''Batztoutai with Memorial Gadgets'' is a

double album A double album (or double record) is an audio album that spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically either records or compact disc. A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording i ...

by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It was later remixed and reissued in 1993 as ''Batztoutai with Material Gadgets: De-Composed Works 1985~86''.

Background

The album is named after – and the title track samples – , a Japanese military march composed by Charles Edouard Gabriel Leroux. Illustrations of the brigade are depicted on the cover, along with the

Imperial Seal of Japan The Imperial Seal of Japan or National Seal of Japan, also called the , or , is one of the national seals and a crest ('' mon'') used by the Emperor of Japan and members of the Imperial Family. It is a contrast to the Paulownia Seal used by the ...

. Some of the album's theme and titles were inspired by the botanist

Tanaka Yoshio was a Japanese civil servant and naturalist. Born to a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Iida, Shinano Province, Tanaka studied pharmacognosy in his youth with Keisuke Ito. In 1861 he moved to Edo and joined the ''Bansho Shirabesh ...

, who was Masami Akita's maternal great-grandfather. Tanaka founded the

Ueno Zoo The is a zoo, managed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and located in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. It is Japan's oldest zoo, opened on March 20, 1882. It is served by Ueno Station, Keisei Ueno Station and Nezu Station, with convenient access fro ...

, hence the zoological titles. The track refers to the institute where Tanaka was employed. In an interview with Arthur Potter, Masami Akita explains how this LP and ''Antimonument'' were inspired by his native culture: Akita then explains how the sound of his music changed over time, saying that ''Batztoutai'' "uses lots of loops and cut-up sounds from other records".

Recordings

The album samples many electroacoustic /

modern classical In music, modernism is an aesthetic stance underlying the period of change and development in musical language that occurred around the turn of the 20th century, a period of diverse reactions in challenging and reinterpreting older categories o ...

works by artists including

François Bayle François Bayle (born 27 April 1932, in Toamasina, Madagascar) is a composer of Electronic Music, Musique concrète. He coined the term ''Acousmatic Music''. Career In the 1950s he studied with Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz S ...

, Conlon Nancarrow,

Ivo Malec Ivo Malec (30 March 1925, in Zagreb – 14 August 2019, in Paris) was a Croatian-born French composer, music educator and conductor. One of the earliest Yugoslav composers to obtain high international regard, his works have been performed by sy ...

, and Luc Ferrari. "Junk Dahkini" samples the Rendlesham UFO tape, also used on ''Pornoise/1kg''. Full-length versions of "Anus Anvil Anxiety", "Mortegage", and "Batztoutai" were later released in the ''

Merzbox ''Merzbox'' is a box set compilation by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. It consists of 50 CDs spanning Merzbow's career from 1979 to 1997. 30 discs are taken from long out of print releases, while 20 are composed mainly of unreleased ma ...

'', along with an unreleased track from the sessions. Alternate mixes and outtakes were release in 2019 on the albums ''Batztoutai Mix'' and ''Jinrinkinmouzui''. The tracks "Semykyoku", "Anus Anvil Anxiety" and "Mortegage" from the original release are missing from the remix. "Intermission" is a short excerpt of "Dahkini Disko" from the original. The material on ''Loop Panic Limited'' is primarily taken from the then-unreleased '' Agni Hotra''. "Industrial Pollusion 2" is a version of "3 Types of Industrial Pollusion", included on the reissue of ''Antimonument''. The album title might be a reference to the underground publisher

Loompanics Unlimited Loompanics Unlimited was an American book seller and publisher specializing in nonfiction on generally unconventional or controversial topics. The topics in their title list included drugs, weapons, survivalism, anarchism, sex, conspiracy theories ...

. The track "Fireploof Enema 1" was used on

Russell Haswell Russell Haswell (born 1970, Coventry) is an English multidisciplinary artist. He has exhibited conceptual and wall-based visual works, video art, public sculpture, as well as audio presentations in both art gallery and concert hall contexts. Ex ...

's track "Micromedley" on the Merzbow remix album ''Scumtron''.

Reception

In 2003, Matmos included the album in a list of the best

musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic, ...

albums; they said: "What Coldcut's '' Journey by DJs'' set is to the hip-hop mixtape, this baby is to musique concrète: a double exposure of elaborately detourned and fricasseed material which was already quite tricked out in the first place."

Track listing

LP

CD

Personnel

*Masami Akita – performer * Ron Lessard – song selection *Ad Suprex – artworks, design *Maggie Whaley – visual interpretation for production

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Batztoutai With Memorial Gadgets 1986 albums Merzbow albums Musique concrète albums