The Squid's Ear Magazine


Merzbow / Arcane Device: Merzbow & Arcane Device (Important Records)

Two innovative sonic luminaries--Japan's Masami Akita, aka Merzbow, and New York City's David Lee Myers, aka Arcane Device--remix each other's work, bringing Myer's unique approach to feedback and ethereal electronics to harness Akita's agressive sounds, and in reverse, Akita's sense of disruptive sonics explode Myer's more contemplative feedback music.
 

Price: $13.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 2.00 units

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Masami Akita (Merzbow)-composer, remixer

David Lee Myers-composer, remixer


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 793447551111

Label: Important Records
Catalog ID: IMPREC 511CD
Squidco Product Code: 31774

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2022
Country: USA
Packaging: Jewel Case
Remixed in NYC and Tokyo, in October, 2016.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Japan's leading noise luminary Merzbow meets American electro-feedback artist Arcane Device as they mix and manipulate each other's work.......

The result are droning, bubbling sonic textures that are as serene as they are extreme pushing the boundaries and meeting in the middle. Both artists contribute long-form manipulations that inspire contemplation as much as highly caffeinated charges of sonic skullduggery. Sonic textures take center stage on Merzbow & Arcane Device.

David Lee Myers aka Arcane Device has been building electronics and creating feedback based electronic music since the late 70's. He has collaborated with Tod Dockstader, Kim Cascone, Asmus Tietchens among others."-Important Records



"Veteran noise artists Merzbow (Masami Akita) and Arcane Device (David Lee Myers) join forces to remix either other's works on this self-titled album. Each recorded a track that the other generated and reformed into a long piece of sculpted sounds.

The first aptly-titled piece is "Arcane Device Mixes Merzbow", which begins with bubbly and percussive features before an influx of static and low-end rumblings. Buzzing elements have spatial dimensions as they move between speakers in a fashion that is strangely suggestive of broken machinery operating during an insect-filled thunderstorm. Sequences or loops pulse in and out of the foreground with grinding or high-pitched drones and feedback layered atop. At times, watery masses and wailing electronics combine for oddly-textured and sweeping rhythms. The second half of the track includes passages with sound walls and electronic popping. Propulsive arrays of static add to the information-rich mix. In the end, signature Merzbow electronic experimentation is clearly discernable.

This segues nicely into "Merzbow Mixes Arcane Device", which begins like a classic Merzbow collage of harsh noise. The frequencies employed are higher with more sheets of sound as well as electroacoustic squeaking, pulsing, and scraping rather than the rumbling drones of its predecessor. Narrow-spectrum white noise shares sonic space with screaming distortion, blips, chirps, and pops. Eventually, this evolves into a quantum-like fabric of layered static, constantly ripping itself apart and reforming.

Merzbow & Arcane Device is a dense, multifaceted, and detailed offering."-Mike, Avant Music News


Get additional information at Avant Music News

Artist Biographies

"Masami Akita (秋田 昌美 Akita Masami?, born December 19, 1956), better known by his stage name Merzbow (メルツバウ Merutsubau?), is a Japanese noise musician. Since 1980, he has released over 400 recordings.

The name Merzbow comes from the German dada artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork Merzbau (German pronunciation: [ˈmɛʁtsˌbaʊ̯]), in which Schwitters transformed the interior of his house using found objects. The name was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic. In addition to this, Akita has cited a wide range of musical influences from progressive rock, heavy metal, free jazz, and early electronic music to non-musical influences like dadaism, surrealism, and fetish culture. Since the early 2000s, he has been inspired by animal rights and environmentalism, and has become a vegan.

As well as being a prolific musician, he has been a writer and editor for several books and magazines in Japan, and has written several books of his own. He has written about a variety of subjects, mostly about music, modern art, and underground culture. His more renowned works were on the topics of BDSM and Japanese bondage. Other art forms Akita has been interested in include painting, photography, filmmaking, and Butoh dance.

In 2000, Extreme Records released the 50 CD box set known as the Merzbox. Akita's work has been the subject of several remix albums and at least one tribute album. This, among other achievements, has helped Merzbow to be regarded by some as the "most important artist in noise"."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merzbow)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"David Lee Myers is a sound and visual artist who has lived and worked in New York City since 1977. Pulsewidth serves as the platform for his activities in the arts, particularly sound projects, a number of which have been released under the Pulsewidth record label.

From 1987 through 1993, sound projects were developed under the name Arcane Device. With the development of new devices in 2014, it seems fitting for the moniker to be revived.

Myers work stems from an enthusiasm for electronics and the world of electrons as it relates to the realm of vibration and sound. After a fine arts education and many years in music, in 1987 Myers' accidental discovery of "Feedback Music" led to a new appreciation of the unseen forces underlying audible electronics."

