Chicago-based sound artist Kikù Hibino collaborates with Japanese noise pioneer Merzbow (Masami Akita) on Rococo ∞ Echomatter, released by Superpang. Exchanging material between Chicago and Tokyo, the duo cuts spoken voice and instruments into dense noise fields.
The album opens like a thunderstorm. The voice that echoes around you (Alexandra Cupsa’s ASMR-modulated French vocals) becomes the green-gray sky, and suddenly, there are flickering tremors of distorted chaos, coming at you in bursts, like lightning. You hear the sounds of a tape rewinding, appropriately enough, since the album starts with the end (‘dB.XYZ’) and ends with the beginning (‘abcdefg’), as if the whole thing is being played backwards. ‘dB.XYZ’ in particular…