MerzbowUltima
This event is part of this year’s Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival. Visit ultima.no for all information. MUNCH is a member organisation of Ultima.
Since he began in 1979, Masami Akita’s Merzbow project has occupied a central position in the international noise music genre. The sheer scale of Merzbow's production works against any attempt to summarise it. With over 500 releases behind him, including solo work and collaborations, his influence extends across avant-garde, industrial and extreme music.
Merzbow's music – a boiling ocean of merciless textures and grating sound that never stops churning – is about vision as well as volume. Once your ears attune to his unique frequencies, the dense walls of sound often reveal an unexpected beauty and clarity within the chaos.
As well as taking his name from dadaist Kurt Schwitters's Merzbau concept, Akita has cited a wide range of influences from progressive rock, free jazz, modern classical and musique concrète to BDSM and Japanese bondage. More recently he has been inspired by a dedication to animal rights and environmentalism, as evidenced on the album series 13 Japanese Birds.
This solo concert will be a rare chance to hear an artist whose life's work has defined the parameters of noise music for generations to come.
Film screening: Tokyo Noise
(Kristian Petri, Jan Röed & Johan Söderberg, 2002)
Amfi, 6.00 pm – 7.20 pm.
Admission is free.
Ahead of the concert, we’re screening Tokyo Noise – a feverish urban symphony about noise, beauty and a city that refuses to stand still.
Through Tokyo’s legendary noise music scene, a portrait of this Japanese metropolis is painted. The film also provides an introduction to Japanoise, the Japanese noise scene of which Merzbow has been one of the most important exponents. Caught between an appreciation of the quiet and the understated and the city’s sensory overload, noise music becomes not merely a rebellion against ideals of beauty, but an exploration of what beauty might be. Read more about the film here.
©Jenny Akita
