Artwork by .thejass.
Jezgro is an independent electronic record label from Serbia, started and run by Ontal / Impulse Controls’ Darko Kolar. As reported on the label’s Bandcamp portal, its main focus is on representing the most obscure, dark and deep sides of the current electronic music scene, also incorporating genres such as harsh noise, industrial, drone, and rhythmic noise. After MRTVI (David Foster)’s TIJERAZO MORTAL EP out in September 2016, Jezgro is back with a shocking second release called Torus EP, recorded by the almighty god of “Japanese noise” music Masami Akita (秋田昌美) aka Merzbow (メルツバウ). The both disturbing, soothing, and uncompromising record will be out on vinyl June the 12th, figuring as the last effort over the ridiculous amount of tapes, CDs, vinyl and various media the extreme Merzbow project has been releasing since its foundation in Tokyo, 1979. Recorded and mixed at Munemihouse, Tokyo, Torus EP is ready to be pre-ordered over at Jezgro’s, while you can hear a few-minutes excerpt via the Soundcloud player at the very end of this article.
Jezgro: Inbox / Bandcamp / Facebook / Soundcloud / Twitter
Merzbow: Official Facebook
The first Serbian label’s outcome perfectly fitted its own manifesto, being David Foster one of the longlasting and true electronic music scene outsiders, from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada to Berlin. TIJERAZO MORTAL EP, delivered last year featuring also a remix version of the eponymous track done by the Italian artist Francesco Baudazzi aka Violet Poison, moves into the realm of noisy, grinding ambiance as well as cranky techno / EBM beats, heated up by thrilling kicks and altered frequencies. You can listen to the record in its entirety following this link. Now, almost 9 months after, it’s Merzbow’s turn to stick to Jezgro’s program. Not quite a hard job for the legendary Japanese artist.
Harsh noise is the medium Masami Akita has been relying on for decades to reach psychosexual transcendence and immaculate sound ecstasy. Torus EP’s four pieces are no exception: side A opens up with Torus 1, a wretched tale about shipwrecking in a loud sea of feedbacks, hi-freqs bursts, throbbing bass pulses and inescapable perils, each single instant a dreadful scream of terror; once its near 13 minutes have passed, the second part of the track kicks in (namely Torus 2), focusing mainly on frequency shifts, sudden sound-context changes, and a syncopated rhythmic pattern which throws in a pretty tight emotional component to the overall mood. The second side, consisting of the 2-part Street Noise piece, starts after Torus 2’s abrupt ending, yet it keeps up with the record’s dominant feature – which is the strong emphasis on the recurring oscillations and beats that provides occasional landmarks not to get irreversibly lost in the listening experience.
Masami Akita has been touring Europe this month (as you can see here), and his last stop will be next Wednesday, May the 31th at ElisabethKirche, Berlin for the first time ever in Germany together with the free improv pioneer Keiji Haino and the Hungarian drummer Balázs Pándi, who started working with Merzbow in late 2000s and appeared in several joint releases [Ohm Resistance, Instant Classic, RareNoise] ever since. Their live performance will stand as the second preview of the Saturnalia Festival taking place at Macao, Milan on June 16th-17th and featuring an unbelievable line up (more infos here): “the fearsome threesome, who recently released the album ‘An Untroublesome Defencelessness’ promise a bizarre, humorous, and disorienting live show; Merzbow’s electronic swirls, scrapes, flickers, and vacuum-like chunks of sound enhance and open up dialogues between Pandi and Haino, who lock into an experimental and excessive duel“.
To attend the Saturnalia Preview #2 event in Berlin with Merzbow, Keiji Haino, Balázs Pándi, and the previously unheard Heith / Jesse Osborne-Lanthier collaboration staging the opening act check this link. Right here below, instead, you can get a glimpse of Merzbow – Torus EP’s noisy wasteland: the record is a highly coherent, engaging and never boring release you should put your hands on as soon as possible! Enjoy! Support Jezgro!
Saturnalia Festival Preview #2 – Artwork by Federico Scudeler
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PAYNOMINDTOUS is a non-profit organization registered in December 2018, operating since late 2015 as a webzine and media website. In early 2017, we started our own event series in Turin, IT focused on arts, experimental, and dancefloor-oriented music. We reject every clumsy invocation to “the Future” meant as the signifier for capitalistic “progress” and “innovation”, fully embracing the Present instead; we renounce any reckless and ultimately arbitrary division between “high” and “low”, respectable and not respectable, “mind” and “body”; we support and invite musicians, artists, and performers having diverse backgrounds and expressing themselves via variegated artistic practices.