Merzbow

Under the name Merzbow, Masami Akita has been developing in Tokyo since 1979 a central project in the history of Japanese noise, initially as a duo with Kiyoshi Mizutani and as a solo act from the late 1980s. Trained in the visual arts and influenced by Dadaism, industrial music, free jazz and improvisation, Merzbow constructs music built on saturation, feedback, abrasive textures and the accumulation of transformed sounds, with occasional ambient or more rhythmic excursions depending on the period. His earliest recordings circulated on cassette within underground networks before he began touring Europe in 1989 and the United States in 1990. In the 1990s his work became more frontal and dense, as on Pulse Demon (1996), while Merzbox (2000), a 50‑CD box set, documents the breadth of his discography. In the early 2000s he introduced greater pulse and repetitive motifs on Merzbeat (2002) and Merzbird (2004), while continuing to maintain a very prolific output. Over time Merzbow has also expanded his collaborations with artists such as Boris, Keiji Haino, Mats Gustafsson, Balázs Pándi and Xiu Xiu, both on record and on stage.