noise musician

Masami Akita, better known by his "vegan straight-edge noise project" Merzbow, is a legendary Japanese noise musician. Since 1979, he has released over 350 recordings and written 17 books about art, avant-garde and post-modern culture. In the early 1980s, Akita’s early work consisted of industrial noise music made from tape loops and conventional instruments, and he began to release recordings worldwide on labels focusing on noise and industrial music. In the 1990s, he released a series of albums from Relapse, who were the preeminent label for the death metal and grindcore genre at the time. Influenced by mego label's "punk computer music" in the 2000s, he adopted an approach that incorporated a laptop into his performances, although he has made a return to creating sound using mainly analogue equipment in recent years. He has collaborated with a wide range of distinctive artists, such as Mike Patton, Alec Empire, Zbigniew Karkowski and Russell Haswell, and also works with Keiji Haino in a project called Kikuri. Recently, Akita focuses on work that deals with animal rights, and he opposes the whaling and fur industries.