Merzbuta

by Rick AndersonHere'sMasami Akita, back again with another dose of hellaciously abrasive noise for the PETA set. The front cover features a picture of a beatific pig with a skeleton hand hanging out; on the inside is a childishly gruesome picture of dismembered humans being simultaneously eaten by pigs and sliced by a huge butcher knife. For those who have a hard time getting the message, the inside also features a bloody inscription: "Animal Domination: Kill People, Not Piggies." Ah, yes. Music? Oh, yes, actually there is music, and it comes across, unsurprisingly, as incidental -- more like an excuse to sell PETA-porno pictures of humans getting what they deserve than the product of any kind of real musical thought, or even a vague artistic impulse. By this point, Akita's approach has become formulaic to the point of self-parody: drop a huge, clattering mass of hideous racket into an aluminum pan, fold in a rudimentary beat of some kind, and stir it for ten or 20 minutes until it collapses into undifferentiated sonic chaos. Then repeat. Of the five untitled tracks on this willfully crappy album, one stands out as almost listenable: the spare and almost funky fourth track -- though even it dissolves into a mush of silly awfulness before the end. Merzbow probably has fans, the same way Einsturzende Neubauten have fans and some people claim that they liked Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. Those folks will like this album just fine. Its remaining audience consists primarily of those who aren't so much interested in music as they are in giggling over graphic Death to Humans propaganda. Whoopee.