Smegma Plays Merzbow Plays Smegma

Last updated
Smegma Plays Merzbow Plays Smegma
Smegma Plays Merzbow.jpg
Studio album by Smegma & Merzbow
Released October 29, 1996 (1996-10-29)
Recorded 1996
Studio ZSF Produkt Studio, Smegma Studios
Genre Noise
Length39:03
Label Tim/Kerr
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [1]

Smegma Plays Merzbow Plays Smegma (also known as Plays) is a collaborative album between Smegma and Merzbow, in which the artists rework material submitted by each other. [2] As Tim/Kerr was part of PolyGram, this is one of the rare Merzbow releases on a major label.

Smegma is an American experimental noise group formed in Pasadena, California in 1973. Author Richard Meltzer became their vocalist in the late 1990s. The group was included in the Nurse with Wound list and was featured on the cover of the August 2006 edition of The Wire.

Merzbow Japanese noise project

Merzbow is a Japanese noise project started in 1979 by Masami Akita. Merzbow is best known for a style of harsh, confrontational noise as exemplified on the 1996 release Pulse Demon. Since 1980, Akita has released over 400 recordings and has collaborated with various artists.

PolyGram, founded in 1962, acquired by Universal Music Group in 1998 and merged into that group in 1999, was a Dutch entertainment company, which started as a major record label founded by Dutch Philips and German Siemens as a holding company for their music interests in 1972. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records and the Philips interest Phonogram Records. The company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disk gramophone, Emil Berliner.

Contents

The CD booklet claims the disc is split into fifty tracks, and to "use shuffle play for unique compositions every time", but in fact only has two tracks.

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."Electro Smegmacoustic Music" (1–26. Merzbow's World)19:37
2."Smegma Plays Merzbow" (27–50. Smegma's World)19:27

Notes

Personnel

Merzbow
Smegma
Optigan

The Optigan is an electronic keyboard instrument designed for the consumer market. The name stems from the instrument's reliance on pre-recorded optical soundtracks to reproduce sound. Later versions were sold under the name Orchestron.

Visuals

Release history

RegionDateLabelFormatCatalog
United States1996 Tim/Kerr CD 644 830 140-2
Picture disc 644 830 140-1

Related Research Articles

Merzbox is a box set compilation by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It consists of 50 CDs spanning Merzbow's career from 1979 to 1997. 30 discs are taken from long out of print releases, while 20 are composed mainly of unreleased material. The box also contains two CD-ROMs, six CD-sized round cards, six round stickers, a poster, a black long-sleeve T-shirt, a medallion, and the Merzbook, all packaged together in a "fetish" black rubber box. It is limited to 1000 numbered copies. A Merzbox Sampler was released in 1997.

<i>Oersted</i> (album) album by Merzbow

Oersted is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. The original pressing came in a bright pink and green Digipak, later repressings were black and white.

<i>1930</i> (album) album by Merzbow

1930 is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow.

<i>Venereology</i> (album) album by Merzbow

Venereology is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It was inspired by death metal and grindcore.

<i>Aqua Necromancer</i> album by Merzbow

Aqua Necromancer is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It is one of his first releases to use sampled beats. Door Open at 8 am is from the same sessions, but samples jazz instead of progressive rock.

<i>Rainbow Electronics</i> album by Merzbow

Rainbow Electronics is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It consists of a single long track made from 21 hours worth of material. It was the first entry in the Good Alchemy series of harsh noise CDs. An alternate mix called Rainbow Electronics 2 was released in 1996.

<i>Age of 369</i> album by Merzbow

Age of 369 is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. The title is a reference to Onisaburo Deguchi, the founder of Oomoto. Onisaburo claimed to be the Maitreya, which is Miroku in Japanese. 369 is Goroawase wordplay for Miroku. The original track titles are taken from Ultraman monsters.

<i>Cloud Cock OO Grand</i> album by Merzbow

Cloud Cock OO Grand is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It was Merzbow's first CD and showcases his then-new harsh noise style.

<i>Music for Bondage Performance 2</i> album by Merzbow

Music for Bondage Performance 2 is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow.

<i>Live Destruction at No Fun 2007</i> live album by Merzbow

Live Destruction at No Fun 2007 is a live album by Japanese noise musician Merzbow, recorded at No Fun Fest in Brooklyn.

<i>Hard Lovin Man</i> (album) album by Merzbow

Hard Lovin' Man is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. The album is a deconstruction of the song "Hard Lovin' Man" by Deep Purple from their album Deep Purple in Rock. The first track was recorded live at the Avanto 2000 festival in Helsinki, Finland and was later remixed at Merzbow's home studio. The second track is a studio recording from a month earlier.

<i>Mercurated</i> album by Merzbow

Mercurated is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow.

<i>Rainbow Electronics 2</i> album by Merzbow

Rainbow Electronics 2 is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It is an alternate mix of the 1990 album Rainbow Electronics.

<i>Collection 005</i> album by Merzbow

Collection 005 is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It is the fifth volume of the Collection series. The first five volumes were recorded for Ylem and consist of studio sessions with Kiyoshi Mizutani, then a member of Merzbow. However, Ylem went out of business before they could be released. Masami Akita then released them himself and recorded five more at home using previous Collection session recordings mixed with new material and effects.

<i>Collection 004</i> album by Merzbow

Collection 004 is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It is the fourth volume of the Collection series. The first five volumes were recorded for Ylem and consist of studio sessions with Kiyoshi Mizutani, then a member of Merzbow. However, Ylem went out of business before they could be released. Masami Akita then released them himself and recorded five more at home using previous Collection session recordings mixed with new material and effects.

<i>Merzbient</i> album by Merzbow

Merzbient is a boxed set album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow, it is composed of previously unreleased raw material recorded 1987–90.

<i>Yaho-Niwa</i> album by Merzbow

Yaho-Niwa is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. The first 50 copies came with a signed and numbered postcard.

<i>Duo</i> (Merzbow album) album by Merzbow

Duo, subtitled Masami Akita & Kiyoshi Mizutani Selected Studio Sessions 1987–89, is a box set album by the Japanese noise project Merzbow. It is composed of unreleased studio sessions recorded with Kiyoshi Mizutani. Some of these recordings were used as raw material for solo releases like Scissors for Cutting Merzbow, but the original recordings were unreleased until now. These recordings mirror albums like Ecobondage, Enclosure, and Storage. The art edition comes with a bonus CD with a recording from 1979.

<i>Keio Line</i> (album) collaborative album by Richard Pinhas and Merzbow

Keio Line is a collaborative studio album by the French electronic rock guitarist Richard Pinhas and the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. The album was released in September 2008, on double CD by Cuneiform Records in the US and on triple LP by Dirter Promotions in the UK. It is the first of several collaborations between Pinhas and Merzbow.

References

  1. ↑ Couture, François. Smegma Plays Merzbow/Merzbow Plays Smegma at AllMusic. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
  2. ↑ "Smegma Plays Merzbow - Smegma Plays Merzbow Plays Smegma (CD, Album)". Discogs . Retrieved August 20, 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.