Merzbow

Tip! Tip! Tip! This work consists of sound and a collection of AI-generated images. The image collection is a compilation of AI-generated images used in a projection at the Merzbow Free Noise concert held on January 6, 2025, at WWW in Shibuya, Tokyo. The use of such visuals in Merzbow is rare in recent years, and of course, the use of AI-generated images in a live performance is a first. The concert was divided into two parts, and one of the rehearsal recordings of the songs performed in the fir…

Nobody feels the sound fracturing as Masami Akita, nobody understands noise better than Merzbow. This Japanese artist is for more than forty years the maximum exponent of a style that has been catalogued and denominated with perhaps, the most descriptive word of modern music. Noise can have very diverse connotations, however, when we transfer this term to the pleasure and enjoyment that a piece of music generates in the listener, when we treat non-music as music, we understand that sound express…

*300 copies limited edition* First released in 2012 on Japanese label Youth Inc. as a 10xCD Box and long time sold out. After 13 years this completely re-mastered Super-Merz-Sonik album is finally going to be re-released on OEC! The Merzphysics set features previously unreleased recordings from 1993 to 1995, focusing on pure noise made before the introduction of synthesizers and other electronic instruments. The noise is described as being linked to grindcore, having a sense of speed, and was re…

*300 copies limited edition* A sporangium (from Ancient Greek sporá 'seed' and angeîon 'vessel') is an enclosure in which spores are formed. It can be composed of a single cell or can be multicellular. Virtually all plants, fungi, and many other groups form sporangia at some point in their life cycle. Sporangia can produce spores by mitosis, but in land plants and many fungi, sporangia produce genetically distinct haploid spores by meiosis. Sporangium is brand new "merzsoniks"! Equipments used b…

*199 copies limited edition* Aka Meme by Merzbow was first released on Music-Cassette in 1983 on Masami'a own label ZSF Produkt and on V2 Uitgave (a Sub-label of V2 Organisation). Tape was later re-released in other two editions but is long time sold-out and impossible to find. Finally OEC is going to re-release that special tape once more. This is Industrial-Noise from the very first era made by the master of Japanoise. Recordings are mixing many different sounds that range from: ritual-sounds …

1991 release ** Featuring: Shinjuku Thief, Peter Appleton, Paul Schütze, C-Schulz, Ian Eccles-Smith, Richard Vojlay, Tenebrae, Andrew Chalk, Muslimgauze, Christoph Heemann, Jim O'Rourke, Merzbow.

The two masters, thousands of miles apart, released this fearsome collaboration in 1997 on Sterilized Decay. Matthew Bower's source sounds were processed, mangled and reassembled by Masami Akita for 50 minutes of unbridled destruction. At once a summation and reconfiguration of both artist's incredible work throughout the 1990s. Remastered and with a new layout based on the original tape.

*2025 stock. 300 copies limited edition* The third offering in No Holiday's September 7-inch batch comes courtesy of Merzbow, offering up twin bursts of total electronic punishment that could have been made by no one else. Avian electronics for white-cheeked starlings the world over.

2010 release ** "In the planning (and many faxes, emails and discussions in person) for 20 years, finally this stunning collaborative release for Cold Spring from Japanese Noise king Merzbow and legendary elemental sound artist Z'EV is here. The tracks were created in London and Tokyo, with each artist remixing the other's original sounds. Two tracks weighing in at 22 minutes and 28 minutes respectively! Dark Ambient Noise."

2002 release ** "Most music in Japan has little to recommend it; it is a sonic equivalent of those brutal concrete towers or the transitory chaos of multi-storey teen-fashion emporia in Aoyama. But a sonic underground thrives, creatively if not financially, and perhaps it should be compared with the shabby Golden-gai drinking dens of Shinjuku, faint reminders of a lost time when desire and transgression shared endless cups of sake with political and artistic radicalism... How is it possible to l…

1995 CD on Freek, a collaboration between Philip Best and Masami Akita featuring also Ramleh's and Breathless' Gary Mundi and Skullflower's and Sunroof's Matthew Bower.

