Great album covers: Christoph Heemann/Merzbow "Sleeper Awakes On The Edge Of The Abyss"

Yes I know these posts are getting redundant and quite boring, but I thought I would do these things just to keep my sanity in the workplace. I've always been a fan of Christoph Heemann's stuff as a solo artists, to varying degrees of appreciability of course, and I do have a little spot for Merzbow as well, since amongst some of his most intense and dare I say almost unlistenable material, he does have intriguing moments. This one-shot collaboration where Christoph would work over material donated by Merzbow, is a true gem of the genre. It is what a meeting of two extremes in the realm of abstraction and what has transpired over a small amount of time. Not for everyone, and many do feel it is more of a hype than an actual good release, "Sleeper Awakes On The Edge Of The Abyss" remains in my permanent collection to this day after having purchased it upon it's original release.

You can clearly see Christoph's influence on the artwork. In fact, Heemann seems to follow a specific "pattern" of sorts when he designs his releases' covers, as well as those by other artists and collaborations, such as the fantastic Mimir project. So it is not always easy to choose an album cover by Heemann which stands out from the rest, but when I stopped myself just to give it a thought, this one popped into my mind instantaneously.

If you can find a copy of this album for yourself, I recommend it although as I said, it isn't for everyone, since it isn't noise enough for the purist Merzbow fans, and it isn't as "quiet" as your average Heemann sound. It's neither dead air drone ambience nor harsh noise; it is simply elements of both extremes and worked in a way that seems to inspire what the title suggests: a slumbering state between consciousness and the dream-world, with moments of being brought back to reality and others when you lose track of when and where you are.