Merzbow / John Wiese

***Akashaplexia is the debut full-length studio collaboration between Merzbow and John Wiese, recorded together in December 2024 at Sound Studio Noah, Tokyo, Japan, and is one of the most extensively detailed releases of either artist in recent years, both in ambition and presentation, packing over three hours of remarkable new material spread over four digestible album-length CDs, and housed in a gorgeous casewrap slipcase box set designed by Wiese.

Merzbow (Masami Akita) and John Wiese have a long history in both live performances and mail collaborations dating back 25 years which have resulted in a number of releases such as Multiplication CD (Misanthropic Agenda, 2005), Free Piano 7-inch picture disc (Helicopter/Misanthropic Agenda, 2005), and EKA Varna CD (Helicopter/Troniks, 2024). Besides collaborations under his own name, Wiese also collaborated with Merzbow as a member of Smegma on their XCIII CD (Helicopter/Troniks, 2023) and with his highly varied group Sissy Spacek, which with its rotating cast of contributors always brings forth unpredictable and inspired results. Spacek’s collaboration with Merzbow resulted in Coronado, released both as a limited 2×CD release (Helicopter/Troniks, 2023) and a CS+7-inch box set (Helicopter, 2023). Both artists are well established in the fields of experimental sound and improvisation, with Merzbow’s style varying from his early acoustic based tapes bordering on free improv and noise to his notoriously extreme 90s releases, a period of computer based work, and arriving at his current phase of layered mixed approaches, blending in a nod to his early improv days with crude metal junk scraping and psychedelic intensity. Wiese’s approach is a mixture of calculated perfectionist compositions and fiery concrète mayhem, with both his solo and group works wildly varying from electronic blasts to tasteful tape collage and manipulations through a hybrid of chopped textures and performances, pushing the thresholds of sound into wild and dramatic territory.