Okay, here's the scoop.

I actually do feel guilty about neglecting this review for so long.  It's hard to believe it's been YEARS since I first said I'd do it, but it has been.

I've been busy.  *30* has run long-- it turns out that I'll be lasting into the beginning of 2004, also I have to do a 100-page essay on virtual reality, cyberpunk, and anime to get my English M.A.  And other stuff.  Not that that's much of an excuse, to be sure, but it is still a bit of one.

Anyway, over the course of preparing this review, it's turned into kind of an essay on Merzbow and Noise, and my relationship to both.  This is partially because I love Noise, so much.  Through the years, it always seems to remain fresh and vital and dangerous.  When other artists and genres collapse into cliché and boredom, noise actually seems to be getting better with age-- see for example Merzbow's recent 4-CD Day Of Seals which is astonishingly good, and of course the dynamic, challenging and just plain mind-melting work of people like Masonna and Aube, Francisco Lopez and Bernhard Günter, just to name a few.  Also, the essay is partly due to a few ideas I had when I was writing my *30* on Noise (30.41) way back in 2001.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Noise is just, on the whole, too big, too cool, and too important to be confined to a simple little (okay, in this case pretty large) review.

Anyway, the long and short of it is the Merzbox review has spilled out of its confines and taken on a life of its own.  But, I promise to rein it in a bit and finally start posting the disc-by-disc review.

To start with, over the next few days I'll be posting a list comprised of the title of each disc, and the names of the tracks.  Then I'll give a brief chapter-by-chapter rundown on the contents of the Merzbook.

After that, the review will start in proper.

Sorry about this whole bloody mess.  A delay like this is actually is kind of embarrassing.  But it looks like it's finally going to be going ahead.

And for the people who've e-mailed me simply asking if the Merzbox was worth the money-- oh yes.  It very definitely is.  It's a crucial document.  I find it had to believe that anyone wouldn't take Noise (and Merzbow) seriously after seeing and hearing the Merzbox.  But I'll be getting into more detail very soon.
 

Brian Cotts, Dec 28, 2002/4.
 
 

BACK