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Post by hajen71 on Jan 12, 2013 14:12:48 GMT -5
Does anybody have an opinion on the releases out on the polish label vivo records. ? Are they worth getting your hands on or are they some of the releases who can wait ?
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Post by andypandy380 on Jan 12, 2013 14:34:27 GMT -5
there's like 5 of them isn't there? Higanbana, Arijigoku, Bloody Sea, Coma Berenecies, Hadosan? I think that's right.... I only have the first 2, they're both quite harsh and in your face from what I remember... very much 'wall of noise' kinda stuff. I don't dislike them, however I've never really seen anyone give them a great deal of praise either. I like the sturdy little digipak things they come in, very nicely produced I've been trying to get a copy of bloody sea... not sure why I'm so keen to get that one, but no luck so far.
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Post by trollh on Jan 12, 2013 14:40:45 GMT -5
Bloody Sea is fuckin brutal, a bit similiar with Don't Steal My Goat, just without drums. Hodosan is full with fast and harsh noise with the same fast drumming and some very painful frequencies, I like them very much.
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Post by andypandy380 on Jan 12, 2013 15:28:38 GMT -5
Those are the next two on my wishlist, bloody sea and don't steal my coat (it is coat and not goat isn't it?) But I'm pretty much just buying whatever appears at a reasonable price at the moment
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Post by ashessehsa on Jan 13, 2013 13:53:50 GMT -5
I think it IS goat, actually.
I like Coma Berencies and Bloody Sea a good amount, I'd put them in my top 40 probably.
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Post by andypandy380 on Jan 13, 2013 14:02:50 GMT -5
lol, this is getting quite a confusing issue surrounding that album the inside cover has pictures of very bald looking sheep, so i assumed it was another animal rights thing, don't steal my coat = don't steal my wool? I'm not sure though... I read that 'goat' was a misprint on the spine of the CD
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Post by ashessehsa on Jan 13, 2013 19:34:04 GMT -5
Ohhh, that would make sense. Maybe it was meant to be coat. That's a really disappointing misprint, if that's the case!
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Post by trollh on Jan 16, 2013 1:54:38 GMT -5
I remember about the speculations when it was been released on discogs is it coat or goat, or what? I got tired to find out, I think for me it is Goat, according to the goatish cover, Masami's animal mania, and what a stupid title would be Don't steal my coat?
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Post by Bucketfel on Jan 16, 2013 12:42:58 GMT -5
I remember about the speculations when it was been released on discogs is it coat or goat, or what? I got tired to find out, I think for me it is Goat, according to the goatish cover, Masami's animal mania, and what a stupid title would be Don't steal my coat? i thought it was coat at first because i thought it would have to be related with animal furs and whatnot. But now ive seen the artwork of the album and im convinced its goat. ;D
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Post by andypandy380 on Jan 16, 2013 12:52:50 GMT -5
The artwork of the album was what convinced me it was coat those are sheep, with woolen coats, or indeed a lack thereof but t's only a name, albeit a silly one either way round, I still haven't got round to listening to it lol
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Post by christabel on Jan 16, 2013 15:27:14 GMT -5
I remember about the speculations when it was been released on discogs is it coat or goat, or what? I got tired to find out, I think for me it is Goat, according to the goatish cover, Masami's animal mania, and what a stupid title would be Don't steal my coat? i thought it was coat at first because i thought it would have to be related with animal furs and whatnot. But now ive seen the artwork of the album and im convinced its goat. ;D Why? They are sheep on the cover. See Merzbow Wiki page and the official site.
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Post by Bucketfel on Jan 17, 2013 0:23:03 GMT -5
i thought it was coat at first because i thought it would have to be related with animal furs and whatnot. But now ive seen the artwork of the album and im convinced its goat. ;D Why? They are sheep on the cover. See Merzbow Wiki page and the official site. Yeah i know there is a page now. Thats because I did it. What i told you was what i believed from the extremly basic information i had when it was released, and it didnt helped that even that info was in russian. ;D
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Post by trollh on Jan 17, 2013 0:29:48 GMT -5
So Goat or Coat? (Before I need to prepare a poll -My vote is Goat)
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Post by qweasd on Feb 1, 2013 18:11:24 GMT -5
Vivo albums:
Higanbana track 1 is one of the better long tracks of Merzbow, up there with c.30 min tracks like Rattus Rattus Suite, Untitled for Vasteras (and to a lesser extent Bariken reprise, Scene 2) - a true gem. The rest of the album works, although is overshadowed by the strength of track 1. Worth acquiring!
Bloody Sea is nothing special in its entirety, it is rather unfocused and meanders (like Metamorphosis from that era), although track 2 is a highlight. FID and Minazo Vol 1 are better releases from that time.
Re: the drum albums Hodosan and Arijogoku. Hodosan is the more instantly appealing, one of the better and harsher drum albums. It was hard to accept the wholesale lifting of the Turmeric track however, but then in hindsight it doesn't ruin that track (in the same way that he ruined other tracks from Turmeric elsewhere). Arijigoku is cloudier in sound and took some time to grow on me (though I had a general issue with most of the drum CDs), it is very monochrome, yet in hindsight it is one of the more intense drum albums and therefore is worthwhile (although the drum albums aren't where Merzbow truly shines, which is the bottom line).
