Thursday, August 01, 2002

Merzbow, Om Electrique

The notes I have say this was recorded "at home" on December 27, 1979 and boy does that paint a picture. I have a good memory, so I can reasonably guess what I was doing that day. I was still in the rosy post-Christmas afterglow, staying inside, cold blue day, enjoying whatever presents my parents wasted on me, knocking around electronic plastic shiny things in front of the TV, all morning and all night, then wondering how the decade -- my decade -- was gonna end. But it was boring. A good boring, a contented boring, but boring for a week or more. It's possible a little anxiety creeped in.

Likewise, I think Masami Akita had nothing productive to do, (maybe he took a day off from work, maybe he was still at school on vacation, I dunno) itching to something he sets up the four-track he once used to record his youthful prog-rock indulgences, and starts playing around with an idea that had been bouncing around in his head for the last few weeks as he went about his workday or walking through the streets of Japan, buying food, sending letters, read, whatever banal everyday things that he would do circa late 1979. So. He sets up a slightly fuzzed-out guitar drone (Ommmm) that lapses into the familiar feedback squall right about the time I'm writing this...and maybe on another track he starts plucking his guitar. Not even noodling, just pluck-pluck-pluck-pluck-pluck. Or maybe it's amped-up cookware because it changes from clang to pluck every once in a while. But on it goes. On and on, like that. When the feedback hits he clangs some cookware. This is all very very simple. Too simple. He wanted something more complex but he can't get too noisy because the apartment's small and the neighbors will complain.

He makes other tracks. There is feedback sqwee, drum solos and the like. When he's finished, when he puts together something he can regard as an album. He plays the cassette a few time in the next few days and regards what he's done. It's boring.

It's powerful and absurd to hear something you've created, especially something whose creation surprises you, but I'm guessing he thought it a little too "simple" and maybe not as agressive as what he had in mind, he still regards it with mild affection. It has its positive qualities but he can see the flaws too clearly. He muses over it some. He figures what he should do and what he should do next time, staying in the margins, scheming and wondering.

(link)