In the world of extreme noise, no artist has been as influential—or as prolific—as Merzbow. Inspired by free jazz and avant-garde rock, along with early industrial music, he launched his career in 1979 with a series of limited edition cassettes. Merzbow eventually amased a mind-boggling discography that includes a 50 CD box set, with nearly half of the discs containing unreleased material. Best known for his “pure” noise work built around shrieking blasts of static and room-clearing feedback, over the years Merzbow has explored everything from ambient to heavy metal.