A few months back my friends at to Be magazine asked me to write a piece about Merzbow. The text titled Outside Utopia, can be found in issue #2 of the magazine.
As a part of this project they also invited me to make a mixtape, merging many of the Merzbow threads that have inspired and provoked me, in equal measure, over the years. This is an intense collage of Merzbow's noise universe. It is available only on cassette - no digital will arrive on this one.
Here's a little note included in Outside Utopia...
“I first met Tokyo musician and artist Merzbow (Masami Akita) in October 1997. We were introduced in a carpark out the back of a venue, The Capitol, in Brisbane. Akita was on tour with Mike Patton, performing a series of improvised concerts that would later accumulate into a duet recording as Maldoror. This concert was one of a few performances during that decade which categorically forged my interests in experimental practice, Noise and the capacity of sound to be a physiological experience. It was the first time I experienced music that was so unruly, free and unconstrained in every way imaginable.This formative encounter is one I am sure I share with a generation of outlying musicians here in Australia, whose way through the darkest stretches of music-making were illuminated by the eruptive light of iconic artists such as Merzbow.” - Lawrence English, Room40
As a part of this project they also invited me to make a mixtape, merging many of the Merzbow threads that have inspired and provoked me, in equal measure, over the years. This is an intense collage of Merzbow's noise universe. It is available only on cassette - no digital will arrive on this one.
Here's a little note included in Outside Utopia...
“I first met Tokyo musician and artist Merzbow (Masami Akita) in October 1997. We were introduced in a carpark out the back of a venue, The Capitol, in Brisbane. Akita was on tour with Mike Patton, performing a series of improvised concerts that would later accumulate into a duet recording as Maldoror. This concert was one of a few performances during that decade which categorically forged my interests in experimental practice, Noise and the capacity of sound to be a physiological experience. It was the first time I experienced music that was so unruly, free and unconstrained in every way imaginable.This formative encounter is one I am sure I share with a generation of outlying musicians here in Australia, whose way through the darkest stretches of music-making were illuminated by the eruptive light of iconic artists such as Merzbow.” - Lawrence English, Room40