Masami Akita’s work as Merzbow looms over all avant-garde, noise and heavy music like a dark cloud. Since 1979, the Tokyo-based sound artist’s fusion of industrial fervor and playfully Dadaist chaos across hundreds of releases has done more than pioneer harsh noise music — it has made him nearly synonymous with the genre. However, that famous reputation never quite conveys the actual thrill of sinking into a Merzbow album and absorbing its extreme contours, spiking peaks and layered valleys. It’s a feeling familiar to any fan, in a discography so deep and varied that no one ever explores it the same way. Merzbow’s new album Sedonis is an airy, ominous highlight and an essential release for both longtime listeners and those taking their tentative first steps into Akita’s boiling ocean of sound.

Sedonis caps one of the most exciting recent periods in Merzbow’s career, growing from the same set-up of computer, modular electronics and homemade instruments that produced the startlingly atmospheric Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance album series. It sparks to life on “Sedonis A” with propulsive drum machines and Akita’s prickling homemade guitar-string koto, played with a violin bow. The Penderecki-like strings melt into a nearly Hendrix haze at the start of “Sedonis B” building a crushing bridge to the centerpiece “Sedonis C.” The searing track brings to mind releases such as Dust of Dreams’ hazy percussion loops or the pulsing, jazz-influenced Door Open At 8AM, before igniting in a finale that achieves the same rippling funhouse terror as Aaron Dilloway’s Modern Jester. The three-part piece is paired with the 16-minute closer “Monolith 4”, which forms a spacious, burned expanse in contrast.

Akita explains that the title “Sedonis” didn’t have a particular meaning, but the word came to him in the aftermath of recording the album. “In terms of imagery, I was thinking of something similar to Barunga, the balloon monster from Ultra Q,” he explains, describing the classic ‘60s Ultraman kaiju. “A cloud-like form floating in the sky or outer space, with tendrils or tentacles — that kind of presence.” The music impressionistically conveys its inspiration at a kaiju-sized scale, while bringing to mind a modern day contemporary of Barunga— Jordan Peele’s terrifying, yet eerily beautiful creature from Nope. Similarly, Sedonis never stops unfolding into hypnotic new forms, while achieving a spectral, sinister atmosphere that feels utterly unique to Merzbow in 2025.