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PORN / MERZBOW - And the Devil makes three

Format: LP Label & Cat.Number: Truth Cult TCXV 1 Release Year: 2008 Note: lim. 700 brown vinyl Price (incl. 19% VAT): €13.00 Warning: Currently we do not have this album in stock! More Info "The LP comes in a gatefold sleeve with a poster insert. It is coloured vinyl - with 700 copies in brown. A split album between PORN (formerly known as Men Of Porn) and MERZBOW. PORN is the demented child of one Tim Moss. Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, Moss fronted the cult band Ritual Device, forging links with the West Coast with the patronage of Frank Kozik's Man's Ruin Records. Eventually Moss moved out to the Bay Area where Men Of Porn was born. In the stellar company of Melvins' stalwart Dale Crover (on drums) and omnipresent uber-producer Billy Anderson (on bass), this is a 'Power Trio' in the truest sense of the phrase. Since 1999, they have released three albums and toured the world as the de facto Melvins' support band, thanks to Tim Moss's day job as the band's tour manager. For their newest album, and the nascent release on Southern's brand new imprint Truth Cult, the intrepid low-end experimenters enlist the help of Japanese noise demigod Masami Akita (aka MERZBOW). Collaborating across the album's twelve tracks, the fearless Masami layers scree and grafts gristle onto their already dense muscular creations - this is a marriage made in Blake's Heaven & Hell; their two uniquely singular approaches blending seamlessly to create a portentous hybrid beast of no equal. The Melvins' Dale Crover guests on drums." [label info] "Woah. Somebody somewhere just had a fantasy come true, and it's got nothing to do with the bondage photos that often adorn Merbow releases. It's Japanese noise master Masami "Merzbow" Akita jamming with American stoner rock outfit Porn, who feature none other than the mighty Dale Crover of the Melvins on drums. Also Tim Moss on guitar, and heaviness engineering guru Billy Anderson on bass! Add in the Seldon Hunt art/design and this promises to be quite heavy, or noisy, or both. Definitely both, though it sounds much more like a Merzbow record than anything else. Shrieking electronic skree all over the place, with some plodding boombastic drums and heavy guitar riffs struggling through the dense muzzzzzz. Kinda what you might expect! There are a dozen Roman numeral numbered tracks, each one individualized with Merzbow's noise dynamically varied and vibrating, from crinkum-crankum glitch to high pitched whine to howling, whooshing zapping. Porn's contributions (occasionally) add more structure and momentum. Distorted (natch) vocals surface at one point, the drumming speeds up.... or at other times, despite Porn's presence, the Merzbovian brutal harsh noise simply takes over entirely. There's certainly precedent for Merbow to mix it up with "rock" music. His Hard Lovin' Man album some years back featured samples of Deep Purple, ferinstance - and of course let's not forget about his couple collaborations with Boris!! Maybe, like those, Porn + Merzbow will be a "gateway drug" for some stoner/doom fans to get into the total noise thing (note however that Merzbow here is far more extreme than his relatively subtle performance on Rock Dream with Boris). Also, as (in principle) Merzbow fans, but ones often overwhelmed by his prolific output, we're quite partial to his collaborative efforts, giving high marks to recent discs he did with Keiji Haino and Richard Pinhas, juxtapositions like this one which somehow enhance the effect of Merbow's noise aesthetic." [Aquarius Records review]