Friday 21 March 2008

ALCHEMICAL MOON (transformation musick)

Alchemical process courtesy of Mr. Christoph Heemann

MERZBOW & HEEMANN CHRISTOPH

SLEEPER AWAKES ON THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS

Original Issue: 1993 Streamline (1003)

Margot-meter: 4,5 moons / 5

DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MERZBOW "MUSIC"?
DO YOU THINK HE'S TOUCHED WITH GENIUS BUT YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO SUSTAIN THE ASSAULT OF HIS SOLO RECORDS?

WELL, MARGOT HAS THE SOLUTION: "SLEEPER AWAKES ON THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS" (wow, what a title!)

MERZBOW BLACK SOUL IS TRANSFIGURED BY HEEMANN THE CRAFTSMAN INTO A SONIC JOURNEY TOWARDS THE WITHIN!

01 - Tunneling
02 - Mandala
03 - Eagle
04 - Sleeper
05 - Doorstep

from Brainwashed:

In 1987 Masami Akita (aka Merzbow) mailed a cassette of sound material to Christoph Heemann (H.N.A.S., Current 93, Mirror, Mimir, etc.) which he then worked on for the next 6 years. The cd was originally released in 1993 (and has just now been reissued) by Streamline Germany.

Heemann restrains and refines Akita's normally brutal noise and adds his own collage of sounds: drones, washes, electronics and samples such as metals and chirping birds. Heemann truly paints with sound and here the Merzbow material is just another shade of audio color for his abstract and impressionist palette. He then shapes it all into five pieces, each with a particular character all it's own, ranging from 1 and 1/2 to 18 and 1/2 minutes for just over 41 minutes total. The end result is the same as everything else I've heard that involves Heemann: utterly beautiful.

Hypnotic passages of waterfall wash, layered electronic drone, metallic churnings, gurgling static and deep ambiance perfectly flow into one another. "Sleeper Awakes.." is superb and a very welcome reminder for me to get everything with Heemann's name in the credits from this day forward ...

7 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting this.

mahood said...

A very good recording indeed, more in the vein of what Heemann is doing with Mirror - certainly not in Merzbow's style. Thanks!

Pancetta said...

Christoph Heeman is phenomenal. Everything I've heard from him is tops: HNAS, Mirror, solo stuff and now this.

I can't say anything about Merzbow that hasn't been said already. This collaborations is tops.

Thanks again.

Anonymous said...

merzbow just needs to be constrained, hopefully this will do it, 'cause he has some interesting textures, a dark magician for sure, and thanks for posting this, it looks like a very interesting collaboration... i fancy a bit of the dark stuff, lustmord chiefly, a brilliant sound technician, few match him, do you have any, thanks margot,.. zenwarrior

Margot F. said...

Stay tuned. I'll post some Lustmord very soon.

Any preference?

Cheers

Anonymous said...

Thank you again! These are some cool ambient soundscapes. I'm anxious to check out some of Christoph Heeman's other projects.