Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Merzbow - 13 Japanese Birds Volume Two - Fukuro [Important Records - 2009]

After the enjoyable if slightly lacklustre first volume of the Japanese Bird project, Fukuro finds Merzbow back on inspired, caustic and very rewarding form. Offering up four barnstorming live drum based tracks that are full of sonic invention & caustic atmospherics.

Through out all of the four tracks here Merzbow mixers his creative noise making with ambient and harmonic, and in places almost spacey like sonic texturing over the often bone juddering and complex improvised live drum work-outs. There’s a real feeling of depth and composition with in the pieces; so instead of Merzbow attacking the drums like a man possessed he often slows the pace slightly or dips down the drums attack in the mix to heighten or highlight a noise texture or a caustic yet atmospheric drift . There’s  are also some quite interesting recording and effects utilized with the drums, like the close muffled yet effective  miking -up of bass drum; so they thunder and ghost off to great effect. Or the cymbals been made into a coarse crashing seas of percussive sound. You can hear elements of Merzbow’s more ambient and textured collaborations over the last few years like his &  Richard Pinhas Keio Line & his split project with  Keiji Haino Kikuri. But this is still very much noise based, dramatic, shifting, grainy and creative; with always a real feel of onward movement with-in the tracks- at no time is any sonic water treaded here. In all the albums four tracks racking-up just over an hour of dramatic and inventive rhythmic based noise matter. Really this is some of the best live drum based work Merzbow has put out thus far balancing shifting textured rollercoaster noise making with complex drum work-outs.

There’s a real feeling of Merzbow carving new sonic territory through-out Fukuro meaning this feels like the first true chapter to the huge Japanese Bird 13 volume disc set; if every disk is up this standard we’re in for one hell of a ride. Truly a great, creative and consistent Merzbow album

Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5

Roger Batty
Latest Reviews

Merzbow - 13 Japanese Birds Volum...
After the enjoyable if slightly lacklustre first volume of the Japanese Bird project, Fukuro finds Merzbow back on inspired, caustic and very rewarding form....
200625   Dick Dynamite: 1944 - Dick D...
200625   Various Artists - Electric Ju...
190625   I Heart Willie - I Heart Will...
190625   Throbbing Gristle - Live at ...
190625   No Fun HNW/ Hana Haruna - Split
190625   The House of Witchcraft - Th...
190625   The Cathedral Of New Emotions...
180625   SELM - dehNUNG
170625   Butchwife - Chronic Nausea
170625   Raté - L7hN
Latest Articles

Matthew Holmes - Of razor-sharp t...
It’s fair to say the Sharksploitation genre is often tried, tested, and to be honest, tired. Fear Below is a 2025 Australian film that tries to do some...
180625   Matthew Holmes - Of razor-sha...
280525   The Residents - Visits From T...
090525   Ennaytch - Of walls, abused ...
150425   Dead, Dead Swans interview - ...
110325   Sebastian Tomb - Walls of unb...
040225   Alien Sex Fiend - Possessed B...
231224   Best Of 2024 - Music, Sound &...
191224   Splintered - Somewhere Betwee...
031224   Shane Ryan-Reid - Coerced and...
221024   Whore’s Breath - life’s h...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2025. Twenty four years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom