks released during this period featured photographs of these buildings, which became an essential visual element of his work. For this reason, the artwork for this edition also uses photographs of buildings and other structures taken by Akita around 1998.

yorosz(aka Shuta Hiraki)

credits

released October 25, 2021

All Music by Masami Akita
Recorded & mixed at ZSF Produkt 1996.
Remastered at Munemihouse, Tokyo 2019.
Mastered at Kentaro Hayashi, Osaka, Japan.
Yasuyuki Nakamura (slowdown records) : A&R

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Merzbow Tokyo, Japan

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