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Post by davebowman on Jul 29, 2017 23:12:31 GMT -5
Just a head's up that Merzbow does a guest 'solo' on a forthcoming album by a band called Seeming. Having had a listen, they aren't really my style of music at all, so I can't see myself buying the album - however, luckily the single featuring Merzbow 'At the Road's End' is streaming here - the Merzbow stuff is from 8:15 on, and enjoyable (if short!): www.self-titledmag.com/2017/07/28/premiere-seeming-merzbow-collaboration/
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Post by andypandy380 on Jul 30, 2017 4:33:09 GMT -5
Gave it a listen, thought it was awful actually. It's an overproduced cringey mess of goth and electro pop cliches. The lyrics and vocal delivery are both laughably bad it's almost painful. Music for the sort of eyeliner clad grown man in his thirties uploading poorly written anime fan fiction to Deviantart. Merzbow's input at the end adds absolutely nothing, but I guess he got a nice little paycheck out of it.
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Post by acsenger on Jul 30, 2017 16:27:04 GMT -5
Yeah, this band is not my cup of tea at all either, to put it lightly. I liked Merzbow's part though.
Each to their own, but it still strikes me as odd that Merzbow collaborates with such bands. My opinion is that for a long time now, his taste in collaborations has been terrible. Seeming is really bad; then he recently remixed Mortiis, and I saw a live recording on Youtube where he played with a band whose name I forgot, but they had a black singer and it was just horrible pretentious crap. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that Akita branches out to such genres in order to stand out from the usual noise scene and its rules -- a goal that I have no problem with, but how he goes about it is just terrible for the most part.
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Post by andypandy380 on Jul 31, 2017 17:28:42 GMT -5
It does seem true that Akita is obliging to more requests from artists outside of the usual noise/experimental spectrum. I assume all of them have approached Akita, I doubt he would have himself gone to the likes of Racebannon, XiuXiu, Full Of Hell, Miller/Camfield looking for collaborations, but i guess his 'door is always open' as it were. Not to say all of them have been unsuccessful, but I'd argue that the best are definitely the collaborations with the more established artists in the experimental world, I know for example Akita was a huge fan of Richard Pinhas before they worked together, those kinds of releases seem way more of a genuine joint effort too. A small amount of them do feel a little like they're getting Merzbow on board for the sake of saying 'look who we managed to work with', which I know is kind of a horrible thing to say, but I hope in many ways that it doesn't become a trend among bands looking for some cheap publicity stunt.
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Post by acsenger on Aug 1, 2017 3:28:08 GMT -5
I agree that from the perspective of quite a few bands he's worked with, it must seem "cool" to show off they worked with a famous noise musician. I don't care about such attitudes and don't listen to music with such associated attitudes, but from Merzbow's perspective, it's not a direction I like -- but then again, I basically haven't followed his output for a long time and am content with the huge amount of his releases already in my collection. (That said, I do look forward to Hyakki Echo!)
Talking about Richard Pinhas, I'd like to hear the relatively recent Pinhas/Akita/Tatsuya Yoshida CD on Cuneiform, even if I think all three of them are past their prime... Has anyone heard that album?
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Post by andypandy380 on Aug 1, 2017 7:05:15 GMT -5
I'm honestly surprised that there's still quite a lot of social media buzz surrounding the Full Of Hell With Merzbow album, given that I'd forgotten all about it really... It doesn't seem to take an awful lot to create that buzz in grindcore and extreme metal circles though, just do something kinda superficial or push to be that little more 'extreme' than the next... I am glad to say that I've also found there to be many more satisfying Merzbow solo releases of late. Aodron and Hatobana being particular favourites for me.
I have that album yeah, It's alright, kind of a washy sounding ambience to it. There's a lot of jittery tremolo effect that becomes a bit much though... I think I had higher hopes for it having seen Pinhas/Sax Ruins perform together, but it's nothing awful. I actually don't have the other Merzbow/Pinhas albums, although I'd like to get hold of them, same for some of Pinhas' own work. With the aforementioned gig I saw, I'd have to say Richard Pinhas alone was nothing amazing, he created some nice guitar ambience and fiddled with a device on his amp. Sax Ruins were spectacular, and Sax Ruins/Pinhas doing an improvised set together was even more so!
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Post by acsenger on Aug 1, 2017 9:54:17 GMT -5
I don't know the Full of Hell/Merzbow album, and after having heard FoH a little, I'm not very interested either. I'm not surprised there's a lot of buzz still around it, given how there are multiple physical formats of the album, an indication for me of hype to stay away from.
Jittery tremolo doesn't sound too good, so I'll give that album a pass. I have one Merzbow/Pinhas album, the "Keio Line" double CD. It's pretty good, quite mellow, but nothing earth-shattering. The guitar ambience of Pinhas that is prominent on this album is, from what other recent(ish) stuff I've heard by him, quite typical of his music. It's something that I find nice for a while, but after some time it's just not exciting. However, I highly recommend his first two solo albums: "Rhizosphere" and "Chronolyse". It's hard to describe them... They're much more electronic and there's no ambient guitar on them, or at least not like on his aforementioned album with Merzbow. His band Heldon is held in high regard by many, but aside from some tracks/parts of tracks on "Interface" and "Stand By", I'm not a fan.
Sax Ruins is great! I really like both their albums (although to be honest, they're very similar).
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