"For many years, I collected every new Merzbow release. I stopped when I realised I couldn’t keep up with playing them; some were still in their shrinkwrap after a year. I didn’t keep up with Merzbow’s output in the last 15 years and only heard what I was sent. I had no idea what a collaboration between Merzbow’s Masami Akita and Agencement’s Hideaki Shimada would be like. The latter is a violin player whose first two LPs from the late 1980s are classics with hectic playing and might include som…

Spanish producer and composer Pedro Vian and Japanese noise legend Merzbow join forces once again for A Wheel of Mani, a singular work set to be released exclusively on 12” vinyl on June 4, 2025, via Modern Obscure Music. This collaboration follows in the footsteps of their previous joint effort, Inside Richard Serra Sculptures, released last year, where they explored the intersection of sonic abstraction and dense textural landscapes. With this new release, the two artists push even further int…

Carrying on their longstanding dedication to the seminal output of Merzbow, Urashima returns with what is unquestionably their most ambitious release to date: “Collection 001-010”, a deluxe, 10 LP vinyl box set limited to 299 copies, gathering together the entirety of the project’s first ten releases, originally released in 1981. Encountering the band in its early incarnation of the duo of Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani, raw, exposed and bristling with energy, foreshadowing numerous trajector…

*199 copies limited edition* KontaktAudio presents the first-ever official release of the ultra rare and sought after B-Semi Live 24/5/1984 cassette, a rare and explosive document capturing a crucial moment in Japan’s underground noise and industrial music scene. Recorded at the legendary B-Semi venue in Tokyo, this performance brings together three pioneers - Merzbow, Null (K.K. Null), and Nord - delivering a raw, unfiltered onslaught of early Japanese noise music in its most intense form. This…

Nobody feels the sound fracturing as Masami Akita, nobody understands noise better than Merzbow. This Japanese artist is for more than forty years the maximum exponent of a style that has been catalogued and denominated with perhaps, the most descriptive word of modern music. Noise can have very diverse connotations, however, when we transfer this term to the pleasure and enjoyment that a piece of music generates in the listener, when we treat non-music as music, we understand that sound express…

Matte laminate and embossed sleeve, with insert card and fold out poster + vinyl sticker (20cm long). Recorded in 1996, Merzbow's The Prosperity Of Vice, The Misfortune Of Virtue is one of a series of unique editions from his vast catalogue that reveals a side of his practice often under represented. During the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Masami Akita was sometimes working on film and theatre music. In this space he created a series of recordings that capture the full scope of his sound world…

We are excited to announce the eagerly awaited reissue of Merzbow's seminal album 'Mercurated' on double vinyl, originally released on CD in 1996 by Alchemy Records. This milestone in the noise genre captures the essence of Masami Akita's innovative approach to sound, an exploration of the boundaries of auditory experience that continues to resonate with artists and listeners alike. The new vinyl edition features a remaster by James Plotkin, whose expertise breathes new life into the album, reve…

Merzbow’s Batztoutai with Memorial Gadgets finally restored in its original 1985 form. A sprawling 3LP of raw tape collage, political subtext, and proto-noise abstraction—essential listening from the dawn of Japanoise.

*199 copies limited edition* Originally named „Merz“, this album should have been Merzbow's first vinyl release, but never came out on vinyl. So actually "Yantra Material Action" is „Material Action 1“, recorded in 1981 - with sticker and insert

A 1992 Osaka compilation of Japanese noise, first issued on CD by Les Disques du Soleil: Merzbow, C.C.C.C., Solmania, Dislocation, Monde Bruits, Masonna, Violent Onsen Geisha and Incapacitants.

Tip! *10 copies limited edition. Soundohm exclusive edition with white cover* Solonoise 1, reissued for the first time since 1989. A tour de force, and a brilliant window to the early years of "Merzbow". Reissued on 4 different colors, and limited to 100 copies worldwide. Hand poured white tape with riso printed artwork by Tori Press.

Nearly 20 years after the release of their landmark collaboration Multiplication, and nearly 25 years since their first live partnership, Merzbow and John Wiese reunite for a deep immersion into chaotic, raging electronics. Recorded on stage at Koiwa Bush Bash, Tokyo, Japan, December 2023. Digipak CD presented by Helicopter and Troniks. Art and design by John Wiese.

Masami Akita continues his work as the world's premiere extreme dynamicist on 'Circular Reference,' his latest full-length and first for No Holiday. It's a torrent of synthesized tones colliding against punishing layers of feedback and midrange noise. But there are also snatches of lurching rhythms to be found, as well as moments of relative uneasy calm. More than anything, it's distinctly Merzbow. Released on 2xLP and CD formats, the latest from this titan of noise is sure to please longtime li…

Tip! * 25 copies, exclusive Soundohm blue shell cassette / white shell cassette * "Paradoxa Paradoxa": first ever live performance of Merzbow, recorded live at Kid Ailack Art Hall, Tokyo, 22 March 1981. First time ever re-issue on cassette since 1988. An incredible visceral performance, remastered by Masami Akita himself. An incredible chance of owning this very sought-after material. + "Material Action for 2 Microphones", originally released as a cassette on Lowest Music & Arts, Japan in 1981, …

