Most people, by the very concept, find cement blocks of sadistic noise alienating. A percentage of those that actually enjoy auditory suffering argue as to whether a popular practitioner such as Merzbow doles out a potent and varied enough blend from album to album. Most people contend that if you've heard one Merzbow album, you've heard them all, but his new release Merzbeat might baffle those usually alienated by noise, as well as those who feel Merzbow is monotonous. It will even surprise those who've become accustomed to the cochlea-stampeding trauma of his earlier records.
Merzbeat is approachable. There are drum beats and guitar riffs. It's been compared to Neu, although Tony Conrad + Faust's Outside the Dream Syndicate might be more apt: A pummeling drum line repeats for 10 minutes, Tony Conrad's buzzing violin replaced by Merzbow's trash compactor. All of the anti-academic, yet still intellectualized thought regarding Merzbow's blatant, harsh releases is hidden within Merzbeat. It's still subconscious, cultural detritus, sure, but it's rock music first. In fact, to hell with all the Krautrock name dropping: Merzbeat strives to be Led Zeppelin I.
Despite these almost accessible aspirations, one could hardly say any piece of music in Merzbow's canon is unprecedented. Merzbeat is like a stripped-down Aqua Necromancer, a prominent, almost pleasurable loop underneath the sounds Merzbow is known for; Necromancer however is much harsher, and more monotonous, where Merzbeat, surprisingly enough, is melodically varied. It's a Merzbow album with near-tunes that actually change over the course of each piece. Factor in the fourth track, "Tadpole"-- what might be the most traditionally beautiful piece of Merzmusic-- and it's hard not be optimistic about the future of Masami Akita's work.
Merzbeat is engaging, yet to laud the work as an achievement-- or even a standout release-- might be beside the point. For Merzbow, music is garbage: This CD is just the result of the wild excesses of information in our lives. It's essentially the most accurate form of folk music we have. Anyone can make noise; you just take the leftovers around you and extract sound. Make it loud and cathartic, or quiet and resigned: Each Merzbow release is a call to do it yourself. While a similar release like Massimo's Hello Dirty-- which also preys on noise and rock music-- achieves a certain artistry in the equation, the bizarrely more impressive thing about Merzbeat is its imminent disposability.
