Headronefish, Water Fuzz, Texas Spaceship these track names are a good indication of the music found on Megatone. The tracks flow together to form a sound scape of feedback and electronic noise; megatone brings together Boris and Merzbow two intimidating forces that combine to form something quite extreme.
Merzbow is a noise artist who must have one of the larges outputs of any active musician with over 100 releases including one box set entitled Merzbox containing 50cds, writings and a medallion. Merzbows" work consists largely of noise created by amplifying sounds to distort them through a microphone. Later recordings began to utilise electronic instruments and recently has turned to digital technology and use"s laptops for his performance"s, merzbow is also an active writer and has published books and magazine articles although these are largely unavailable in English, his writings cover noise itself and bondage and pornography especially in relation to Japanese society. Merzbow is also actively condemns animal exploitation and promotes PETA.
Megatone is an extreme album and would not be recommended for some one looking to listen to Boris for the first time, the album works on the idea of using texture"s of sound to create a landscape with small changes taking place to signal different stages of a sonic journey created. The album does still show Boris shinning through and as this is the second collaboration between the two have a certainly manage to combine their various parts although this is not done as well as on the later collaboration sun baked snow cave. Boris provide the feedback with blasts of cold harsh electronics being brought by merzbow at time"s this seems to not fit with the feedback and the two can seem to be competing for your attention whereas later work between the two use"s a lot more interplay between the electronics and the guitar feedback and includes more melody. The guitars play some interesting bits, on Texas spaceship a solo comes in that sounds like a siren and creates an image in my mind of a barren city where most things have been destroyed and this lone siren is the only remaining comfort to survivors of some great disaster.
This is where Magatone excels it is not an album that is meant to be listened to for the music but to create landscapes in your own mind and take you away somewhere, the enjoyment gained from this album depends a lot on how much you can let your mind wonder and your imagination run wild, this is definitely a good album for listening to in the dark or on a pair of headphone"s with no distractions. Megatone takes you somewhere, it may not be a nice place and not everyone will enjoy his or her stay but with some time you can learn to appreciate the journey. Overall this album is excellent at what it does although I would recommend sun baked snow cave over this as its more refined and a more interesting album overall using more sound elements and variation. Feedback of both the negative and positive variety would be appreciated.
