Richard Pinhas + Merzbow + Wolf Eyes @ FIMAV & RP on tour in Canada & USA / A news blast courtesy of:
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Richard Pinhas + Merzbow + Wolf Eyes @ FIMAV & RP on tour in Canada & USA / A news blast courtesy of:
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CUNEIFORM PRESS RELEASE When a French prog-rock guitar hero and a Japanese god of noise join together for a freewheeling, no-holds-barred bout of spontaneous sonic sorcery, the results of what might initially have seemed like an odd-couple pairing end up exploding any and all preconceptions about either party. Both active since the 1970s, Richard Pinhas and Merzbow are two of the most uncompromising artists on the planet, having remained innovators and iconoclasts throughout their careers. Merzbow is widely recognized as "...the most important artist in noise music" [All Music Guide]. Richard Pinhas, formerly the driving force behind ‘70s electronic rock renegades Heldon, is one of France’s most influential experimental musicians. The two electronic adventurers met for the first time in a Tokyo studio in 2007, working together to create Keio Line (released in 2008 on Cuneiform). The fiery creative frisson between the two insured further collaborations, despite the 6,000 miles separating their homes. Pinhas and Masami “Merzbow” Akita crossed sonic swords most recently on Pinhas's 2010 Cuneiform release Metal/Crystal, but the particular blend of sensual derangement and delight their two-man musical conspiracy creates simply demanded another full-fledged duo recording. The 2010 Sonic Circuits Festival in Washington, D.C. was the largest experimental music festival ever held in the nation’s capital, and when the pair appeared as one of the festival’s headliners, capturing their performance at the French Embassy’s La Maison Française in all its senses-shattering glory seemed like an obvious choice. Rhizome is the product of that recording, a live album that swoops, shimmers, rattles, and roars, as Pinhas employs his guitar and loop system to dive over, under, and sometimes even through the post-industrial laptop machinations of Merzbow, whose lofty tower of sound transcends the conventional tonal vocabulary. Pinhas has been perfecting his Robert Fripp-influenced six-string sea of sustain and delay since his days helming Heldon, and when his aggressive-but-aqueous sound meshes with Merzbow’s carefully crafted cacophony, the two have a transformative effect on each other. Merzbow brings out the most visceral elements of Pinhas’s approach, and Pinhas bathes Merzbow’s daring dissonance in a more melodic, (relatively) accessible stream of sound. A unique aspect of Rhizome is that, in addition to a bonus DVD featuring footage from the concert, the CD’s first pressing will contain a download code for Cuneiform’s third Pinhas/Merzbow release, Paris 2008, which captures Pinhas and Merzbow in full flight at Les Instants Chavires in Montreuil, Paris on November 12, 2008. [Note: promo copies of Rhizome don’t include the Paris 2008 download code. Email Cuneiform to receive the code.] If Fripp & Eno’s groundbreaking ‘70s recordings were somehow sonically weaponized into some form of ambient-cum-industrial “smart bomb,” it might sound something like Paris 2008’s three lengthy tracks, or perhaps if an avant-garde composer had been on hand for the first splitting of the atom, his musical evocation of the event might bear some resemblance to these trenchant aural explorations. On it’s own, Paris 2008 will also be Cuneiform’s first vinyl-only release in over 20 years, and subsequent pressings of Rhizome will include only the 2010 concert recording, sans the aforementioned bonus DVD and download. Right around the time of Rhizome’s release, Pinhas and Merzbow -- who both continue to maintain active touring schedules on their own -- will be appearing together at the 27th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Canada, as well as performing additional dates in the USA. OTHER RECENT PINHAS RELEASES:
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"Paris One"
