Merzbow (?) (!)

[robenestobenz]

Everything I have heard from Merzbow has been acceptably boring. Doesn't send me running to turn the stereo off, but I've found much more interesting music which could loosely be circumscribed to the same genre here on KVR.

It might be worth adding that I'm something of a dilettante regarding the genre so let that affect the viability of my opinion as you will.

[ouroboros]

The concept of analysis doesn't fit for me with noise, I come to it at a much more physical level. It reminds me that music is more than just an intellectual game, and that sound is as physical as any surface or scent.

Well put.
Does that mean that noise is a negatively defined music? That is, it is intrinsically meaningless, meaningful only in that it is not music? (I apologize for the metaphysical can o' worms I just opened: please ignore it in the interest of civility )

I would agree from my brief encounter that it invites a more physical kind of listening: in the absence of form or structure, you kind of ~feel the sounds.

It is interesting though, that we speak of refining one's appreciation for it, as that implies that there is some form/intention behind it, some "essence" to pick up on. Thanks, for the link, btw - my research continues

[dystonia_ek]

As a longtime (since '85 or so) Merzbow listener, maybe I've lost my perspective on how this sort of thing must sound to someone for the first time, so maybe these comments won't make too much sense, but anyway...

Noise in its purest sense has rarely actually been attempted - as Boyd Rice pointed out many long years ago, noise is a very pure thing, and sound moves away from noise in direct proportion to the amount it is controlled, sculpted and shaped by whoever is making it. Merzbow, especially since before 1990 and after 1997, is definitely making music and not noise, abrasive though the sounds may be. His musical roots are in 70's progressive rock and free jazz, and these influences almost invariably surface at some point in his recordings. Melody may rarely be present but rhythm, groove even, is almost always there, even if it's buried at the back of the mix (with the notable exception of his more INA-GRM style digressions). This makes Merzbow an ideal entry into noise music, which is frequently the case due to the relative accessibility of his work compared to the harder, nihilistic anti-music championed by people like The Haters, The New Blockaders, etc.

What do people get out of noise? For me, the best noise is simultaneously violent and meditative - it functions both as an overstimulation that can lead to a state of exaltation or calm, and a sort of tabula rasa or Rorschach test where the listeners interpretation of the input is never exactly the same twice. Merzbow has been picked apart by postmodern semioticians who attempt to read more into him, which I think is missing the point. If free improvisation paved the way towards a sort of liberty of expression for players, noise-as-music could be said opens up a greater freedom for listeners. It's open-ended music (and I'm leaving aside the power electronics camp here, whose intentions were more frequently to dominate, tyrannize, terrorize, or otherwise bludgeon the listener into submission, which is a whole different discussion).

There are a lot of people making noise right now, maybe too many. To get a feel for the development of this type of expression, I'd recommend checking out:

F.T. Marinetti's writings on the development of Futurist music
Luigi Russolo's 'The Art of Noises' manifesto
John Cage
Pierre Schaeffer
AMM (particularly the 60's recordings)
and any number of electroacoustic and tape music folks.

In terms of noise as it exists now in the post-industrial context:

Throbbing Gristle (not noise by a long shot, but very important)
Boyd Rice/Non 'The Black Album' and 'Blood and Flame'
The Haters generally
The New Blockaders 'Changez les Blockeurs' and 'Symphonie in X Major' (both included in the 'Gesamtnichtswerk 20th Antiversary anthology from Hypnagogia Records)
Merzbow 'Merzbox'- not that many people are ready to invest $500 in a 50cd box, but it's really just about the only way to come to terms with the diversity and range of Merzbow. Barring that, essential signposts would be 'Batztoutai With Material Gadgets', 'Rainbow Electronics', 'Music for Bondage Performance', 'Noisembryo', 'Pulse Demon', 'Space Metalizer', '1930', 'Merzbeat', '24 Hours: A Book of Seals'
Masonna 'Spectrum Ripper' and 'Frequency LSD'
MSBR 'Ultimate Ambience 2' and pretty much anything else.

