Masami Akita aka Merzbow is a Japanese noise musician best known for his 1996 album Pulse Demon, which features and captures the sound that has become synonymous with his moniker Merzbow. Akita derived his stage name from dada artists Kurt Schwitters’ very own artwork created from found objects and titled Merzbau. Over his long career, Merzbow has released over 400 songs.
HEXA, on the other hand, is an experimental pop collaboration with Lawrence English and Xiu Xiu fronter Jamie Stewart. The duo formed in 2015 and created music for David Lynch’s exhibition Between Two Worlds in Brisbane, Australia with a limited release of the performance following the performance.
Why, though, would I mention these two seemingly different musicians in the same article? The two aforementioned projects have announced an imminent release of their new collaborative LP titled Achromatic, which is out on July 27 of this year via record label Dais.
This pairing, though, is not so out of the ordinary. Jamie Stewart of HEXA recently collaborated with Merzbow in 2015, releasing an LP titled Merzxiu. The two projects also collaborated once before on David Lynch’s project Factory Photographs, releasing a song for the exhibition under the same name.
Now, after years of working with each other on commissioned projects, the two have decided to release their own collaborative album due to their success together as well as the ultimate beauty they have created. The album focuses on the serious effect of the reverberation of sound as well as a blend of the two genius sounds the individual projects have curated throughout thei musical history. You can pre-order their album here as well as check out their single “Merzhex Part 2” below. The track features the genius use of reverb that accentuates the style of harsh cavernous rumbles and true noise. The noise encapsulates the mind in gorgeous tunnel of rough colors and sounds almost reminiscent to hearing a rocket ship take off. The roughly five minute piece takes the audience on a journey through the stars, seeing visages of galaxies and stars right their very eyes.
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