WAIT, WAIT … wait… wait… wait… wait… wait… wait… wait… wait… wait… wait… HOLY SHIT: MASAMI AKITA is MERZBOW! I knew that but forgot at first, until the first skull-skrapes of Wattle sent me shivering into the night with a shattered face and ears like beaten up pieces of circus-peanut marshmallow candy. I haven’t heard his noisome brand of entertainment since that disgusting collaboration with Racebannon (Merzbannon, to be precise) that saw the scene shaman taking apart the Indiana mainstay at the seams. There’s nothing more disturbing than a Merzbow, er, Akita composition, and the thing is, he’s only getting better. Wattle is like a love letter to the continued vitality of NOIZE in the age of trip-____ and other outgrowths that seem more unfortunate than progressive. Not for a second do I pine for a ‘rippin’ techno scrotum-bobber beat, nor a trendy modular synth solo. What’s not to love when the world is on fire and you’re aurally fumbling for a lightswitch in the dark? It would be so easy for Merzbizzle to stray from the strictly-business path he’s carved for himself in the dead corpse of the genre he helped invent, so LOGICAL even for Akita to allow himself just a bit of sun, a glint of rhythm, a flutter of up-front vocals, even. And that’s exactly why he didn’t bother with any of those things where Wattle is concerned. Sheets of distorted, restless ice surge ahead even as they’re breaking up and sucking themselves into a sea of scream, a faint cry for help rising above the din just long enough to be snuffed out like a perceived-unworthy life. It’s a sick business, this, but somebody’s gotta do it, and I’m glad in this case that somebody’s Akita because he’s purer than Prurient and prolific to the proportions of a Zappa or Sun Ra. The difference being, he’s all alone in the shadows, with no one to answer to, no entourages or band members to satiate. That’s how it’s done. Wattle is not sold out as I’m writing this but there’s no way it’s going to last so check the Elevator Bath site immediately. I’ll wait.
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