There are all sorts of resources on the net for noise, two excellent forums are iheartnoise (run by Phil from Troniks/PacRec) and harshnoise.com (run by Stimbox) - many artists and labels in the genre frequent these boards.

In terms of Merzbow, this little essay and the attached comments/reviews are a decent intro:
http://noiseweb.com/merzbow/all.html

Wrote this quickly, at work, sorry if it's a bit incoherent.

[dystonia_ek]

appreciation of noise runs contrary to most of what we learn from childhood to appreciate in sound

Which reminds me of something else Boyd Rice said a long time ago, can't remember the exact quote but it went something like "I think we all have a natural liking for noise, but it's educated out of us as we grow up. Leave a kid in the car, he'll honk the horn.'

[dystonia_ek]

Oh yeah, forgot to recommend Hijokaidan. Along with Merzbow, the Japanese pioneers, excellent stuff.

[dystonia_ek]

"I wanted to compose real surrealistic music in a non-musical way. Surrealism
is also reaching unconsciousness. Noise is the primitive and collective
unconscious of music. My composition is automatism, not improvisation."
Masami Akita

[shamann]

Does that mean that noise is a negatively defined music? That is, it is intrinsically meaningless, meaningful only in that it is not music?

On the contrary, I think Noise is music and filled with meaning, if maybe not elaborately so. Meaning need not be a complex narrative, it can simply be gestural, that there are cognitively linked objects of meaning (micro, say the recognition of a knob being turned, to macro, say the work as a whole). To be honest, I find layers of simile in music to be mostly artifice. Like when someone says that a given passage of music reflects the budding of the trees in spring and the return of the sun's warmth. Yeah right, prove it. I could say it also reflects the slaughter of the lambs or the air raids on London as experienced by a deaf person, but just because I insist so doesn't make it so.

It is interesting though, that we speak of refining one's appreciation for it, as that implies that there is some form/intention behind it, some "essence" to pick up on.

It is just sound, a physical element. Our responses to any physical element are trained, and sometimes usefully so. Making noise prevents you from hearing the noises of your surroundings, bad if you are in imminent danger. If you are trying to hold a conversation, someone shouting in your ear is not so good. But in a listening environment, we're safe to appreciate the sound of noise, it's just hard to unravel years of training otherwise. Appreciate to me is just an extension of observation, to recognize unique properties, subtle variations, etc, just as you would with any sound. It's a bout appreciating something for what it is, and teaching yourself to recognize its characteristics. I think people are generally too tied up in avoiding the unpleasant, the boring, the disgusting. Those reactions have more to do with us than they do with the thing itself. Good and bad isn't so relevant, as its predicated mostly on taste judgments defined by social class. It is convenient however to say some things are crap, as it does save you a certain amount of time.

I come to Noise (capital N to differentiate the style from actual noise, which is everywhere and in every acoustic sound) by way of stuff like the Jesus and Mary Chain and Sonic Youth in the 80s. Then when I was 16, I moved to London, Ontario, and discovered the Nihilist Spasm Band and concrete poetry from the 60s/70s like stuff by bill bissett. I moved into stuff like the Boredoms and early John Spencer Blues Explosion after that, then came upon Noise through Princess Dragon Mom. Didn't start listening to Merzbow until 94-95.

For some extra reading on meaning and noise, I came upon this essay in the Journal of Music and Meaning a while back. It has some flaws, but it provides an interesting intro to gesture as meaning.

Cheers,
Steve

[Peel]

If you're liking the Merzbow, you might be interested in the 50-CD Merzbox, still available for $550 from Forced Exposure.
There's a lengthy quasi-review that goes through each disc over an 8-month period here.

[dystonia_ek]

There's a lengthy quasi-review that goes through each disc over an 8-month period here.

Unfortunately written by someone who regards the box set as an endurance test and nothing more. Shame that none of the reviews (mostly partial) of the Merzbox seem to be written by people who know his work too well.

