Here's a collaboration few could have foreseen, two titans of renegade electronic imperialism battling it out for world domination.
Pinhas, well known amongst both the prog and analog set for his spellbinding solo works and legendary band Heldon, would not seem to be the ideal foil for noisemonger Merzbow, whose own unflappable approach to sound sculpting over the years is the polar opposite. Yet, each musician has an intuitive feel and great love for texture, regardless of whatever ends result from the most extreme of means.
One thing this two-disc set does is provide the consumer with an enormous degree of sonic sprawl: nothing exceeds like excess, and spat out over six mammoth length compositions, there's certainly a major surplus of Pinhas/Merzbow sound and fury herein. And that sound and fury does indeed signify something. What is most telling about this collaboration is that neither musician's brave noise cancels each other out. On the contrary, Pinhas' scintillating guitar scree, a broadband conflagration of Frippizoid menace and white-hot transformer-tronix, is readily discernible even when Merzbow coats his partner's sounds in a heavy latex of fuzz, fug, and digital detritus. In turn, Merzbow's nuclear blasts feel restrained in this context, though that's not to say he doesn't fail to bring the house down. Bottom line is that two of the most innovative electronic composers on the planet are a lot more simpatico than one might think; theirs is a merge of sensibilities that blazes new frontiers built from a common m.o. spending decades orchestrating chaos, mayhem, and power.
Disc one's "Tokyo Electric Guerilla" sets the tone and never lets up. Pinhas launches this 18-minute jam into the stratosphere with a series of whooping-crane chords shooting through the heavens; these blossom into a stormy onslaught of Pinhastronics that gradually unveil Merzbow's analog gusts and galvanic slipstreams. The two then volley their shifting tableaux off one another, somersaulting across the stereo-field like armored divisions sparring in some mythic matchup. It's an electrifying experience that never degenerates into a formless mass or distorted showboating. The gargantuan "Shibuya AKS" opens with Merzbow scoring the earth with a series of ticklish pads of brillo, Pinhas letting loose a flurry of Moog pulsations and brusque thickets of guitar loops. More traversing of the electronic arena follows: radar-blips rush by at the speed of light, analog synth squalls help to ignite Pinhas' already scorched frets, the duo vaporlocking their equipment so little air can force its way into the expanding currents of sound. Disc Two continues the Heldon/Merzbow mindmeld: "Chaos Line" knocks holes in the very space-time continuum as a fusillade of heavy-water synth particles seek to obliterate the studio walls, Pinhas' guitar intercepting the errant pulses and simultaneously absorbing and blurring them into his partner's molten core. The result is nothing less than jaw-dropping tour de force made real by two of electronica's finest metal machine mavericks.
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