Actually understanding the lyrics would make this a better experience, but even without that this is a beautiful folk album with an air of melancholy and reflection. Two cool things about this album: It was produced by Juntaro Yamanouchi of The Gerogerigegege; Cullcanecho doesn't really identify with any gender.

Packaged in a tin-foil container with some candy, sweet! Instead of throwing walls of noise at you, Mikawa and Kosakai bring you what can be called space harsh noise music - while that noise wall is still there, it's these cosmic sounds that are at the foreground.

The title is a reference to (jab at?) C.C.C.C. who Fumio Kosakai was a member of. A static noise wall without much dynamics graces your ears while other stuff happens in the background - both tracks are like this, and both are around the 30 minute mark.

Aural assault to the point of nausea, or maybe to the point of love?

Ad Nauseam consists of three cassettes: the first one is by Toshiji Mikawa, the second by Fumio Kosakai, and the third one is live material. The first two use the same raw materials.

Mikawa's tape borders on HNW with its harshness and barrage of sounds making a wall. All three tracks are titled "Abrasive", which I think is very fitting.

Kosakai's tape, on the other hand, takes things in a very different ... read more

For what's essentially an ero guro cyberpunk movie, Rubber's Lover's soundtrack doesn't really reflect that, instead being ambient (and not the dark kind). Well, I'm certain this isn't all the music from the movie as it definitely had industrial cuts, oh well, what we have here isn't bad either.

Recorded at the live venue Gospel in Tokyo and that title doesn't lie! A complete assault of electronics and screaming distorted to hell, the only moment of calm you get is the audience clapping at the end of Bitter Insect. The second track, Accelerated No(i)sebleed is also certainly more lo-fi. I don't think this is my favorite style of harsh noise but Mikawa and Kosakai are just very good at what they're doing, so it doesn't matter. The only issue with it I have is that ... read more

Two tapes, one with studio material, the other one with live material. And hello Fumio Kosakai!
Nearly 2 hours of pure noise, just aural assault and nothing else. The noise is dynamic, yet it's a wall - plenty of sounds appear, disappear and change in it. The live tracks have more breathing space in their recording but they follow the same premise, the only difference would be audible screaming.

Incapacitants was started in 1981 as Toshiji Mikawa's solo project. He wanted to focus on creating "pure noise", without all the performance art aspects of Hijokaidan (their performances got pretty wild), which he was and still is a member of. The project eventually became a duo with Fumio Kosakai, but that's a topic for another day, as we're talking about the releases before that happened.

This box set contains Eternal Paralysis, a 1981 tape given only to ... read more

Nearly 2 and a half hours of (electronic) Harsh Noise, in 1985! And something that was actually for sale this time! I did zero research so take this with a grain of salt, but holy shit, I don't think anyone else was cooking up something like this at the time. Even Merzbow's very early forays into Harsh Noise (like Expanded Music 2) are very different. Brutal assaults, a HNW track with screaming (something I could describe as electronic Hijokaidan if they did even more of a wall), junk ... read more

Another tape only given to friends from when Incapacitants was just a solo project of Toshiji Mikawa. In its slightly shorter runtime, it packs more tracks and variety than Eternal Paralysis did. The only issue I have with it is that Peony Crackers Pt. 7 goes on for far too long with what its doing. It sounds like even guitar is used on this thing!
Update: Apparently Mikawa set off firecrackers in a trash can and processed them!

One of the earliest Harsh Noise releases baby! The first track is this 40 minute evolving noise wall full of these laser beam sounds. The second track is 20 minutes of this high-pitched noise sometimes going in and out for a little bit or changes pitch slightly, nothing interesting sadly. The third (and last) one changes direction once again, as it's more of an assault compared to the other two. A pretty solid release considering its age, except for the second track.

This album feels like it's seamlessly and constantly jumping across the line of "normalcy" (couldn't come up with a better word) back and forth: one second it's pretty nice, the next one you go, oh hell yeah! Two nearly 30 minute pieces, both of them good. At first I wanted to call this a summer album but then I remembered this actually goes a bit intense at times.

Damn, I've been listening to all the good laptop era albums lately. Ikebukuro Dada is cold, digital, and uses repetition a lot, to great effect! Obviously, if Masami hammered the same loop for an entire track, it could end up not great, but that's not what happens here, as things evolve. Even when a sample gets used for a longer period, like the Burzum sample in Ikebukuro Dada Texture, the sample itself gets changed up so it doesn't get annoying. Definitely a darker vibe here, ... read more

It's Merzberd! Merzbird is another beat-based album, and unlike Merzbeat, it's got fewer rock samples, it has more of an electronic music influence, and it has more noise! Masami pumps electronic beats into your brain from start to finish, with which he experiments more than on the latter album. The noise also does its job. To be honest, I think I like it more than Merzbeat!

John Zorn asked Masami to make a drum-based album, making this quite an outlier in the Merzbow discography at this point, as Masami wasn't really using drums in his works again until 2008. Akita took out a snare drum out of his closet, recorded himself playing some patterns, and then sampled those. The noise is quite atmospheric, and there's lots of rhythmic drumming here that's at times tribal, making this release pretty meditative. Even the harsher Sphere Pt. 3 isn't a ... read more

Fun fact: Frog+ ends with the same guitar sample this begins with.
That guitar sample goes on for most if not all of the track and it's pretty cool! The second half of it is all pulsating and static-y. Pleasant Valley Monday has got some industrial in it and some sample craziness too, for good measure. Celebration Day is yet another track to use a guitar sample, I think it's a bit ethereal and beautiful. The noise eventually takes over it though. The last track, War Frog, begins with ... read more

PSA: The tracklist for this album is borked on streaming services, the discs are switched but the titles are like nothing happened.
While the things I said about the original still apply here, there's now a second disc featuring nearly an hour of material! It's similar, but better! I don't really know what else I can say about it, my brain is preventing me from coming up with a better review. Also, this (kinda) transitions into Puroland, cool! ₍ᐢ=– ̮ –=ᐢ₎

PSA: The tracklist for Frog+ on streaming services is borked, the discs are switched but the titles are like nothing happened.
A decent laptop era release, with Merz manipulating frog sounds so much you probably would forget that detail if not for the presentation of it. Quite a bit of repetition, but I don't think the noise is necessarily bad or anything. I guess it has the atmosphere of a forest.
Ribbit ₍ᐢ=– ̮ –=ᐢ₎

The first track is basically just a stream of shit being broken, there were some cool moments, but that drumming section is certainly the best. The second one is alright noise I guess with all its layering and stuff.

One of Merzbow's early laptop releases! Wa 30.25 is this short (6 minutes), crazy track with a loop at it's base - it's the album at its most harsh noise. Kareha reminds me more of the ambient/industrial/collage stuff Masami did in the late 80s, with its samples and subdued noise. Collapse 12 Floors, In Asakusa 1923 is the longest track, clocking at 30 minutes. It takes the atmosphere of the previous one but abandons the samples completely, taking things back into a noisier ... read more