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Japanese noise musician Masami Akita, who performs under the name “Merzbow,” specializes in music that sounds like massive titanium robots copulating; a bondage/fetishism enthusiast as well as a vegan animal rights activist (who dedicated the albums “Minazo Vol. 1 & 2” to an elephant seal), Merbow takes his moniker from Kurt Schwitters’ “Merzbau”; I discovered Merzbow while in a state of depression, and listened to his music for days at a time; Merzbow was, for me, the sound of all my frustration and rage (towards myself, the world) buzzing into the ether like an auditory Tesla coil; you see, while the music played it felt like the depression was out of my body and drifting towards the ceiling; I am not depressed anymore, but I still appreciate Merzbow—in smaller doses—and think that his life’s work has been a noble attempt at sonically representing the electric drone of contemporary culture; I genuinely believe that if you listen to any three discs from Merbow’s 50-disc boxed set “Merzbox”—or read Don DeLillo’s “White Noise”—you will begin to regard your household appliances with a newfound respect and/or fear; consider that while Japan has given birth to ambitious death cults (Aum Shinrikyo), rape and “futanari”/shemale comics (“manga”), an epidemic of male shut-ins (“hikikomori”) and teen suicide, as well as the misunderstood noise-artist known as Merzbow, 63 years ago the United States used two explosive devices to instantaneously, arbitrarily slaughter over 200,000 Japanese civilians; there is no elegant way for a culture to move forward from such an event; you could try to forget, but that would be futile, and besides, unexorcisable ghosts would keep appearing in your forests, photo albums, and artwork; Dr. Raymond Kurzweil, a leading futurist and Transhumanist, believes that at some point in the next 50 years, we will attain “Singularity,” a state where: “There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality”; if this terrifies you, do not be afraid: these adaptations towards a posthuman existence will occur not in a giant leap, but in a series of swift, continual baby steps, such that you will not be taken aback when your grandchild needs to be recharged like a cell phone; sometimes, the future has already occurred, but it takes years for a hesitant public to shed its past; if you would like to be inspired by noise that feels like a handful of glitter and thumbtacks, I suggest listening to Jimi Hendrix’s live performance of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in 1969, followed by “3 Types of Industrial Pollution” from Merzbow’s 1986 album, “Antimonument.”

~ by tinyfacts on July 17, 2008.

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Tags: 1969, 1986, 3 Types of Industrial Pollution, Antimonument, Aum Shinrikyo, cult, Don DeLillo, Dr. Raymond Kurzweil, futanari, futurist, hikikomori, Japan, Jim Hendrix, Kurt Schwitters, manga, Masami Akita, Merzbau, Merzbow, Merzbox, Minazo Vol. 1, Minazo Vol. 2, noise, noise metal, noise music, posthuman, rape, Ray Kurzweil, Raymond Kurzweil, Singularity, The Star Spangled Banner, Transhumanist, United States, vegan, White Noise, Woodstock, Woodstock Music & Art Fair