Documenting a ferocious live performance from the 2018 Victoriaville Festival with additional recordings from 2025, the trio of Merzbow (electronics), Mats Gustafsson (bass & baritone sax, electronics), and Balázs Pándi (drums) unleash a volatile collision of noise, free jazz intensity, and crushing rhythmic force of towering electronic textures, blistering sax blasts, and wildly inventive percussion.
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Sample The Album:
Masami Akita-electronics
Mats Gustafsson-bass saxophone baritone saxophone, electronics
Balazs Pandi-drums, percussion
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6-panel gatefold wallet with color images of each performer.
UPC: 777405013927
Label: Les Disques Victo
Catalog ID: VICCD139
Squidco Product Code: 37301
Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2026
Country: Canada
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels
Recorded at the 34th International Festival of Current Musicin Victoriaville, Canada, in 2018. Additional recordings made in 2025.
The collaboration between Japanese noise pioneer Masami Akita, better known as Merzbow, Swedish reedist Mats Gustafsson, and Hungarian drummer Balázs Pándi represents one of the most uncompromising intersections of noise, free improvisation, and extreme sonic energy of the last decade. Their earlier recordings established the trio's reputation for overwhelming intensity, merging Merzbow's dense electronic textures with Gustafsson's ferocious saxophone attack and Pándi's relentless, physically explosive drumming.
Captured at the 34th International Festival of Current Music in Victoriaville (FIMAV) in 2018 and expanded with additional recordings in 2025, Cuts Cut documents the trio in full flight before an audience renowned for embracing the most adventurous edges of experimental music. The performance begins with a ferocious barrage of electronics and percussion, Merzbow and Gustafsson unleashing torrents of distorted sound while Pándi drives the ensemble forward with hammering rhythms and surging momentum.
As the set unfolds, the trio reveals a broader palette than pure sonic assault might suggest. Gustafsson shifts between electronics and the raw power of bass and baritone saxophone, carving jagged melodic fragments through the electronic storm. Merzbow's circuitry generates towering walls of noise but also shapes subtler layers of texture and shifting tonal currents. Pándi's drumming, at once thunderous and remarkably responsive, moves between punishing force and more fluid, dynamically nuanced patterns that guide the music into evolving terrain.
Moments of relentless intensity gradually open into passages where the trio explores more spacious interactions, allowing electronics, saxophone, and percussion to interlock in volatile yet controlled forms of collective improvisation. The result is not simply noise but a constantly shifting landscape of density, rhythm, and timbral experimentation.
Cuts Cut stands as a powerful document of this trio's ability to transform extreme sound into a visceral and cathartic experience — a sonic climax befitting the closing moments of the Victoriaville festival.
6-panel gatefold wallet with color images of each performer.
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Masami Akita "Masami Akita, born December 19, 1956, better known by his stage name Merzbow, 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"." ^ Hide Bio for Masami Akita • Show Bio for Mats Gustafsson ^ Hide Bio for Mats Gustafsson • Show Bio for Balazs Pandi "Balázs Pándi (born 6 August 1983) is a Hungarian drummer. He has worked and toured with various acts from all around the world including Venetian Snares, Otto von Schirach, Last Step, To Live and Shave in L.A., The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and Zu. He also played drums for the Blood of Heroes project. Since 2009 he has frequently played drums live with Merzbow, and they have released three live records together. They headlined the experimental stage at the Scion Rock Fest in Tampa, Florida in 2012. More recently, he and Merzbow have performed as a trio with Mats Gustafsson. They released Cuts in 2013 on RareNoise. For the follow-up Cuts of Guilt, Cuts Deeper (2015), they were joined by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. Balázs started an electronica-metal-breakcore project with Bong-Ra called Wormskull in 2010 (their first album "Sound of Hell" was released in 2011). Most recently he joined the Italian experimental instrumental band Zu. His current projects include Italian doom band Obake, Metallic Taste of Blood (featuring Colin Edwin of Porcupine Tree, Eraldo Bernocchi of Obake and Jamie Saft), and Slobber Pup (Saft, Joe Morris and Trevor Dunn). From 2012 he started to play solo shows on selected festivals under his own name." ^ Hide Bio for Balazs Pandi
4/8/2026
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
4/8/2026
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
4/8/2026
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
Track Listing:
1. Cuts Cut 45:13
March 2026
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Sound, Noise, &c.
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Asian Improvisation & Jazz
Trio Recordings
Mats Gustafsson
New in Improvised Music
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