Drone Records

MERZBOW - Wildwood

Format: CD

Label & Cat.Number: Dirter Promotions DPROMCD116

Release Year: 2015

Note: "Do bears like harsh noise?" Four long, more psychedelic studio tracks, dedicated to the Wildwood Trust in Kent, England.. "...harsh noise that isn’t scattered but rather furiously flatlined, his units all screeching with sounds as gruesome as feedback. Under this current of hatred he cultivates almost kraut-like rhythms that sound like they’ve been caught in a sandstorm." [Robin/Norman Rec.]

Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.00

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The mighty Merzbow presents four tracks of blistering music recorded and to be played at maximum volume. The album is full of psychedelic twists and turns, with one completely guitar-based track. It’s also a benefit release for the Wildwood Trust in Kent. All proceeds from sales will go to them to help pay for the care of two rescued European brown bears. For more information about this wonderful organization go to wildwoodtrust.org. Comes in beautiful reverse board digipak.

Track Listing:
01. Kuma No Mori/Moon 10:52
02. Kuma No Mori/Night 18:05
03. Kuma No Mori/Winter 19:35
04. Kuma No Mori/Guitar 16:24

"As the rest of the Norman pantheon get generously lullabyed by Yo La Tengo’s new covers album, I am betrothed to the new Merzbow record. The ecstatic noisemaker is turning his gaze towards philanthropy with ‘Wildwood’; all proceeds raised by this torrentially dissonant record go to a bear trust in Kent, which is my favourite thing ever -- Merzbow repping the garden of England. As a Kentish boy, I feel I am second best fiddle for writing this review after Dwight Schrute. Do bears like harsh noise? Is Merzbow a South-east Tory? Is this real? All these questions and more will be ignored in this review.

Merzbow has recently been making a lot of free improv records with friends like Gustaffson, Pandi and Sonic Youth Dad, and while those records saw percussion freefall around each artist’s different discipline, ‘Wildwood’ is freeform around a lot of Merzbow’s usual tricks: harsh noise that isn’t scattered but rather furiously flatlined, his units all screeching with sounds as gruesome as feedback. Under this current of hatred he cultivates almost kraut-like rhythms that sound like they’ve been caught in a sandstorm. The first three tracks follow this routine of fighting any of Merzbow’s propulsive inclinations off with his abstract intuitions -- see “Winter”, where he makes one of those Brinkmann-esque tones stay long enough to feel like a rhythm, all the while foregrounding screeching effects to ruin everything.

It’s the final track that gets to be this release’s talking point, with Merzbow processing a guitar towards the same ends of chaos and compressed noise. It sounds pretty much the same as the pieces that came before it, which is testament to Merzbow’s ability to claw his way to dissonance from any means. Heh, claw, am I right? This release isn’t at all unbearable." [Robin/Norman Rec.]