Merzbow (メルツバウ Merutsubau) is a Japanese noise project started in 1979 by Masami Akita (秋田 昌美 Akita Masami).
The name Merzbow comes from the German dada artist Kurt Schwitters’ artwork Merzbau, in which Schwitters transformed the interior of his house using found objects. The name was chosen to reflect Akita’s dada influence and junk art aesthetic. In addition to this, Akita has cited a wide range of musical influences from progressive rock, heavy metal, free jazz, and early electronic music to non-musical influences like dadaism, surrealism, and fetish culture. Since the early 2000s, he has been inspired by animal rights and environmentalism, and began to follow a vegan, straight edge lifestyle.
As well as being a prolific musician, he has been a writer and editor for several books and magazines in Japan, and has written several books of his own. He has written about a variety of subjects, mostly about music, modern art, and underground culture.
Moloch 11811 – PSS380 Label: Self Produced / Distri.: GH Records Format: CDR Country: Spanish Released: 2020 Style: Industrial
Desde el año 2002, el proyecto Moloch 11811 ha ido navegando a través de las procelosas aguas de la experimentación. Desde el harsh noise al dieselpunk, la exploración sonora ha ido pasando de un lado a otro del espectro sin dudas ni miedo. En los últimos tiempos, el devenir del proyecto se ha centrado en el drone y el ambient sin dejar de lado el aspecto industrial que lo acompaña desde el principio. En este trabajo, nos centramos en un único instrumento y cómo de algo tan reto y lo-fi como un Yamaha PSS-380, podemos sacar poderosos sonidos que nos llevan a paisajes drone y ambient con una pizca noise. Sin más herramienta que la grabación.
Ulver – Flowers of Evil (Vinyl LP | Black) Label: House Of Mythology – HOM 023 LP Format: Vinyl, LP, Black Country: Germany Released: 2020 Style: Electronic
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In the midst of the forest, the floor is littered with monstrous heads and mythical figures, frozen in torturous combat or threatened by wild beasts. A dragon fights a dog and a wolf. A lion sinks its teeth into the fire-breathing monster’s chest.
This sacred grove, near Bomarzo in Lazio, Italy, reveals the nightmare vision of Vicino Orsini, a sixteenth century nobleman. It’s a forest of symbols, suggesting a civilisation overrun by the beasts, demons and monsters of the primordial world. Soon after Orsini’s death, trees began to close in on these many peculiar beings, and green moss would eventually seize them. Slowly, nature finished what he had started.
Flowers of Evil, the new studio album from Ulver, finds the wolf pack exploring the fear and wonder of mankind’s fall from redemption. Visions similar to those of Orsini come to mind, as untamed life abounds:
THEY SPREAD TWIST AND TURN IN THE KILLING FIELDS
The threads of haunted places and images entwine. Have Ulver discovered new pastures under the sun? Or scoured the ruins of their own moonlit past? The truth is, they’re closer to their previous purlieu than perhaps ever before.
“Doom dance”, someone dubbed their last studio album, the critically acclaimed, Impala Award-winning The Assassination of Julius Caesar (2017). Flowers of Evil comes across as an unfeigned progression along the course set by that album, revealing a band moving deeper into beats and grooves, hooks and choruses, synths and guitars, yet sounding more stripped back, making room for the distinctive detail. Once again Michael Rendall (The Orb) and legendary producer Martin “Youth” Glover have taken crystalline care of the mix.
As Caesar demonstrated, Ulver haven’t abandoned any of their obsessions, worries or nightmares as they enter the gilded palace of pop. “One last dance / in this burning church”, Kristoffer Rygg announces on the album’s opening track, featuring old friend Christian Fennesz on guitar and electronics. It sees them locked inside their Hall of Mirrors. A slow build brings the music to the album’s pulsing theme:
WE ARE WOLVES UNDER THE MOON THIS IS OUR SONG WE HAVE LOVED AND WE HAVE LOST WE ARE READY TO GO
With Flowers of Evil Ulver have fled a burning Rome, only to confront further crime and corruption. ‘Russian Doll’, the album’s first single, moves determinedly through the night, with a story of unfolding tragedy and misery. ‘Machine Guns and Peacock Feathers’ brings fiery end-time imagery – “barrels are burning / great art will be destroyed” – with a disco beat and flashy ’80s synths. Dismal cries resound on ‘Hour of the Wolf’; echoing Bergman’s classic film, the song is dedicated to the hour between night and dawn, “when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real”. ‘Apocalypse 1993’ reveals Ulver at their catchiest, its bounding-goat groove running hand in hand with a grand chorus depicting the catastrophic events at Waco, Texas, during the winter of that year – the very same winter that saw the birth of Ulver’s first incarnation. From that thorny undergrowth, this is what they have become: an eclectic, many-headed beast, chanting the ecstasies of the spirit and the senses.
Flowers of Evil unfolds with the shattering second single, ‘Little Boy’. A mysterious beat moves the track towards its thunderous climax, and here Michael J. York’s ominous pipes melt into the softer, moodier ‘Nostalgia’, a ’70s soul shuffle, and the heart-breaking Talk Talk-esque balladry of ‘A Thousand Cuts’. Finally, the wolves are back in the palace of excess, waltzing the night away. Yet around them, the wilderness rises, triumphant; “grass will grow over your cities”, as the Bible says.
Tracklist: 1. One Last Dance 2. Russian Doll 3. Machine Guns and Peacock Feathers 4. Hour of the Wolf 5. Apocalypse 1993 6. Little Boy 7. Nostalgia 8. A Thousand Cuts
