Merzbow

It is generally assumed that animals do not experience dread, or the crippling fear of impending death. Japanese animal activist and noise peddler Masami Akita (also known as Merzbow) would have his listeners believe otherwise, or perhaps desires to transfer such imagined dread to those responsible for wholesale animal slaughter. So it would seem with Dolphin Sonar, Akita’s anger-fuelled noise suite that lambastes those who slay dolphins off the coast of Japan. Paralleling the liner notes written by Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Merzbow’s sonic storm praises the dolphin’s intellect by mimicking the animal’s high frequency mode of communication. It also condemns the murderers, delivering a roar so devastating as to shake apart the human skeleton. While Dolphin Sonar isn’t Akita’s first animal activist endeavour, it’s his most nuanced, and therefore will most likely be his most effective.