How many Merzbow albums do you physically own? (Merzbow thread)

[ASFTSN]

I'm guessing I'm not the only person who's getting older, has tinnitus and listens to this stuff relatively quietly right?

EDIT: new page hearing damage twat

[imitationleather]

Seriously how do you guys earnestly listen to multiple albums of this stuff?

[chveik]

i haven't bought physical albums since my teenage years so none. i enjoyed his last live collab with Boris, and also Metalvelodrome, which is pretty varied (i can't get into the pure harsh noise wall stuff).

[sevendaughters]

Seriously how do you guys earnestly listen to multiple albums of this stuff?

extreme and weird sounds used to really interest me, it becomes a dead end after a while though, also computers have made harsher records ten a penny, it's all back to craft and ensemble playing to me now.

[Shit Good Nose]

Yeah, I feel like the thread will be completed if someone chimes in and say they own a copy of the Merzbox. I feel like it's always going to be available to buy because of just how dumb/expensive it is. Maybe one day...

A mate of mine has got it, BUT he's a big-time collector (collection separately insured from home and contents) so it was purely an investment.  He's no fan of Merzbow so the thing isn't even out of its shrinkwrap.  I seem to remember he paid something like £150 for it.  I've seen it go for £250 on eBay and I think he'd be disappointed with that inflation over 20 years.  Still, he's got plenty of other stuff which is worth a shitload.

[Chriddof]

extreme and weird sounds used to really interest me, it becomes a dead end after a while though, also computers have made harsher records ten a penny, it's all back to craft and ensemble playing to me now.

I get you, though I think the anything-goes spirit behind noise music remains really inspiring to me; it's helped influence me creatively in ways that don't merely involve making a feedback loop with some guitar pedals. It's like what people say about punk being an attitude rather than a haircut, only more so.

[chveik]

extreme and weird sounds used to really interest me, it becomes a dead end after a while though, also computers have made harsher records ten a penny, it's all back to craft and ensemble playing to me now.

this is fascinating to me. i've been listening to Throbbing Gristle lives recently and you can really sense that their technical limitations were somehow a strength. i've always had a pretty high tolerance to extreme music (except the aforementionned full-blown harsh noise stuff, which saddens me and i hope i'll get into it at some point, although having constant tinnitus at a relatively young age might make it difficult).

[purlieu]

I hate being a luddite - especially as most of the music I've made myself has been entirely in-box computer stuff - but there's definitely something about experimental stuff that came from people with a bunch of kit, pushing ideas and sounds beyond the limitations of the time that feels really, really lost these days. Whenever I've listened to anything 'new' for years now, it really feels like "ah yes, a slightly different way of doing very digital sound-design and incorporating elements of other genres" without any real sense of exploration or tangibility. Kind of feeds back in to why I really like the '80s duo Merzbow most, there's a real sense of two guys fucking around with scrap metal, tape loops, cheap pedals and such which I even find is lost once it gets into the '90s power noise stuff.

edit: I remember reading an interview with Steven Stapleton when he was saying he'd started using a computer for the first time in the late '00s, and I realised it was almost the exact point I'd stopped enjoying new Nurse With Wound material.

[Colin Sanction]

[Tag]Totes aMerzballs[/Tag]

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

extreme and weird sounds used to really interest me, it becomes a dead end after a while though, also computers have made harsher records ten a penny, it's all back to craft and ensemble playing to me now.

this is very succinct and expresses exactly my feeling on why i got very fatigued by harsh noise

[sevendaughters]

i remember i did this project where i would review one bandcamp release from europe per day and found a huge wormhole of russian harsh noise stuff, one guy was literally uploading an album a day, drop the needle anywhere and it sounded like the same thing from 4 days previous. conceptually interesting i guess and taking advantage of bandcamp's platform, but also literally unlistenable.

as others have said, i preferred noise (and ambient) when people were pushing earlier tech or just themselves to get something new. not that there isn't good computer age noise and ambient, it's just harder to find amongst people raving about mediocre stuff and a surfeit of lame plug-in shit.

[Famous Mortimer]

I hate being a luddite - especially as most of the music I've made myself has been entirely in-box computer stuff - but there's definitely something about experimental stuff that came from people with a bunch of kit, pushing ideas and sounds beyond the limitations of the time that feels really, really lost these days. Whenever I've listened to anything 'new' for years now, it really feels like "ah yes, a slightly different way of doing very digital sound-design and incorporating elements of other genres" without any real sense of exploration or tangibility. Kind of feeds back in to why I really like the '80s duo Merzbow most, there's a real sense of two guys fucking around with scrap metal, tape loops, cheap pedals and such which I even find is lost once it gets into the '90s power noise stuff.

edit: I remember reading an interview with Steven Stapleton when he was saying he'd started using a computer for the first time in the late '00s, and I realised it was almost the exact point I'd stopped enjoying new Nurse With Wound material.

This is a good point, and it's kind of the same way I feel about lots of my favourite German bands of the 70s. Like, there's a point where synth technology got easier / more efficient than creating their music in the old way, and it coincided with a lot of them sounding like every other bland MOR or new age band. Maybe a coincidence, I suppose.

[Famous Mortimer]

The "Immerzbox" podcast has finally reached the end, and...I think they really liked about 3 CDs worth of music from the 50.