Coma Berenices is one of the more accessible Merzbow albums due to its repetitive riff-like nature, it's rather unique in that aspect, but ultimately not all that interesting. I prefer Merzbear, Zophorus and Eucalypse from that era.
PS. Long time fan.
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Post by andypandy380 on Feb 7, 2013 16:46:17 GMT -5
I think 'cloudy' is a very good term to describe Arijigoku, I don't remember it having a great deal of emphasis as far as drums, not all up in your face like the Japanese Birds for example... but it's been a while since I gave it a listen. When you refer to tracks from Turmeric being ruined, I've not come across this before, could you elabourate on what happened there a bit? I'm just curious.
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Post by qweasd on Feb 8, 2013 1:43:09 GMT -5
Occasionally Merzbow reuses large slabs of previous tracks on newer releases, or else entire tracks that are hardly modified. I'd rather not spoil the fun for fans still getting their heads around the vast catalog of Merzbow, but in my opinion there have been some shockers - and let's just say by by that I mean I expect a new Merzbow album to have 'new' material on it (call me conventional ). Of course, there is an important aspect in Merzbow of reusing existing material, which for my own understanding of Merzbow has to do with Kurt Schwitters' 'formung und entformung' (forming and deforming in order to reform) which informed the original Merzbau. In early Merzbow, refer to the concept behind SCUM and the basic idea of collage from both Schwitters and early Merzbow. Of course, Merzbow has evolved and it's hard to know exactly from such a verbally reticent man as Masami precisely what relationship Schwitters' Merzbau or Dada is general holds for Merzbow at every stage of Merzbow's output. Probably not much at all anymore. However, some (ultimately fairly obvious after listening for some years) characteristics of this include small samples/loops/scraps of sound that are reused relatively often in certain periods of Merzbow's output. I wonder if anyone else has spotted some.... .... (Some are less obvious than others, but that used to be a fun element of acquiring new albums and hoping for various reworkings of previous sounds, sometimes with great surprise and excitement and other times resulting in frustrated expectations depending on how this was done - but it was all part of the experience. This is an element that waxes and wanes depending on where Merzbow is at at various points in time). More recently (as in in the last 10 years or so), there are some wholesale reusings of tracks. Again, it's hard to know exactly what the aesthetic purpose behind this is and how much it relates to Schwitters on the one hand, or on the other hand/extreme how much it's to do with Masami's laziness/forgetfulness!! Has anyone else come across examples of this?!! But to give away one and to answer your question andypandy380, have you heard track 1 of Somei? Who else spotted material Turmeric here? (I won't give away exactly what as that would spoil the fun for some!) When I say 'ruined', I might not necessarily mean a bad thing - think of a ruined castle. After all Merzbow released it and when is he ever wrong? It still says Merzbow on the cover, therefore it is a Merzbow release, nothing more, nothing less. (---> Big question - how much does one's time with Merzbow alter the opinion of 'good' vs 'bad' releases and at the end of the day, how relevant is that for anyone? Is it even the right question to ever be asking?) But in this particular case of Somei and Hodosan, I do have certain things I like about certain tracks that are either reinforced through subsequent reworkings, or not.... in MY opinion. (But, again, how is that relevant for anything to do with Merzbow?? ) For those that have spotted any of the above traits, feel free to comment or reveal some of your discoveries. (There is one particular slightly older track that Merzbow keeps returning to in some recent releases).
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Post by andypandy380 on Feb 8, 2013 4:42:35 GMT -5
ah ok, I understand a bit more now. thanks. not a great deal springs to mind in terms of reused material though, I thought for a while that some of the 2010/2011 releases felt a bit suspicious because of that 'whalesong' which kept popping in and out, I suspect it was just a case of using a similar technique each time around than simply reusing the same material, but I don't really know. I've heard talk of Animal Magnetism being reused a fair bit, i've heard similarities to that myself although i forget exactly where i picked up on it. Somei is an album I'm yet to check out, maybe it'll become clear when i do eventually give it a listen as I do like Turmeric quite a bit. I'm rapidly becoming quite a big Nurse With Wound fan, the only problem with that being the more of it I listen to the more I notice the same things on repeat, There's an annoying vocal sample in echo poeme which seems to pop up everywhere completely unaltered. and I'm pretty sure 'She and me fall together...' (as much as I adore that track) is just 'Soliloquy for Lilith' with a drum track on it... and part of 'Handjob from the laughing policeman' is just that but sped up a bit... On the whole I don't really have to much of an issue with people reusing material, I enjoy remix projects and things, find it interesting to see how people rework and put their own spin on a track. And in a more experimental setting such as Merzbow or NWW, if that original material is channeled through something else and manipulated so it takes on an altogether different role, that's pretty cool, who am I to say thats the wrong way of doing it? I guess if it really does sound much the same you could say yeah that comes across as a bit lazy or whatever, but I think with such an enormous discography full of so many different ideas, there's probably room for a bit of that, I doubt Merz would have just bunged it in there without thinking it in some way complimented the rest of what the new material was doing.
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Post by qweasd on Feb 10, 2013 4:49:20 GMT -5
Depends which 'whalesong' you mean - some may be different recordings, or different parts of a recording. Some might be reusings.
Still, when you do find some of those wholesale reusings, it begs the question.
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