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MERZBOW 'Magnesia Nova' Double LP (Italy, Urashima, Catalogue #UMA 160) Brand new/unplayed copy of limited year 2022 Urashima label first time vinyl edition (presented here as a Double LP edition) of seminal 1996 Staalplaat label release (originally issued as CD-only release) of Merzbow album entitled Magnesia Nova. First time, very limited vinyl edition of this top level Merzbow album. 
This album is ranked #1 in a list of a total of 327 (!) Merzbow albums (all reviewed; the review for Magnesia Nova presented further below) ranked and reviewed by Electricwatersheep.

(NOTE: ALL RECORDS ARE PACKED AND SHIPPED IN PROFESSIONAL, SUPERIOR QUALITY RECTANGULAR SHAPED, CORNER PROTECTING CORRUGATED CARDBOARD RECORD MAILERS WITH FILLER PADS. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!)

(NOTE: BRAND NEW/NON-FACTORY SEALED ITEM!)

(NOTE: LIMITED VINYL EDITION OF 299 COPIES ONLY!)

Exquisitely recorded and mixed between February and May 1995 at ZSF Produkt Studio, Masami Akita's home studio from the late '80s to late '90s, Magnesia Nova is stunning immersion into the world of Merzbow during one of the project's most engrossing and important period. Inspired by the intersections between Greece and Japan and between Western and Eastern civilization along with work of Athanasius Kircher (all of the track titles have been taken from Kircher's works), is a true blasts of noise, meticulously crafted into gorgeous sound collages. For the first time that this seminal document from Merzbow's '90s period has ever appeared on vinyl, in double LP, featuring last side of second LP with 20 minutes of unreleased bonus track took from the same period of the recording sessions. Like all of his work since the early nineties, Magnesia Nova is an uncompromising cascade of brutal noise. In this album you find nothing of the minimalism of his early '80s, completely overwhelmed by synthesizers and handmade objects that become his unconventional weapons to create bursts of noise. The album begins with "Rituale Lucis" and "Magnesia Nova", a parade of overloaded, layered and pulsating synthesizers and feedback. Two minutes are enough for the artist to take us to the territories of the most creative experimentation in the history of noise. There are sounds from a parallel universe suspended in time and straight out of an old amp that mumbles before going back to freaking out with synth razors. The sounds are unlike anything else played before or after. You find yourself in the world of dreams and the rhythm of the sound construction thickens, until the great progression of eternal noise materializes. On the second side of the first record the crashes of noise return and the gates of primordial chaos open with "Oedipus Organum", while "Specula Naturalum" comes to an end, as if it had never begun: perhaps it has been there since the beginning of time, an explosion of synthetic sounds, which seem like the spatial drifts for minor chords by Klaus Schulze. The second record open with "Pantometrum Erotica" that begins with a dark modulation, where an obsessive rhythm alternates with screams of noise and the now familiar synthesizer sound and continue with "Sphinx Mystagoga" where everything collapses into a single otherworldly synthesizer voice that explores an uninhabited planet. Magnesia Nova is a stunning piece of work, that blur the boundaries between pure noise, performance and experimental music. Redesigned reverse cardboard gatefold sleeve LP with original paint art by Masami Akita; edition of 299.      

- Features 20 minutes of unreleased bonus track took from the same period of the recording sessions.

"This may not be anyone else's first pick for the best Merzbow album -- in fact, considering that there's virtually no 5* ratings on this release, I may quite possibly be the only one who thinks this. But holy shit, Magnesia Nova is simply incredible, and it's certainly my favorite Merzalbum.

What puts Magnesia Nova above every other Merzalbum for me is actually quite simple: it's peak analog era Merzbow for a solid hour without a single wasted second. On this release, Masami is working with some of the most lively and detailed soundscapes he would ever forge together, with some of the richest sets of textures in his entire catalogue. Not only that, but it's monolithic in scale, as each additional element brought into the soundscape adds up wonderfully and makes things sound incredibly full. He is just in full control of everything that's happening at all times and takes full advantage of it. Not only that, but the timbres on this album are equally incredible, as the album, for how brickwalled it is, somehow manages to give you a ton of space to peek into the madness and engage with these soundscapes on a deeper level. The loops on this album are also some of the best and most satisfying to listen to in Masami's entire catalogue. On top of all of that, there is an incredible sense of direction on every track here that Masami has only seldom achieved outside of this album! There is not a single uninspired or directionless moment to be had here at all. It manages to even top  at doing this, which is just completely batshit insane to me. Nearly every track is so inspired that I can pick apart tons of individual moments on their own; in spite of the sheer amount of chaos, it manages to be intensely memorable! This sense of direction even extends to the album's flow, as it not only has a nice beginning and ending, but each track manages to stylistically transition into one another to make a cohesive whole, and not just feel like a random collection of songs that just happened to have the same elements. I know it sounds completely ridiculous to even suggest that, as it's merely a harsh noise album, but it manages to come off that way by virtue of how engaged I am with it at all times. One example I would give regarding how well this album flows is on the penultimate track Pantometrum Erotica. Before the track ends, there's a brief period of relative silence, where Merzbow shows a lot of restraint with what he's putting into the soundscape. He then lets it all go loose with an incredibly cathartic barrage of noise coming from every single direction, and this moment transitions beautifully into the shrieking walls of static that open Sphinx Mystagoga. This is only one of many examples I could pinpoint where the flow of the album manages to enhance the tracklisting on an even deeper level. While this may not be the avant-garde academic's choice for best Merzalbum, or even the average noise fan for that matter, it most certainly is mine. This album is an incredible exposition of the sheer cathartic beauty that can only happen at such deafeningly high volumes, and is some of the highest quality harsh noise you'll ever be able to get your ears on. When first diving into the Merzbow discography, I had no expectation that an album of this caliber would even be a possibility. When first approaching this album, I had no real expectations from it, as it's just one of hundreds of albums from Merzbow. And yet, after having taken the time to listen to it multiple times, it's not just the single best album in all noise music canon, but also a lesson that some of your absolute favorite albums could be relishing in the same obscurity that this album has, just waiting to be uncovered by the adventurous listener willing to sift through all of it. This album, for me, is not just emblematic of that, but also of why noise music in general can create some of the most incredible experiences in all of music itself." Rating: 10/10 - Review by Electricwatersheep.

Tracks on this Double LP are as follows

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