Scissors for Cutting Merzbow

Scissors for Cutting Merzbow
Studio album by SCUM
Released	1989 (1989)
Recorded	May–December 1988
Genre	Noise
Label	ZSF Produkt
Producer	Masami Akita
SCUM chronology
Scissors for Cutting Merzbow (1989) Severances (1989)

Scissors for Cutting Merzbow is an album by the Merzbow side project SCUM.^[1] It was the last LP record released by ZSF Produkt. The project's name is a play on the SCUM Manifesto, and the track titles were influenced by American post-war art. The artwork are collages including images from Human Sex Anatomy by Robert Latou Dickinson.^[2] An expanded version was later included in the Merzbox. Some of the original studio sessions were included on Duo.

Background

SCUM was a project where Masami Akita made new releases out of previous Merzbow sessions using cut-ups, effects, and mixing.

In an interview with Arthur Potter, Akita explained that the album "is an attempt to cut up and mix all of the Merzbow sounds I've done" and that SCUM "is an experiment in changing the context of our own music to create new forms. It's like the disposal of Merzbow into the air."

[By disposal] I mean the ongoing process of production. Nothing is really destroyed or disappears, as recycling is part of production. It's a natural and necessary part of post-capitalism. There should be no illusion of only production, as was the case with early industrialization. Present re-production systems point in the direction of a future hyper-dimension of physics. We no longer use a dialectical approach in our disposal/recycling system, only a forward movement to the reproduction of re-production.

—Masami Akita^[3]

Track listing

All music composed by SCUM.

Notes

• Recorded at studio and live, May–December 1988
• Mixed at ZSF Produkt, Tokyo, December 1988
• Remixed at Tad Pole Studio, Tokyo, December 1988

Personnel

• Masami Akita – sources, mixing, production
• Kiyoshi Mizutani – sources
• Lowest Arts, Mitsuru Kito, Pornoise – artwork

Release history

References