History
Extreme's original plan was to reissue Collaborative, their only vinyl release, for the label's tenth anniversary. There was then discussion of reissuing other early releases, with talk of a ten disc box, the number was finally set at 50 discs. The Merzbox was originally scheduled for release in late 1997, and available for pre-order, but kept getting delayed until it was finally released in 2000. It was officially launched on June 16, 2000 at Sónar, Barcelona, where Merzbow also performed.
The Merzbox was exhibited at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna from April 4–7, 2002. Merzbow performed opening and closing concerts. All 60 hours were webcast live.
In December 2002, Georgia Tech's student-run radio station WREK broadcast the entire 50-disc Merzbox without interruption. An article in Creative Loafing described the Merzbow Marathon as "what may be the most obscure and counterintuitive move in the history of radio."
Between the final recordings of the set and its release, Merzbow switched to using a laptop, having first acquired a Macintosh to work on the artwork for the set.
Masami Akita has stated in a 2009 interview that he has enough unreleased material for another 50 CD box.
Read more about this topic: Merzbox
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