MERZBOW - Scandal
"Scandal collects together three newly unearthed and revised pieces from Merzbow recorded between 1992 and 1995. Each of the pieces here typifies work that sits at a nexus between the experimental cassette and electronic collisions of Masami Akita's late 1980s works and the emergent noise language that resolved into a series of now legendary recordings completed during the mid-1990s. Scandal marks out a decidedly tandem path and acts as a critical linkage, forging the trajectory of Merzbow's music across that decade. One critical aspect these recordings capture, in a very essential way, is the role that field recordings and tape manipulation play in his music. Throughout the 1980s, cassettes, tape editing and found sound played a significant role in the development of Merzbow's sound. On "Tokyo Blue Sky", Merzbow collates a series of field recordings made around his home during a period of construction in his neighborhood and merges these with sampled recordings from various ritual rec