On their first official collaboration, Japanese noise pioneer Masami Akita aka Merzbow and Australian sound sculptor Lawrence English present a harrowing, surrealist portrait of nocturnal industrial activity, spawned by field recordings made in a sprawling factory complex seven hours north of English's home in Brisbane. He characterizes the area as "uneasy and unsettling," awash in the sickly glow of smelters and refinement machinery, somehow not of this world - a liminal quality vividly captured in Andrei Tarkovsky's sprawling purgatorial opus, Stalker, to which the title alludes. Akita, too, described early drafts of Eternal Stalker as feeling "like the soundtrack to a dystopian science fiction opera." A mood of mechanical dread and ruined futures permeates each of the album's seven potent compositions.Opener "The Long Dream" sets the stage with steady rain on sheet metal, punctured by thunder and metallic echoes, reverberating to the rafters in a collapsing warehouse. Quickly the tempest rises. "A Gate Of Light" and "Magnetic Traps" both convulse in churning furies of electric demolition and rattling chains, roaring and relentless. "The Visit" and "Black Thicket" operate more at a distance, surveying the topography of steam, rust, and liquid metal from above, their flickers of violence like gunfire swallowed by blankets of darkness. This is noise at it's most elemental and unknowable: brooding, bristling, and opaque, stalking forbidden peripheries of chaos and creation.Discussing Akita's music, English refers to it's "intense substrata that is purely psychedelic; it consumes and confounds." The seasick swells of friction and fracture subsume the listener, forcing an auditory surrender: "this saturation of the senses can be a euphoria." Proof comes halfway through "The Golden Sphere," when the howling mayhem subtly recedes, revealing an eerie siren drone hovering in the void, like the resonance of a dead star galaxies away. Slowly a seething, venomous wall of volume returns, shredding the signal until it's frequencies fray, whipping away into the eye of the storm. The combined effect merges obliteration and liberation, rapture and ravagement; it's the sound of dissolution as resolution, uprooted and unmoored, finally freed from form.
Release date:
June 3, 2022
Label:
Install our app to receive notifications when new upcoming releases are added.

Recommended equipment and accessories
-
Turntables - Top Picks
A selection of reliable record players you can buy today, for every budget
-
Denon DP-400
Featuring a high-precision, belt-driven mechanism and an adjustable tonearm that ensures optimal tracking and minimal resonance
-
HumminGuru: Ultrasonic Vinyl Record Cleaner
Advanced ultrasonic technology with customizable cleaning cycles and a large tank capacity to thoroughly remove dust, dirt, and contaminants
-
Cartridges - Top Picks
A selection of turnatble cartridges that provide great performance and sound quality
-
Audioengine A2 Plus
Precision-engineered 2.75-inch woofers and a 0.75-inch silk dome tweeter, featuring built-in DAC and Bluetooth connectivity for seamless integration.
Featured Upcoming Vinyl
-
Preservation & Gabe 'Nandez Sortilege
Rhymesayers
October 10, 2025 -
Jerskin Fendrix Once Upon A Time. . . In Shropshire [2xLP]
Untitled (Recs)
October 10, 2025 -
Rise of the Northstar Chapter 4 : Red Falcon Super Battle! Neo Paris War!!
Kuromaku Corp. SAS
November 14, 2025 -
Slick Rick Victory
7WALLACE MUSIC LIMITED
October 17, 2025 -
Rammstein XXXIII 33 x Single [33xLP]
Virgin Music
November 14, 2025 -
The Red Chord Clients
Metal Blade
October 17, 2025 -
Pavement Pavements Soundtrack [2xLP]
Matador
November 14, 2025 -
Knucks Fine African Man
Warner Bros UK
November 7, 2025 -
Enthroned Ashspawn
Season Of Mist
December 5, 2025 -
The Mountain Goats Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan [2xLP]
Cadmean Dawn
November 7, 2025 -
Home Counties Humdrum
Submarine Cat
October 24, 2025 -
The Last Dinner Party From The Pyre
Island
October 17, 2025 -
Beyond The Black Break The Silence (Gold)
Nuclear Blast
January 9, 2026 -
Miguel CAOS
Rca Records
October 24, 2025