- Audio CD (12 April 2004)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: RELAPSE RECORDS
- ASIN: B0001HK2HI
- Other Editions: Audio CD
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 327,364 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
Jubilee Offer: Patriotic Classics for £2.50 |
Product details |
Track Listings
| 1. Ananga-Ranga |
| 2. Klo Ken Phantasie |
| 3. I Lead You Towards Glorius Times |
| 4. Slave New Desart |
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Venereology is one of Merzbow's harsher analogue albums, a swirling maelstrom of distorted squeals and feedback that will give most sane people a headache within five minutes. While it's good extreme noise this isn't one of my favourite Merzbow albums, as there is a lack of variety on the album - even with one of the four tracks being a live recording with a guest vocalist sonically each track is pretty much identical to the next. If you want the harshest noise possible Venereology is for you, but if you want some more interesting sounds I'd look elsewhere in Merzbow's discography.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
25 reviews
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Briliant! The harshest "Industrial" I've ever heard
12 April 2004
Format:Audio CD
It goes without saying that some people, (maybe most people) won't like this or even understand what this sort of thing is about. This might even be too much for hard core fans of the likes of Throbbing Gristle, Neubauten and most Power Electronics. I for one love it. Merzbow, despite his criticizers, is a genius of sound sculpture and noise orchestration. To understand this release, or any of his, one must throw every notion of what is "music" out. This isn't something to snap your fingers to. It is reflective ambience of the absolute most extreme variety. It's adrenaline rush inducing, breathtaking, and extremely interesting. It even screws with your brain if you let it. It's audial performance art. It's not pretentious, it is very honest and abstract sound sculpture. To those who appreciate this sort of thing, it has great meaning. However it's totally understandable if some don't get it. I would accept a statement like "This is too much for me. I don't understand it. etc...", but to say "this is talentless garbage" shows a great deal of ignorance
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
The best you can do... in America
23 Nov 1998
Format:Audio CD
The sticker on the plastic wrap covering the album when I bought it declares "the most extreme album you will ever own! You have been warned!" There have since been a few bands whose unrelenting walls of sound have surpassed those on here-- not least of which coming from Master Akita himself-- but it's still one of Merzbow's best discs, and one of the loudest pieces of digitized tin ever recorded. Someone once described Merzbow to me thus: "take all the noises of a factory. Record them. Filter and distort them. Turn the whole mess up to 11. That's what Merzbow sounds like." I think he'd just had his first taste of Venereology.
Not to say it's as chaotic as a factory. There are rhythms, both subtle and out front. There are pieces of sample or frequency that crop up throughout the disc to keep you on track and remind you of what you're listening to. And there's a whole lot fo unrelenting, harsh, brutal noise whose sole purpose seems to be to make your ears bleed.
To paraphrase Adam Parfrey, the "music" created by Merzbow and his legion of followers (noise, being easy to create and manipulate electronically, is an astoundingly popular genre from the artists' side these days) won't appeal to too many people. But those who understand the idea and feel the flow will find this to be a pure balm, an extract of what we hear around us every day and our ears filter into the background, but this time it's brought up and splayed in front of us like a piece of roadkill. And it's just as tasty, from the opening rhythmic burst to the last martial explosion.
If you've never heard a noise recording before, and you want to go to extremes your first time out... you could do a lot worse than this one.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
pitiless...and brilliant
22 July 2005
Format:Audio CD
You'll notice that this disc carries an "explicit content" warning. This is curious, because in the brief moments when vocals show up on the album, the words are not even intelligable, let alone offensive. Yet the explicit content is there; it comes in the form of the music.
"Venerealogy" is fifty minutes of harsh, punishing noise, amped up to an impossibly devastating volume, devoid of rhythms, harmonies, or a human presence of any kind (except for the aforementioned 'vocals,' which come in the form of distorted roaring and laughter and are really just another element of the music). It roars, screams, and pulses with a thunderous fury that is at first shocking, disturbing and overwhelming. Listen to a few minutes, and the "explicit content rating" actually makes sense. There is the potential here to permanently damage ears and traumatize the weak of heart.
It is also an album that is, if handled properly, potentially therapeutic. At first the sensation is of some massive ferocious beast preparing to tear you to shreds, but as the noise continues, unrelenting and drone-like, it quickly becomes familiar and you start to like it. The man behind Merzbow, Masami Akita, has stated repeatedly that his music is not about anger and destruction; it is meditative, and infused with eroticism. If viewed in this context, 'Venerealogy' has the potential to be as listenable as any CD in your collection. The noise will become a release of tension rather than a build-up of it, because there are no crescendoes or schizophrenic levels of intensity; the noise is up-front and relentless, and so overpowering that the rest of the world can be literally shut out.
I recommend a purchase of this, and other Merzbow albums such as "Pulse Demon." Play it for metalheads who think they are "hard," just to shut them up, play it at parties to get rid of the people who aren't cool, and play it on dates; if your girl tolerates it, she really is special.
"Venerealogy" is fifty minutes of harsh, punishing noise, amped up to an impossibly devastating volume, devoid of rhythms, harmonies, or a human presence of any kind (except for the aforementioned 'vocals,' which come in the form of distorted roaring and laughter and are really just another element of the music). It roars, screams, and pulses with a thunderous fury that is at first shocking, disturbing and overwhelming. Listen to a few minutes, and the "explicit content rating" actually makes sense. There is the potential here to permanently damage ears and traumatize the weak of heart.
It is also an album that is, if handled properly, potentially therapeutic. At first the sensation is of some massive ferocious beast preparing to tear you to shreds, but as the noise continues, unrelenting and drone-like, it quickly becomes familiar and you start to like it. The man behind Merzbow, Masami Akita, has stated repeatedly that his music is not about anger and destruction; it is meditative, and infused with eroticism. If viewed in this context, 'Venerealogy' has the potential to be as listenable as any CD in your collection. The noise will become a release of tension rather than a build-up of it, because there are no crescendoes or schizophrenic levels of intensity; the noise is up-front and relentless, and so overpowering that the rest of the world can be literally shut out.
I recommend a purchase of this, and other Merzbow albums such as "Pulse Demon." Play it for metalheads who think they are "hard," just to shut them up, play it at parties to get rid of the people who aren't cool, and play it on dates; if your girl tolerates it, she really is special.
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