The only reason I haven't picked the box up myself is that I can't really spare the cash. I've heard probably about a third of it though, and it seems to be worth the investment.

[foosnark]

If you're looking to try out some more noise stuff, may check out here: http://noisemp3.com/ . Bunch of great free stuff. I highly recommend both Knurl and the Haters.

Thanks for the link. I really wish this stuff had been recorded a bit quieter, because the volume on my Rio Carbon is at 1 and some of it is still louder than I'd like as sort of a background.

My reaction to the ones I downloaded is pretty mixed. Some of the tracks I liked, others were simply irritating. I think the ones that are closer to dark ambient, or a sort of electro-acoustic metallic sound, were my favorites though.

[Peel]

Yeah, I agree and was a little hesitant to post about the box for that reason, but the sheer coolness of a 50-CD box from a living artist won out
It's an unfortunate reality that the coolest "special" items from established artists tend to mostly end up with people who don't appreciate them -- music reviewers, radio station workers, etc.
I have about a dozen Merzbow CDs but can't justify catapulting Merzbow into most-represented-artist-in-my-collection status.

[ouroboros]

Thanks, these links are great! (and the info )

[shamann]

I have about a dozen Merzbow CDs but can't justify catapulting Merzbow into most-represented-artist-in-my-collection status.

I'm roughly in that position, too. How much of one person's output do I really need to have on hand, Merzbow or anyone else, to the exclusion of all others? I used to be more collector, but hunting down every 100-pressed mail order 12" of anyone whose stuff I like is way too all-consuming for me. Excluding compilations, I have maybe 9 Merzbow CDs, all great, very different from each other. I'm always on the look out for more, I liked some of his recent stuff like Merzbuddah, and I'd love that new thing with Boris, but I think it's vinyl-only, which is no use for me without a vinyl player. But getting everything is simply too much for me.

[intel]

I really wish this stuff had been recorded a bit quieter, because the volume on my Rio Carbon is at 1 and some of it is still louder than I'd like as sort of a background.

heh. welcome to "An Introduction To The Two Things That Annoy Me About Noise".

I think the ones that are closer to dark ambient, or a sort of electro-acoustic metallic sound, were my favorites though.

quite possibly two of the hardest things to differentiate are noise and dark ambient. dark ambient bears little resemblance to other styles of ambient, yet isn't harsh enough to be considered true noise. there's some subtle line in there where it ceases being appealing to ambient fans and starts to become 'noise', but I'm not sure where that line resides. a fellow artist inadvertently coined the best term I've heard for it: soft noise. it seems more accurate and certainly removes the style from any association with Tangerine Dream or Brian Eno.

one thing to consider with "noise", though, is that its really not a definable genre in the way that tarnce or rockabilly may be. I've seen "noise" acts that were sheer walls of wooshing distortion noise generated by chaining 15 stompboxes together. On the other hand I've seen "noise" acts that were more like unschooled freeform jazz with a quartet of live instruments being beat in different tempos and in different keys to form a cacophony of sound. aurally the two acts were not even remotely similar - but the abandonment of ALL conventions in composition is the shared element.

noise is more anti-music than it is music in the sense that noise artists don't sit down to write a song, moreso than to sculpt or reshape an environment using sound. when you sit down and pick up your guitar and start strumming chords, you're writing music; when you sit down and pick up your guitar and start beating the pickups with screwdrivers, you're making noise.

[foosnark]

a fellow artist inadvertently coined the best term I've heard for it: soft noise. it seems more accurate and certainly removes the style from any association with Tangerine Dream or Brian Eno.

I like that term. That's sort of the impression I get from DVOA or Reed Ghazala.

when you sit down and pick up your guitar and start strumming chords, you're writing music; when you sit down and pick up your guitar and start beating the pickups with screwdrivers, you're making noise.

But then if you bang out a rhythm with the screwdrivers, it's experimental or industrial or possibly even IDM or something else, depending on the rhythm and what else is going on. And if it's only rhythmic because of the way you happened to loop the recording...? The lines everywhere are fuzzy