Sun Ra/Merzbow: Strange City (Cold Spring)
Purchased at The Attic
I have a several stated reasons I've been writing to this blog, such as the discipline of sitting down and writing regularly, and increasing in small measure my digital footprint and body of work. There's a minor ulterior motive that I haven't stated: I wanted to know that, if I had something to write about, I could sit down and write a book.
I think I'm reasonably knowledgeable about certain things, a broad understanding of music in general and a greater depth of knowledge on particular topics. I know that writing to a blog isn't quite the same; there is no degree of research on my part, for example. The collected blog postings here would probably amount to the size of a short book. I don't have a topic on which to write a book and I'll be satisfied with having accomplished what I have.
And who needs me to write a book anyway? What purpose would it serve? I know a good deal about Anthony Braxton's music, but there are several good books devoted to him already. Likewise Sun Ra. I can see the need for a good book in English about Bernd Alois Zimmermann, but he and his music are a topic I don't think I'd ever be qualified to write about, even with many hours of research.
And what is it that I'm doing here anyway? Part opinion, part autobiography, some minor music analysis. It's low intensity, amuses or engages a few friends, and maybe it will add to the assessment of my body of work once I'm gone. Which I hope is no time soon.
What am I to make of this particular album? The notes on the back cover read, "Music by Masami Akita. A deformed mix of Sun Ra's Strange Strings + The Magic City + Merzbow materials". The cover lists it as Sun Ra/Merzbow, but it really should be reversed. There's thick, dense layering of sounds which are clearly mostly Merzbow electronics, with Sun Ra sometimes mixed in. At times it sounds as if there's some sampling and manipulation, but mostly is sounds like Strange Strings bubbles to the surface in the mire of other sounds/noise.
Some notes on those particular Sun Ra albums. They both come from a time in Sun Ra's most "experimental" phase. I don't write that word lightly, because I consider it to be broadly overused. Strange Strings is surely among the strangest albums ever recorded, created six decades before one can download several hundred dense noise albums from Bandcamp. The band as a whole were given electric string instruments they didn't know how to play, and recorded the results. In doing so, Sun Ra removes the possibility of virtuosity in his band. It's so singular in this respect (at least for the mid-1960s), it was probably wise he didn't pursue this approach beyond that session.
The Magic City is one of the Arkestra's most epic sessions of the time. The showcase was "The Shadow World" a piece Sun Ra would play for years in concert. It might be included in this Merzbow remix somewhere, but if so I don't hear it.
Sun Ra embraced noise. I don't only mean Strange Strings. There's an organ/Moog solo on Live at Montreux that I think rivals many so-called power electronics recordings. In Sun Ra's case, it was an element of what he did, not the definition. So how would he feel about Merzbow? Sun Ra delighted in sounds that bothered other people. He wanted to shake things up. Would this be too much for him though? Not "too much" in the sense of not being able to handle it, but how would he have reacted to its unrelenting nature. I'm not convinced he would have been happy about it, but that is idle speculation at best.
I have recalled listening to Botztoutai with Memorial Gadgets, one of the (if not the) first LPs of Merzbow released in the US, by RRRecords. On one listening, I'm certain I heard a little bit of Stockhausen blended into the mix. It was was brief, but recognizably one of the early electronic works, most likely Telemusik. I later mentioned it to Ron Lessard, who released the record. He laughed and was delighted by that; I said that I thought it was kind of cheating, using someone else's electronic sounds mixed with your own.
I think there's something of a lost opportunity here. I don't know what exactly he would have done, but it doesn't seem like an interesting use of the source material to have bits of it playing in the background while what amounts to another Merzbow noise session plays over top. I think it would have been more interesting to transform the recordings in some way, perhaps even overlay more tracks modeled after the Strange Strings approach.
I have a couple of Merzbow LPs, and I think a couple is all you probably ever need. I'll add this to the small stack.
The CD issue has completely different tracks listed. I wonder if they're included in the digital download included with this LP. I guess I'll find out.
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