-Pulsewidth (http://www.pulsewidth.com/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Arcane Device Mixes Merzbow (29:30)

2. Merzbow Mixes Arcane Device (21:50)

Related Categories of Interest:


Electro-Acoustic
Organized Sound and Sample Based Music
Electroacoustic Composition
Sound, Noise, &c.
Electronic Forms
Solo Artist Recordings
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Japanese & Asian Improv/Rock
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Experimental & Electronic Music

Search for other titles on the label:
Important Records.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Myers, David Lee
Partikelrauschen
(pulsewidth)
Referring to the music on this album from New York feedback and electronic pioneer David Lee Myers as "firmly rooted in the electronic music of the 1950s-1960s", over nine tracks we are taken on an otherworldly journey of detailed particulate electronic adventures, sometimes swooping, vertiginous, monstrous and unpredictable, each track captured live in Myer's Pulsewidth studio.
Myers, David Lee
Xenography
(pulsewidth)
Xenography is the ability to write in a language which the individual has not learned, an apt description of the rich dialects sculpted from feedback sources and expertly routed through circular circuits of sound processors by New York sound artist David Lee Myers, AKA Arcane Device, captured and layered into these astounding electronic compositions.
Other Recommended Releases:
Nakamura, Toshimaru / David Lee Myers
Elements
(Surface World)
Two like-minded electronic sound & feedback artists, David Lee Myers, aka Arcane Device from NYC and Toshimaru Nakamura from Japan, use feedback matrices & modular electronicsÊ(Myers) and No-input Mixing Board (Nakamura) in a remote collaboration of alien overlays, sonic extensions and disruptive digressions through 12 complex and varying compositions.
nil.
01
(Intangible Arts)
Restarting his sonic life at "nothing", Chester Hawkins' new project after work under his own name and his previous decades-long project Blue Sausage Infant is nil, recording after a two-week residency at Liebig12 in Berlin and participation in the Zero Cohesion program, this five-part work for "maximal drone" explores complex harmonics in a dynamic and powerful wall of sound.
Oliveros, Pauline
The Well & The Gentle [VINYL 2 LPs]
(Important Records)
Reissuing two essential, major works from improviser, conceptualist, accordionist and composer Pauline Oliveros--The Well & The Gentle--recorded in 1984 with participation including fellow accordionist Guy Klucevsek, The Well recorded in the studio in Pennsylvania, The Gentle using the resonance of the drinking watertank Severin of Cologne in West Germany.
Myers, David Lee
Ceremonial Fires
(pulsewidth)
A journey through an uncharted jungle island from NY electronic composer David Lee Myers, aka Arcane Device, using field recordings in rhythmic environments with synthetic sounds buzzing and whirling around and electronic tones and textures rising and falling, composing detailed song structures that are embraceable and awe-inspiring at the same time.
Myers, David Lee
Logos in Aeon
(pulsewidth)
Sonic explorer and feedback pioneer David Lee Myers in a collection of eight pensive electronic ambience works recorded at Pulsewidth in the spring of 2022, meditating on the mysteries of time and eternity through Apophis, a demon serpent of darkness whom Ra, as sun god, destroys every morning at dawn.
Arcane Device
N28: Ohmniscient
(pulsewidth)
The second of NY electronic explorer David Lee Myers', aka Arcane Device, N28 series, an album of excited electronics, field recordings, inexplicable sound and rotating, splintering and otherwise lovingly mangled sound, not so much a noise collection as instead a controlled chaos with moments of cavernous beauty in a journey of mercurial rummaging.
Myers, David Lee
Frontier
(pulsewidth)
A live set of electronic recordings from New York sound explorer David Lee Myers, aka Arcane Device, using modular synths under masterful control to create coherent excursions into territories both terrestrial and cosmic, each piece carefully evolving without histrionics or overt noise through warmly vivid and uniquely diverse works of sound.
Radigue, Eliane
11 Dec 80 [2 CDs]
(Important Records)
The first release of electronic composer Éliane Radigue's 1980 live session for the Bay Area's KPFA radio, performing two works: a studio performance of "Chry-ptus", Radigue's work for asynchronous recordings on a Buchla Modular System; and the world premiere of Parts I through III of "Tryptych", an hallucinogenic work of sound and texture.
Dockstader, Tod
Aerial II [VINYL 2 LPs]
(Important Records)
The second in a 3-part series of vinyl releases for Tod Dockstader's "Aerial 1-3", his major work of electronic drone environments developed over 15 years, using over 90 hours of shortwave radio sources, cross signals and fragments, creating vast atmospheric clouds from which emerge voices, mutated conversations and unexpected patterns; amazing!
Myers, David Lee
Partikelrauschen
(pulsewidth)
Referring to the music on this album from New York feedback and electronic pioneer David Lee Myers as "firmly rooted in the electronic music of the 1950s-1960s", over nine tracks we are taken on an otherworldly journey of detailed particulate electronic adventures, sometimes swooping, vertiginous, monstrous and unpredictable, each track captured live in Myer's Pulsewidth studio.
Myers, David Lee
Lustre
(pulsewidth)
A perfect example of the radiant electronics David Lee Myers, aka Arcane Device, has developed over decades, in nine shimmering works of clear tones, controlled feedback and electronic errata, each piece transitioning in sublime ways as Myers evolves luminescent stories in glowing atmospheric sound, a richly lustered album of sound sculpting.
