One of the colossi of the head-on collision between the experimental noise underground and the extreme metal subterrain. 1998's Tauromachine was Merzbow's third full-length album with Relapse Records sub-label Release (not including the astounding and please-for-Christ's-sake-reissue-this Rectal Anarchy collaboration with Gore Beyond Necropsy), another gateway drug that turned a lot of metal fanatics onto the carnal pleasures of ear-splitting electronics. As with the other Release-era Merzbow titles, this has gotten a deluxe reissue from Relapse, bringing this minor classic of harsh, psychedelic noise from Japan's Masami Akita back to physical form with an expanded and re-mastered presentation. Featuring modified album art based on the original, this 2023 reissue has James Plotkin doing a gentle re-mastering on this album and bonus material, with no diminishing of Tauromachine's acidic power. Both the double CD and the double LP editions feature bonus material not available on the original 1998 release, but the double CD edition does also include the CD-only track "Tauro Extra 9792", not available on the vinyl due to obvious space issues.

The original album remains an absolute skull-drill experience, seven tracks of explosive electronic carnage. Crème de la crème of Masami Akita's analog-era extremism. The burbling , pulsating horror of opener "Cannibalism Of Machine", raging torrents of rumbling bass frequencies, sputtering static, shrill feedback attacks, rhythmic glitch-violence, with cymatic patterns emerging from out of the chaos. Yeah, it's definitely "psychedelic", sheer distorted electronic sensory overload. Skull-warping cacophony blasting you from every direction. Jets of emetic garble, severe sinewave manipulations that whipstrike across the foundation of grinding, roaring throb. No pause as Merzbow flows into each track, sliding into guttural rhythmic noise on "Emission" that seethes beneath incredibly vicious high-end feedback, whirling and fluttering soundwaves riding atop volcanic forces. "Soft Water Rhinoceros" merging what sounds like intensely manipulated water sounds with rapid-fire squelch and hideously groaning tones, revealing a grotesque cardiac pulse. "Minotauros" explodes from that into a squall of spacey effects and galactic decimation, punctuated with brutalizing rhythm. Epic high-frequency scrape-scapes, chittering crunch and explosive bass in "Heads Of Clouds", which transform into freeform clanking acoustics. "Wounded Cycad Dub"'s technoid anxiety assault. A shimmering glitchscape as"Untitled Nude Pulse" suddenly washes over you, bathing you in roiling waves of fried-circuit screams and analog beeps, the feedback and glitch swirling and diving like flocking murmurations. Beauty in order from chaos. The whole album is sizzling, constantly shifting and morphing and warping. Loaded with moments that verge on "powernoise", with crunching, tumescent rhythms taking shape within the whirl of noise.

The additional material is exceptional. "Caudex Caudex (Mix 2)" fits right in amid the original track order, emitting a strange, almost signal-transmission-like rhythmic loop that sounds mechanical, a mainframe throb amid more swirling, dive-bombing feedback and aggro-squeal. This one reminds me a bit of the more "loop based" material Masami Akita was producing in the 80s. A mesmerizing collapse of machine form, a weird industrial entropy in real time. But as weighty and corrosive as the rest of the album. And "Fragment 978" closes disc one in a spastic splatter, a fast-paced spasm of noise.

Over on disc two, you get two rare tracks, outtakes from the original Tauromachine sessions: "Heads Of Clouds #2" had previously appeared on the Japanese Tauro-O1 CD, and "Tauro Extra 9792*" on Tauro-O2M. The former delivers a blast of cacophonic electronics in sympatico with the album material, again merging totally bugfuck glitch/skree/feedback carnage with rhythmic elements. Even more violent, the latter is a fourteen minute sprawl of screaming systematic pulsation and shrieking distorted feedback manipulation, tumbling outward into a complete car crash of near-junk-noise levels of collapse and destruction, evolving into layers of percussive hammering. Both are solid tracks, right up your alley if you're already savoring the spasmic power of the original album.

The entire set acts as a single warping structure, each track a piece of a larger psychic assault. The rhythmic elements that would become more prominent in subsequent Merzbow recordings are all present, some tracks falling into a crazed groove that turn downright mesmerizing. Again, heavy hints of powernoise-style force on display. But the feedback / sinewave / goddamn squelch overload remains relentlessly brutal through every second of Tauromachine. A confusional and confronting mass of energetic sound, almost like hearing a dozern skipping, catastrophically glitching death metal CDs all malfunctioning at once. It's that abrasive, and that dense. Classic 90's-era Merzbow, one of my favorite releases from that time period. Not a bad place to start for newbies either, at least as far as the sprawling Merzbow catalog goes.