Madame Alice's Cornrows or Unwarranted Reverence

I remember the first time I heard John Coltrane's Meditations. It was in a car on a hot Texas afternoon and I had just recieved the album in the mail. I was aware that this was anything but driving music. Music you drive to should sync or syncopate to the rhythm of the road, not utterly bludgeon it. With the bonafide gods of thunder Elvin Jones and Rasheid Ali laying the terra firma for a new planet, 'Trane's virtuosic whine, and Pharoah Sanders purposely breaking the range of his instrument, this was something new and wonderful for a young man still busting out of his Metal phase.

Other musicians would be inspired by this music. The end of The Stooges Funhouse blatantly paid tribute to it. And while it would crop up in the raw energy of early punk, "free jazz" met it's nominal peak during those late sixties.

The fallability of musical categorization becomes painfully evident in yet another journalist coined genre - "noise music". We could go into the philisophical ramifications of the assumption that noise can be music or in fact is music. Who am I kidding, we have to. Eventually. But in the meantime let's assume that what is called noise music today was initially shaped by Masami Akita a.k.a. Merzbow. Some of you will decry this and shout, "No! Throbbing Gristle!" Well, guess what. You're absolutely right. Feel better now? Because I'm going to write about a Merzbow record. You can go and write something about 20 Jazz Funk Greats.

1930 is not Merzbow's first record. Merzbow has released many, many, many records. Most of which I'll never get to hear. But, 1930 is Merzbow's first record on John Zorn's venerable Tzadik label, making it something of an event during it's 1998 release. The New York experimental patriarch had no doubt been aware of Mr. Akita's music long ago and was more than happy to release his newest material (In my world, everyone wears big, broad smiles.)

The opening subjects the listener to a seemingly happenstance parade of low end buzz, occasional synth sweep and what seems like the fluctuating din of a bad engine. Merzbow's implements are being introduced one by one onto the operating table and those paying close attention soon realize this is not happenstance. It is quite organized. An undermixed sample from some ancient and seminal IDM recording (Autechre owes a large debt to this man) gives way to the title track.

Subtlety is shoved aside as the pulsing whip-crack of some old, tortured Moog becomes the record's first dying breath. The sound is modulated by a filter and becomes what can only be described as the sound of something spitting and sucking at the same time. In the backdrop of this enveloping beast is the high pitched pulse of a relatively clean monotonal synth, it's screeching sixteenths desperately reaching to escape this swallowing abyss. The aural effect is absolutely stunning.

The phrase becomes studdered and then comes to a gradual halt, the dense pounding dispersed and slightly ambient. And as much as this music seems to be the antithesis of any calm and relaxing Tangerine Dream album, it's broad scope and singular vision resembles many of those epic seventies albums. These sounds become compounded, layer by layer over the next copule minutes, as we're introduced to one of Merzbow's signature sounds. A distorted synthesizer put on a long duration and infinite repeat, spet up, and then oscillated. A friend of mine described it as the sound of a vacuum cleaner being put to an overdriven microphone. As a familiar presence on Merzbow records, it's a polite hello to fans and pundits alike to let them know who exactly is tearing their heads off.

This sound scales the rumble, climbing to reach yet another plateau of the piece. We are then blindsided by something resembling a beat. A hook, more appropriately. And yes, this record does have hooks. A two-count high pitched chirp repeats every measure or so followed immediately by a synth "crash", like a large vase being dashed to pieces. That sound is accompanied by a glissando synth that goes down and then up in tone to seemingly throw this barrage at the listener. Layers of clamor are then gradually taken away, leaving a disturbed silence that lies in wait for the next assault.

This is synthesized music. Most detractors of "electronica" have a problem with the cold, lifeless, machine driven stigma that seems the bane of most of it's acts. And Merzbow's music is machine driven. But 1930 is proof positive that electronic music can be wild, erratic, and living. My long, lauding descriptions still cannot explain just how immediate and energetc this music really is. It must be experienced firsthand. And at extremely high volume.