Sound Portraits Radio {EP13} Merzbow — Sound Portraits Radio

MERZBOW

EPISODE 13

Prolific musician Masami Akita aka Merzbow is widely regarded as one of the most-respected noise artists operating today. Since 1979, his constant high-grade output of music, painting, photography, and filmmaking, as well as writing for many magazines and books, (covering such topics as S&M and Japanese bondage) has put him at the forefront of international experimental circles. His unique deconstruction and reassembly of prog rock, heavy metal, early electronic music and free jazz has inspired many musicians with a forward-looking mindset. With an oevre of hundreds of albums and multiple collaborations with renowned musicians such as Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino, Sunn O))), The Melvins, Genesis P-Orridge, and The Boredoms among many others, his output is impossible to keep up with, however some notable records have been the CD set 13 Japanese Birds, several beat-oriented departures from his typical abstract style such as Merzbeat, and Aqua Necromancer, and the 50 CD collection Merzbox. As well as his prodigious musical output, Akita is a staunch supporter of animal rights and PETA, protesting Japanese whaling and leading a vegan, straight-edge lifestyle. This episode of Sound Portraits Radio is hosted by Doron Sadja.

“Merzbow is erotic like a car crash can be related to genital intercourse.“
Masami Akita
“I want to make silence by my Noise. Maybe, that is a fascist way of using sound.”
Masami Akita
“It’s always so thrilling to see what emerges after collisions of various sound elements. In the case of my work, I put an emphasis on how to combine or disrupt stillness and motion, construct a composition as it grows. Successful, if those elements bring tensions, otherwise it’d become plain and boring.”
Masami Akita
“I threw all my past music career in the garbage. There was no longer any need for concepts like ‘career’ and ‘skill’. I stopped playing music and went in search of an alternative.”
Masami Akita
“I was trying to create an extreme form of free music. In the beginning, I had a very conceptual mind set. I tried to quit using any instruments which related to, or were played by, the human body. It was then that I found tape. I tried to just be the operator of the tape machine– I’m glad that tape is a very anonymous media. My early live performances were very dis-human and dis-communicative. I was using a slide projector in a dark room at that point. I was concentrating on studio works until 1989 then I assembled some basic equipment before I started doing live Noise performances. Equipment included an audio mixer, contact mike, delay, distortion, ring modulator and bowed metal instruments. Basically, my main sound was created by mixer feedback. It was not until after 1990, on my first American tour, that I started performing live Noise Music for presentation to audiences. The first US tour was a turning point for finding a certain pleasure in using the body in the performance. Right now I’m using mixer feedback with filters, ring, DOD Buzz Box, DOD Meat Box, and a Korg multi-distortion unit. I am using more physically rooted Noise Music not as conceptually anti-instrument and anti-body as before. If music was sex, Merzbow would be pornography.”
Masami Akita

Sound Portraits is a series of lectures/listening sessions, curated by Doron Sadja, focusing on the work of iconic composers who have paved the way for contemporary electronic music. Started in 2015 as a live event at Spektrum in Berlin, the series quickly grew and exists now as both a live lecture series and a radio show on Cashmere Radio. After an introduction of each artist’s life and work, we listen to a selection of excerpts and complete works from the artist’s repertoire. Besides providing an opportunity to introduce these seminal artists to a new audience, the Sound Portraits series also offers an open forum to engage in group listening in a quiet atmosphere.

Doron Sadja is an American artist, composer, and curator whose work explores modes of perception and the experience of sound, light, and space. Find out more at www.doron.sadja.com

SOUND PORTRAITS MERZBOW

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