Merzbow - 1930

Of what I've heard (and god knows if anyone could ever hear the entire Merzbow discography), this is Merzbow's finest hour. It is an album where he really diversifies the sound, rather than his perhaps too-common permutations of flanged static (which in my philosophy are good too, but I have to be in the right mood). I had first heard this album around the same time that there was an enormous sculpture at the MFA in boston made of tiny household/office trinkets, arranged in a madenning Hausmannesque DaDa way. To me that perfectly describes this album and its opus, Iron, Glass, Blocks & White Lights. I count this track up with my very small list of "noise epics," including cccc's "I Wish," and Kevin Drumm's "Hitting The Pavement;" extended tracks where the sheer overwhelming crescendo of chaos takes you to new planes of ecstasy. The album seems to be made of more concrete sound sources than noise-generating analog synths, there's the sound of recording space to it. There really isn't a boring moment on this album, and even brutist New Blockaders-like "acoustic" noise (ie banging objects) can be boring.

This CD really caught me off guard. I bought it with the expectation of it being pretty alright. But what this CD was... It was spectacular, a masterpiece, as far as noise will go. Instead of being one flat gristly tone, I was rewarded with a multi-layered, dynamic release. I think part of this album's - and probably the rest of Merzbow's work - is that it is so busy. There are always little sounds and passages going on, even amidst the static you can find sounds, possibly ones that the noise had stemmed from. After a while, the pure static noise is actually beautiful sounding. I swear that toward the end of The Degredation of Tapes it becomes very relaxing, a relaxed sensation that continues throughout the last track. The first minutes of Iron, Glass, Blocks and White Lights gives me a distinct guitar solo sound...
This album is a wonderful, beautiful thing.