Search - Masonna :: Inner Mind Mystique

Rest assured, this will hurt you...

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 01/21/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"M.A.S.O.N.N.A., Inner Mind Mystique (Release, 1996)Yes, it seems odd that I saw him on tour in 1996 opening for Merzbow and just now got round to picking this disc up. But hey, the guy's stage shows are ten minutes long, I figured how long can the disc be? More fool me.Mademoiselle Anne Sanglante Ou Notre Nymphomanie Aureole, aka Maso Yamazki. Fashion designer and noise mogul. Inner Mind Mystique is one of his few widely-available releases; the discography on the inside lists a startling number of "releases" that were limited to one pressing. One wonders why he bothered listing them. Despite the name, to say anything M.A.S.O.N.N.A. does has erotic content would probably make people question your mental and emotional makeup. While not as breathtakingly loud and relentless as, say, Government Alpha's Sporadic Spectra disc, when Yamazaki puts the pedal to the floor, forget about listening to anything else. Or breathing, for that matter. Imagine being inside a pinball while wearing devices to amplify your hearing to painful levels, then put the pinball machine inside a monster echo chamber with a master pinball player who occasionally laughs at your fate. You now have a basic idea of what M.A.S.O.N.N.A. sounds like.The album is one piece, "Inner Mind Mystique," with seven parts. The first five are usual short-blast noise tracks. Yamazaki and his tin box of ten-yen coins (yes, he makes all his noise with vocals and a tin box of ten-yen coins with a contact mic hooked up to various pedals) doing their usual thing, which is driving people insane with weird sounds. The sixth is the most interesting of the short bunch (and, for most people, the one that will cause maximum pain); sounds as if he threw everything on the floor and left it in a feedback loop. Almost ambient, but very loud. Zen, kinda. The seventh track is fifteen and a half minutes long. It's structured like a longer noise track, which I didn't really expect from Yamazaki (the night he did a ten-minute set, he did a thirty-five minute sound check which many people actually thought WAS his set; guess I should've seen this coming). Longer noise tracks are in many cases structures like classical pieces, rather than the usual pop structuring; the dynamics of the buildup, the repeated structures, you know the drill. Well, when you have three speeds, which are off, louder, and loudest, it's hard to create dynamic. Yamazaki manages it with pitch. It would be impossible to go higher without being an album aimed at dogs than he does on some of the shorter tracks, but Yamazaki finds the low end of the scale in the seventh track as well. The end result is something decidedly listenable.Fantastic stuff. ****"

THE EMOBIDIMENT OF BRUTALITY

John White | AFRICA , THE SOUTH | 06/15/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you can imagine what it feels like to be crushed by a bulldozer then you are near the sonic brutality of Masonna. This is Noise in its most powerful and abrasive form. Put this album on and feel your brain melt from the sheer intensity of the sounds within.Be warned this is not a record you can dance or bang your head to , as mentioned before its a pure sonic onslaught of grinding noise.
So if you crave something that will clear all the cobwebs out of your mind with scorching fury then you could do far worse then Masonnas Inner Mind Mystique."

Interesting take on Noise

Joe | Dearborn, Michigan United States | 10/17/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Just when I thought the noise scene was getting stale- out comes Masonna. The first thing people notice when they listen to him are his screams, which are phenomenal. This is the bulk of what separates him from the rest. Then there are the sounds, cold and scratchy, with much less electronic blips and bops than Merzbow. I like this, because it seems that the best approach you can take to noise is minimal. But I gave it only three stars because Masonna's release "Frequency LSD" is much better."