Japanese noise artist Masami Akita, known professionally under the guise Merzbow, is about a month away from the release of her newest project Scandal coming May 28.

Scandal collects three newly unearthed and revised pieces from Merzbow recorded between 1992 and 1995. The album is up for preorder today on Bandcamp. There is a digital version offered, as well as a limited-edition CD. It comes with a matte laminate and embossed sleeve, monochrome print and includes a full colour collage fold out poster from Masami Akita herself.

Thus far three tracks have been made public on Bandcamp, while the complete track list that contains nine.  “Tokyo Blue Sky I” captures laborious noises that invoke life in the city. It is a reminder that living in a populated area is never a quiet one and finding solace amidst chaos is hard without a second to think undisturbed. “1992+1995 III” and “Evening Scandal II” are abrasive and challenging listens. They both feature loud complex mechanical crunching and galvanized sonic force.

On the new project, the official Bandcamp page reads, “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.”

For more on Merzbow, check out our review for her album with Boris titled 2R0I2P0.

photo credit: Raymond Flotat