Merzbow

At the behest of a friend, the big bad daddy of noise, Masami Akita, has released a beat album that out schools anything the drill'n'bass beat heads could come up with, featuring harder beats and rougher sounds. Merzbeat explodes with "Promotion Man," which starts with choppy guitar sounds, a sequenced drum machine and noise, glorious noise that's akin to the engines of a jet fighter being tested. "Forgotten Land" follows the same pattern of guitars and beats, but this time without the noise and focusing more on the melody of the guitar lines. On "Forgotten Land," Akita works more on distorting the beats with his trademarked processed screech occurring only intermittently. "Shadow Barbarian" starts with a mean hip-hop style beat, but run through filters and accompanied by dreary piano loops. Six minutes into the track, Middle Eastern-style music is blended with the piece then joined with a hurricane-like noise, which results in an unholy union of sounds. It would be interesting to find out if there is a rapper out there bold enough to tackle these beats. "Looping Jane" caps off Merzbeat, which is a "tune" worthy to soundtrack a pseudo-erotic film starring Godzilla and King Kong. Merzbeat also contains a bonus track entitled "Merzbow's Amlux," remixed by Jack Dangers; definitely the most abstract track on this CD.