Myers, David Lee
Xenography
(pulsewidth)
Xenography is the ability to write in a language which the individual has not learned, an apt description of the rich dialects sculpted from feedback sources and expertly routed through circular circuits of sound processors by New York sound artist David Lee Myers, AKA Arcane Device, captured and layered into these astounding electronic compositions.
Myers, David Lee
Intervals / Interludes
(pulsewidth)
Like passages through an electronic corridor, New York electronic artist David Lee Myers (Arcane Device) presents a series of "interludes"--long passages of rich electronic sound--and "intervals" of punctuated rhythms, described by Myers as: "In-between spaces for catching one's breath amid frigid landscapes, existential pauses, and mercurial pools of aboriginal pleadings."
Arcane Device
Mechanismos
(pulsewidth)
An apt title for the creatively mechanistic rhythms and electronic machinations of David Lee Myers' long-running project Arcane Device, in an album of ten succinct tracks of distinct cadence, pulse and encompassing electronics, described by Myers as "Analog rhythms, microtonal swarms, and feedback tonalities for pagan rituals on Monster Island."
Corner, Philip
On Tape From The Judson Years
(Alga Marghen)
Early tape collage works from Fluxus founder and member of the Experimental Media Foundation Philip Corner, five distinct pieces recorded and developed between 1962 to 1963 in New York's Lower East Side, including Lucinda Pastime" for a a dance piece by Lucinda Childs, and "Oracle, a Canata on Images of War" commissioned by the Living Theatre; includes a 16-page booklet.
Arcane Device
Circuit Dreams
(pulsewidth)
Using a combination of controlled feedback, samples, computer processing and Eurorack electronics, Arcane Device aka David Lee Myers continues his long exploration of electronic music, focusing here on evolving and complex patterns complemented by beautiful tones and occasional rhythmic foundations, a great collection of elegant electronics.
Myers, David Lee
Room In A Moon House
(pulsewidth)
A series of "Rooms" and related electronic environments from New York sound artist David Lee Myers, whose long running Arcane Device project runs parallel to these nearly ambient works that Myers intimates are for intimate environments, developed through deft use of Eurorack electronics, feedback, sampling and other elegant electronic processes.
Various Artists
State of the Union 2.001 [3 CD BOX SET]
(Electronic Music Foundation)
Originally released in 2001, Elliott Sharp's production of this 3-CD set collects 171 1-minute pieces from international artists over a vast field of musical approaches, with contributors including Christian Marclay, Eric Mingus, Fred Frith, Harry Smith, Henry Kaiser, Ikue Mori, Jack Womack, Jad Fair, Joey Baron, Marc Ribot, Merzbow, Phill Niblock, Zeena Parkins, &c. &c.
Myers, David Lee
Reduced to a Geometrical Point
(Cronica)
Using feedback matrices, oscillator banks and multi-processing, NYC sound and feedback artist David Lee Myers, A.K.A. Arcane Device, references the quote from metaphysics scholar Frithjof Schuon--"You must detach your life from an awareness of the multiple and reduce it to a geometrical point before God"--which he manifests in four focused works of rich, slowly evolving sound.
Myers, David Lee
That Which Is It
(pulsewidth)
Using electronic and digital tools similar to those that fuel his Arcane Device project, New York sound artist David Lee Myers presents an accessibly engaging set of compositions using modular electronics, feedback matrices, guitar textures, voices, and frogs in 11 polyrhythmic adventures; quirky yet non-chaotic, sublime experimental works of tone and texture.
Myers, David Lee
Prototype Of The Veil
(pulsewidth)
David Lee Myers began creating feedback music in 1989, originally under the name Arcane Device, developing unique approaches to harnessing feedback between audio devices in ways their manufactures did not intend; since 2014 he has used a set of new devices that allow intense control and beauty through vibrational interactions, as heard in this, his 18th solo album of feedback music.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Parkins, Zeena
To Dusk (Black Cross Solo Sessions 8)
(Corbett vs. Dempsey)
Sidelined by the pandemic in June of 2020, Downtown New York electric harp improviser Zeena Parkins began daily recordings in her home studio exploring new approaches to solo electric harp performance using pedals, objects & percussions, selecting ten of the most interesting improvisations for her contribution to Corbett vs. Dempsey's Black Cross Solo Sessions.
Lindsay, Arto
Charivari (Black Cross Solo Sessions 7)
(Corbett vs. Dempsey)
Contrasting the explosively experimental side to his guitar work honed through the No Wave band DNA with glimmers of the lyrical approaches to his work heard in his acclaimed songwriting albums, Brazlian/Downtown New York legend Arto Lindsay shows his wide range of interests through thirteen succinct pieces of noise and thoughtful reflection.
Gustafsson, Mats
Naja (Black Cross Solo Sessions 5)
(Corbett vs. Dempsey)
For three days in his own Discaholic Studios in Nickelsdorf, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson recorded the playing-card pieces of Peter Brötzmann--compositional prompts intended for a large group or for solo playing--performing on a cross-section of the saxophone family from sopranino to bass, and also one piece for saxophone mouthpiece, creating a set of stunning improvisations.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC