ABSTRACT
The amusic of Merzbow is generated out of Akita’s amusical perception and his unconscious dialogue with the virtual sounds of perverted audio machines, human and non-human. The notion of producing an unlistenable, unmasterable music became part of the discipline of its creation and technique. The impossibility of the notion of the unlistenable defines a highly disciplined ascesis of sonic production that is attuned to the febrile limits of aural tolerance. The littoral is the line that marks the conjunction “between center and absence, between knowledge and jouissance”. In between knowledge and jouissance is the singular know-how of Akita the noise artist, from whom the littoral constitutes a sound that characterises itself as not being emitted from the semblant or from form or meaning. The impossibility of the notion of the unlistenable defines a highly disciplined ascesis of sonic production that is attuned to the febrile limits of aural tolerance.
