Ikebana : Merzbow's Amlux Rebuilt, Reused and Recycled

They Say...

Review by François Couture, All Music Guide

Remix albums come and go and, despite their different conceptual approach, Ikebana will suffer the same fate. Important Records' second release was Amlux by Merzbow, back in early 2002. Instead of shopping around for a bunch of remixes, the label approached 28 electronica artists and asked them to use the disc as an instrument for a new piece. So Amlux may be an inspiration for some, but it is mostly a tool -- one tool among each artist's favorite set-up at the time. The results are therefore closer to each person's style than to Merzbow's. And the palette is wide, from (understandably) noise to power-techno to experimental/ambient and even microsound. Chicks on Speed, Kid 606, DJ Spooky, Jazzkammer's Lasse Marhaug, Kim Hiorthøy, Mouse on Mars, Alec Empire and Acid Mothers Temple's own Kawabata Makoto are only some of the contributors to this two-CD set. As usual with such exercises, your openness to cross-stylistic exchanges will determine the scope of your enjoyment -- and even then, some artists went out of their way to come up with something unique while others just went through the motions. If you're partial to noise, the tracks by Negativland (a marvelously stupid take on the "homeland security" paranoia in the U.S. during the first months of 2003), Makoto, and Nobukazu Takemura have the greatest impact. Bola's "Klunk" also deserves mention: it is gentle, almost trippy; it moves far away from Merzbow's realm and yet manages to pay homage by keeping up with the ethos of his music. Jack Dangers' "Available Memory Edit" is a shorter version of his "Amlux" remix "hidden" at the end of Merzbow's Merzbeat.