The sixth of Merzbow Archive series features material from 1993-1995. This period saw the production and release of some of Merzbow's most well-known and highly regarded works, including "Metalvelodrome", "Noisembryo", "Hole", "Venereology" and "Pulse Demon". These masterpieces have been actively reissued in recent years. For this series, DAT masters were used for all the works, rather than the cassette masters that have been used for most of the previous series, and they have been newly remastered. The DAT masters are of higher quality than cassette masters because the cassette is used as a mother tape and has been edited as a finished product. As a result, the works in this series, including the small pieces, are tightly organized in terms of development, even if they are performed over a long time.
As the title suggests, this is piece collection of many short tracks. It includes a short version of "Another Crash For High Tide" from Metalvelodrome, "New TD" is the first half of DAT that originally contained "TD3", which was included as a bonus track on the re-release of "Venereology", and "Arthur" and "Percussion Sound", which use samples of Exotic Music. The second disc of "Metalvelodrome" is also piece collection, suggesting that he had many opportunities to make small pieces for 7" and compilations during this period. The tracks in the collection all have nimble changes of scene within a short period of time, and we can observe a style not often featured in Merzbow's album works of the same period, such as the arrangement of sounds that give a sense of gaps, a collage-like aspect using sounds that could be drums or piano, or the appearance of repetitive sounds with a solid attack that could be called a beat sequence. This is a style that seems to have been attempted in order to create an effective catharsis within a time constraint, but the various sounds that are thrown in with a certain light-hearted tension are put together with a wonderful degree of perfection, and it is an interesting work that shows the fullness of Merzbow's creativity during the same period.
yorosz(aka Shuta Hiraki)
credits
released October 18, 2021
All Music by Masami Akita
1-6 Recorded & Mixed at ZSF Produkt 1993
7&8 Recorded & Mixed at ZSF Produkt 1994
Remastered at Munemihouse, 2019.
Yasuyuki Nakamura (slowdown records) : A&R
supported by 7 fans who also own “小品集 Selected Small Works Vol.1”
While still sounding harsh a lot of the time, this will not obliterate you like other Merzbow releases. Steady elements give a noob like me something to cling to amidst the chaos. Hans
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