Pedro Vian and Merzbow release their first joint work, an unbounded expression of creativity and experimentation. Over the album's forty-minute duration, listeners can experience a blend of field recordings made by Pedro Vian at the DIA Bacon Foundation, specifically inside Richard Serra's sculptures. These recordings are interwoven with the ambient percussion and melodies characteristic of Vian's work, alongside the piercing and sharp frequencies produced by Merzbow, one of the most acclaimed a…

This is December 2009's Bird CD from Merzbow. Tsubame is the 12th and 2nd to last in the series. Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds is a 13 month series of releases inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseaux

For decade, this collaboration was supposed to happen with Dapnom. Now, we enter a new dimension with my own piano ! We worked on this piece of crazy art last year, when the planet started to get wronger and wronger. This album is an ode to our ruin ! Even the most experienced ear will not come out of PiaNoise unscathed. Consecrating the meeting of two consummate artists, this release confronts their universe like a massive head-on shock in the eye of a sound storm by which we sometimes feel tot…

*Limited Edition of 299 copies. Black vinyl * Masami Akita's exploration of noise as a musical form has influenced generations of artists and reshaped the way we perceive sound in the context of contemporary music. Oersted stands as a testament to Merzbow's ongoing artistic evolution and his unwavering commitment to pushing sonic boundaries. This limited vinyl reissue, expertly remastered by the wizard of mastering, James Plotkin, with 299 copies available on black vinyl, is a must-have for coll…

2024 stock. Ouroboros is an ancient symbol dating back more than 4000 years. A snake or dragon eats its own tail, and represents eternity, or the circularity of life. A more modern interpretation might suggest that mankind will eventually consume itself once it finishes consuming all the life and resources on Earth.Snake species are in decline just about everywhere. Agriculture, pesticide use, roads that separate breeding populations, habitat loss, decreased food supply and predation by other a…

From deep within the Soleilmoon warehouse, and just in time for its 10 year anniversary, come the leftover/extra copies of the LPs from the “Merzbient” LP box sets, originally released in 2012.

Tip! Noise Matrix unleashes material from the same sessions as noisembryo and counterpart 'hole' and selected recordings from the time period. Originally released as a bonus disc on the definitive ’Noisembryo' 2xcd edition  noise matrix absolutely can’t be missed for fans of this period of noise deity Merzbow. When people ask where to start with merzbow or the entire 90’s noise movement in japan - this is an answer! Masami Akita’s surrealism of the past stands prominently relevant to this day co…

Available on LP for the first time outside of Japan, experimental rock pioneers Boris & noise mastermind Merzbow present Klatter, the third collaboration between the two groups.

"Mechanization Takes Command" was first released on Music-Cassette by Masami Akita on his own ZSF label back in 1983 and this, after 40 years, is the very first re-edition into CD format. A very special and historical album. The large part of sounds on this album have an analogue origin. Masami on this album plays Drums (?) and Guitar (?)... But also many other instruments and sound-surces such as TV ands Vocal samples. And of course Electronics, Loops, Effects, Drum-Machines... The overall is v…

Merzbow (aka Masami Akita), animal rights activist, writer, and musician, an Iconic figure in International noise scene. Renowned for his pioneering contributions to the noise music genre, Merzbow has solidified his position as one of its most significant and recognizable figures. From his groundbreaking utilization of tape loops to craft expansive industrial landscapes in the late 1970s, to his transition to laptop-generated static noise at the turn of the century, Merzbow has consistently push…

Cold Spring is proud to present a unique collaboration between Industrial Breakbeat pioneers Meat Beat Mamifesto (Jack Dangers) and the undisputed king of Japanese noise, Merzbow (Masami Akita).

In their first collaborative album, pioneering Japanese sound artist Merzbow and prolific outsider outfit Sissy Spacek unite to unleash an unstoppable firebomb of frenzied electronics and raging percussion across two 45-minute discs in this monumental set. Assembled July–September 2023, it features a lineup of Masami Akita, Charlie Mumma, and John Wiese, with a special appearance by Phil Blankenship (The Cherry Point). Beautifully packaged in a metallic gatefold digipak with artwork by John Wies…

* Limited edition of 105 copies * Originally recorded and mixed at ZSF Produkt Studio 1995. This second re-issue comes in green vinyl and with an updated artwork by Masami Akita. Remastered at Munemihouse in 2019 by Masami Akita.

A documentation of prolific Japanese noise master Merzbow's double show at London's Cafe OTO in October 2016.

*2023 stock* "I think the first time I heard Merzbow must have been in 1994. I was a compulsive cassette trader back then and I was sent a tape from a fanzine editor I traded with in the USA. It had two long form pieces on it that just said Merzbow//Noise. I remember at the time not really knowing what to make of it. It was effortlessly deep and aggressive, but also very emotive and almost lyrical in the way the waves of sound would erupt and decay. In those days it wasn’t so easy to discover in…