MERZBOW, the title 'Merzbow' being lifted from Kurt Schwitter's 'The Cathedral Of Erotic Misery', is the "Noise Art" persona of Masami Akita. Hugely prolific, MERZBOW's catalogue runs into the many hundreds of recordings, which include eclectic, challenging solo works and a lengthy list of collaborations with artists ranging from the Ambient, to Electronic to extreme forms of Metal. Akita also releases product under assumed titles such as MAZK and MALDOROR. His surrealist works often explore not only harsh juxtapositions of sound but often pursue themes of sexual depravation, auto-eroticism and sado-masochism.

The Tokyo born musician learnt his skills in a variety of early Progressive Rock ventures, often in alliance with long term partner Kiyoshi Mizutani on the drums. As his interest in standard Rock music waned Akita's path was turned towards 'Art Rock' and experimentations with studio noise.

In 1992 Akita collaborated with Achim Wollscheid for the album 'Eleven Live Collaborations'. Further dual efforts the following year, in union with Christoph Heemann produced the 'Sleeper Awakes On The Edge Of The Abyss' set and, with K.K. Null, the 'Deus Irae' album. Akita teamed up with John Watermann for the intriguingly anonymous 'Brisbane-Tokyo Interlace' recordings. Also surfacing that year would be 'Horn Of The Goat' with CONSUMER ELECTRONICS and the split album with BASTARD NOISE 'Voice Pie'.

MERZBOW would create a union with FAITH NO MORE, FANTOMAS and MR. BUNGLE vocalist Mike Patton for the 2001 MALDOROR project. Akita's concept of the traditional split album would take on a unique twist too with the album 'Split Ver.0.5'. Rather than two artists occupying separate digital space MERZBOW's split with STRUGGLE FOR PRIDE saw MERZBOW in the left sound channel and STRUGGLE FOR PRIDE in the right.