merzbow: remblandt assemblage

Urashima present a reissue of Merzbow's Remblandt Assemblage, originally released on cassette in 1981. Merzbow, the moniker of Masami Akita, stands as the most important artists in noise music. Inspired by Dadaism and Surrealism, Akita took the name for his project from German artist Kurt Schwitters's pre-war architectural assemblage "The Cathedral of Erotic Misery" or "Merzbau". Just as Schwitters attacked the entrenched artistic traditions of his time with his revolutionary avant-garde collages, so too would Akita, challenging the contemporary concept of what is called music. Merzbow would draw further influence from the Futurist movement. Not only would he embrace the Futurists's love of technology and the machine civilization, but he would push their fondness for noise to the very boundaries of the extreme. Working in his home, he quickly gained notoriety as a purveyor of a musical genre composed solely of pure, unadulterated noise. Consequently, in 1980 Masami founded the first noise label, Lowest Music & Arts. Remblandt Assemblage was recorded and mixed at his home in the same year and originally released on cassette the following year on his own label. For the recording of this tape, Masami used a wide range of instruments: tapes, prepared acoustic guitar, tabla, junk percussion, microphone, radio, egg cutter and noise. This is the very first Merzbow album to use tape manipulations. Only a few copies were made and distributed on cassette in 1981, it was otherwise not widely available until being partially reissued on the legendary Merzbox in 2000. For the first time, the complete 1981 cassette version is released on double vinyl here. No changes of pitch were made in the mastering process; digitally remastered from original cassette master for this reissue by Masami Akita in Tokyo, 2016. 140 gram black vinyl with black label and black inner sleeve; Comes in a deluxe silver silkscreen on black three panels cardboard sleeve with artwork of five original collages by Masami Akita (circa 1980); Edition of 199.