Despite a deluge of recordings that might suggest otherwise, Merzbow did not invent noise.

What he is responsible for is an incredible insight, a leveling glare into our perceptions of musical functionality: Merzbow's music intrinsically refutes academic hierarchies, self-important artistry, mindless fluff, fame, and craft. His work is, in a grand sense, about the mass proliferation of sound in our lives, the morbidity of our culture's regurgitation and recycling of aesthetics, and of course, a fundamental disagreement with thoughtless complacency.

The very essence of this-- the need to represent, or in some way possess the constant influx of cultural trash-- merits Merzbow's rigorous release schedule. Even at their most aurally identical, each release is a different approach to Merzbow's preoccupations, be it bondage (which, for those who thought Merzbow was a one-trick pony, seems to be mysteriously absent in his work as of late), or jazz drumming. In the past 25 years, it's pretty doubtless that these releases have finally started to epitomize that endless cultural subconscious that Merzbow set out to recreate.

Yet, describing this work in strictly academic or critical language undermines the sheer velocity and disruption a listener might feel, having never heard anything along these lines before. No Merzbow fan will ever be able to relive that initial shock, torment, and displeasure, that moral incongruence, or the satisfaction that someone finally took that extra step they always anticipated. At least not until they stumble onto Whitehouse.

Warp Records have just released a new Merzbow record. Not to be filed under Merzbow proper, it's attributed to Merzbow's human incarnation, Masami Akita, who appears here alongside equally disruptive experimentalist Russell Haswell. Due to labelmates like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, this will be the most widely distributed Merzbow album. Whether or not you're looking for a place to start, Satanstornade will be the one in your local record store.

Perhaps there's been a climate change; maybe those pissed-off rap-rock kids in bubble coats are going to get even angrier when they get drafted. Maybe they'll need something more substantial to pump out of their subwoofers while they do figure-eights in a mall parking lot. Hell, Merzbow isn't that inaccessible: There are basslines looping back and forth all through the album. In fact, the most emblematic feature of Merzbow's noise music of the past decade or so is the fact that he's largely abandoned the random household noise of his earliest experiments, as well as the tape-collage work it evolved into. The precipitous, unabashed searing rushes that followed-- and settled-- after some experimentation headed, in the past five years, toward the use of underlying loops.

Maybe it has to do with his decision to integrate a laptop into what used to be such distinctly physical musical method, or maybe it's just another view into the way our cultural waste works. All of those albums released and recorded, all of the television, sharing the same general content, day in and day out, lulling in its calculated directness. Or maybe it's just that all of that trademarked feedback is just a tiny loop anyway, being picked up by a microphone which sends it to speakers that send it to the microphone, over and over again.

Whatever is emblematic of Merzbow's work in and of itself has been offset fairly recently by his newfound enthusiasm for collaboration. Not that there weren't traces of it earlier in his work, but Zbigniew Karkowski, Ladybird, Kouhei Matsunaga, Otomo Yoshihide, and now, finally released-- despite being several years old-- a collaboration with Russell Haswell have come to be a major factor in deciphering Merzbow's work.

Merzbow's conceptual approach and aesthetics seem to dominate any situation heenters, however. Junk, waste, the violent cascades of sound, are mixed with Haswell's particularly digital-based aesthetics. The sounds of CD errors, binary yelps, and tinny crunches barrage Merzbow's typical noisy landscape. Considering Haswell's Live Salvage: 1997-2000 collection on MEGO, perhaps it's not even a question of Merzbow battling for dominance, but rather two artists reaching for similar territory.

Live Salvage had a twist somewhat absent from Merzbow's work, though. There was a sense of location-specificity, a keen ability to integrate the physical, concrete nature of his noise into the space he was playing it in. Haswell has been looking for new ground after people like Merzbow have already staked their claims, and to shy away from a collaborative effort with such a central figure would've been absurd. Unfortunately, two men brandishing their laptops in public seems a little bit weak, a bit too hasty for either artist to make much of a dent. It's not a failure-- it fits neatly into Merzbow'slongstanding theories, and even serves as a bit of a challenge for him considering the collaborative aspect-- but the promise of Haswell's creativity is too quickly usurped. Hopefully this collaboration will be a bit more than a one-off, and the two can find a stronger equilibrium.

-Kim Fing Shannon, February 7th, 2003