Kenji Siratori is a master of recycling: just as most of his books are built upon permutations of the same appropriated texts and his ubiquitous brief biographical statements are entirely uniform, so his music is very much of a type. So when my copy of 'Merzbomb' arrived, I pretty much knew what to expect. But I had to find out...
For the uninitiated, Kenji Siratori is a self-styled Japanese Cyberpunk writer and music-maker. Although to call his books writing is perhaps tenuous, given that they are cut-and-paste screes of random phrases and code which feature minimal punctuation and no narrative to speak of whatsoever. If his written output is voluminous, it's nothing compared to his recorded work. The past couple of years have seen Siratori release in the region of 30 CDs, some solo, many in collaboration. His latest spell of truly prodigious productivity has seen the release of a slew of highly limited editions (some of which consist of just a single copy), of which 'Merzbomb' is just one. A 12-disc set, it's limited to a mere 30 numbered copies.
The original plan had been to play the entire set, end to end, in a single sitting. Alas, it wasn't to be. I have a life, after all. And a lot of other music to listen to. And as I said, 'Merzbomb' contains 12 discs. 12 plain white discs, the only marking being disc 1, disc 2, etc., hand-written into the clear part in the centre. The idea of an audio endurance test appealed in principal, but in practice...
What follows is a disc-by disc account of the contents of 'Merzbomb.' Even if you're a fan of this kind of crazy Japanese noise, made legendary by Merzbow and championed by pioneers or extreme electronica, Whitehouse - as I am - you'll soon appreciate why I was unable to complete my initial experimental undertaking.
Disc 1 - a shifting, mutating wall of noise. No tunes, nothing even approximating a rhythm, and no vocals. Just an all-out sonic assault.
Disc 2 - more instrumental electronica mayhem. As with disc 1, the CD contains just 1 track, of 24 minutes in duration. There are more bleeps and pulses: it's not a rhythm in the conventional sense, but the undulating swirl of feedback, crashes that sound like thunder or bombs being dropped in a heavy blitz, and blips that sound like the sound used in almost every sci-fi film or series to denote the shooting of lasers all contrive to forge some kind of irregular rhythm. Or is it just my mind trying to create some kind of order from the chaos?
Disc 3 - begins much as disc 2 does, bleepy, laser-gun sounds. But the sounds mutate and shift and before long it's a reverb-drenched spiral of treble and horrific distortion, like the sound of a helicopter at close range and pitch-shifted up an octave or three. This gradually morphs into a sound resembling a dentist's drill, accompanied by a low-end gurgling like several thousand gallons of saliva being sucked out by an industrial-sized vacuum cleaner. It's relentless and mercilessly abrasive. It hurts. Yes, one track. 24 minutes.
Disc 4 - 1 track. 24 minutes and 5 seconds. Well, at least I know it's not any of the previous discs repeated. Whipping loops of electronic noise, flanged to fuck and Eq'd sky-high squall from the speakers from the outset. A blizzard of noise. Gurgles, feedback, drills. Or am I developing tinnitus?
Disc 5 - Gurgling, pulsing electronica. 1 track, duration 24:05. A strange sense of deja vu.... bassier drones begin to filter in beneath the squall of treble some time around the five or six minute mark, only to be buried again shortly after by the surging tide of feedback and fizz and the twitter of electronic birds being mangled by jet engines surging through a rush of solar wind.
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Disc 6 - The roar of a F1 motor engine... a stream of high-pitched sawing... metal against metal... heavy industry... a collision of everything you ever heard in the city... bulldozers, construction work, the building of a new civilisation, while in the distance, the old cities are torn asunder, raised to the ground... the volume recedes slightly, giving the illusion of respite before it resurges, as loud and as agonising as before. It's all too much... and the track - which has a running time of 24:03 - is only three minutes in...
Disc 7 - Halfway through. You may be wondering by now why Inm doing this to myself. Inm asking myself the same question, believe me.
Disc 8 - Loops of electronic noise... A blizzard of noise. It hurts.
Disc 9 - My speakers are screaming. My ears are screaming. My brain is screaming. Siratori is clearly a madman, as he nervelessly launches his relentless sonic assault: not so much music as aural warfare. 24 minutes and three seconds: it feels like a lifetime. What have I done to deserve this?
Disc 10 - A running time of 24:05 and it begins with a rattling barrage of electronic distortion and manipulated laser and machine-gun fire before really turning nasty. Wibbling, muffled sounds like wordless robotic vocals hang beneath the wash of treble. My ribcage is vibrating. My organs are fibrillating and I suspect I'm beginning to haemorrhage in several key places as my eyes spin in their sockets as frequencies that no human being should be exposed to blast relentlessly from my speakers.
Disc 11 - A running time of 24:05 and it begins with a rattling barrage of electronic distortion and manipulated laser and machine-gun fire before really turning nasty. Wibbling, muffled sounds like wordless robotic vocals hang beneath the wash of treble. My ribcage is vibrating. My organs are fibrillating and I suspect I'm beginning to haemorrhage in several key places as my eyes spin in their sockets as frequencies that no human being should be exposed to blast relentlessly from my speakers.
Disc 12 - the final assault is three second shorter than the previous two, but what it lacks in duration it compensates in intensity and violence of frequency. Laser gunfire and galactic warfare: no-one here gets out alive. There can be nothing left after this: only darkness in the wake of total annihilation.
'Merzbomb' is music for the end of time, music to end all music. Devastating.
http://www.myspace.com/kenjisiratori
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