One of the things I love about the art coming out of the Avant Gay scene is how it so blatantly wears its references, directly using and remixing them into new pieces.
MiFella as a collection is rife with this – consistently referencing underground alternative music in it’s traits, which is what I will focus on here. ↓🧵
One of the more mainstream artists referenced in the collection is Merzbow - a Japanese noise musician who is one of the most prolific and influential figures in the noise music genre. He's been active since 1979 and has released hundreds of albums, estimated at possibly over 400 recordings.
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This prolificness feels important: Mifella’s way of working is very much made up of fast paced intense sketching, and feels like a visual response to what noise musicians like Merzbow are attempting to capture in sound.
Merzbow talks of how his music was born out of jazz, and I like to think this analogy works for Mifella being born out of Milady. Take something and improvise on it to create something shatteringly new, something I see particularly in the collections Cuckfella and Mifella 2.
[Four Pieces to check out from Merzbow:]
- Merzbow – Pulsedemon (the classic, with pieces like ‘Woodpecker No. 1’ pushing soundscapes to new extremes)
- 2R0I2P0 – Boris and Merzbow (much more accessible, due to it moving away from pure noise to songs with actually identifiable vocals, instruments and comprehensible shifts between intensity and sludge)
- Flare Gun – Merzbow (a personal favourite of his. There’s something about it that I totally get)
- Merzbow Boiler Room Tokyo Live Set (it’s awesome to see a noise musician perform live; this one from 11 years ago is a fascinating insight)
Aube was the project of Akifumi Nakajima, a Japanese noise/ambient musician who was active from 1991 until his death in 2013. He was an important figure in the Japanese experimental music scene, though perhaps less well-known internationally than Merzbow.
Aube also created 100s of albums during his life time, with a distinctive approach: each album typically focused on a single sound source, which he would process and manipulate extensively (water, fluorescent lights, metal, field recordings, etc.)
The shirt in this collection is based on the album ‘Shade-Away’, created using only glass as the source material. There were 5 promotional copies of the album that were packaged in a handmade glass cover.
It’s an interesting contrast to Merzbow’s Pulsedemon, due to Aube’s sparse, minimalist, and disciplined approach to composition.
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Nirvana probably doesn’t need much introduction: the legendary band formed by singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain. They became one of the most influential and commercially successful rock bands of all time, essentially defining the grunge movement and alternative rock of the early 1990s.
Something of note is how repeatedly this tee in particular has been mass produced, available everywhere from H&M, small-town market stalls on Gildan or Fruit of the Loom blanks, and even through designer fashion house Saint Laurent.
The infinitely reproducible merchandise seems to fit into the infinitely re-mixable ethos found throughout Mifellas projects, as well as the broader Gay NFT scene, where we repeatedly see the same traits popup between collections.
The lore around the design is also confused: In 2018, Nirvana LLC sued fashion designer Marc Jacobs for his "Bootleg Redux Grunge" collection, which featured a smiley face design very similar to Nirvana's iconic logo but with "HEAVEN" instead of "NIRVANA" and the designer's initials replacing the X-eyes. The case became complicated when designer Robert Fisher claimed he, not Kurt Cobain, had created the logo while working as an art director at Geffen Records. As of July 2024, the case was reportedly settled between all parties, though details have not been publicly revealed.
With recent discourse surrounding origins and firsts within the scene, it may be that this trait becomes more relevant than ever.
Cobain also often sported other bands merch, such as outsider artist Daniel Johnson’s ‘Hi, How Are You’ album tee, American staple Sonic Youth (another infinitely bootlegged tee), as well as Jaw Breaker and Sebadoh merch.
Swans is an experimental rock band formed in New York City in 1982 by Michael Gira. They're one of the most influential and uncompromising bands in underground music, known for their intensely loud, abrasive sound and punishing live performances.
They were loosely associated with what became known as ‘no wave’, a short-lived but hugely influential underground music and art movement that emerged in New York City in the late 1970s, roughly 1978-1982. It was a radical rejection of punk rock's conventions and commercial potential.
This bootleg shirt is actually made up of a tour poster from when Machines of Loving Grace (an American industrial rock band from Tucson, Arizona, active primarily throughout the 1990s), toured with Swans. This was notable as Swans were the support band, despite being the older, more established of the two acts.
My favourite band on this list to talk about is Hanatarash (originally Hanatarashi, meaning "snot-nosed" or "sniveler" in Japanese), who are considered one of the most dangerous and extreme bands in music history. They were a Japanese noise band that pushed musical performance art to insane levels.
This particular Mifella features both Hanatarash’s 2nd album cover, as well as the background being photography from one of their explosive gigs.
Hanatarash was formed in Osaka, Japan in 1983-1984 by Yamantaka Eye and guitarist Mitsuru Tabata. Eye and Tabata met while working as stagehands at an Einstürzende Neubauten concert in Japan. Both felt that punk had become too polished and pacified, too mainstream, and decided to resurrect the genre's most disturbing and revolutionary elements in a new band.
Their live performances were formidable, with events happening such as:
- Eye cutting a dead cat in half with a machete on stage
- Strapping a circular saw to his back and almost cutting his leg off
- At a 1985 show in Tokyo's Superloft, the audience was required to fill out waivers due to the possibility of harm caused by the show
- Throwing broken glass and destroyed machinery into the crowd
- Nearly throwing a lit Molotov cocktail before being stopped
The most infamous of these incidents is likely ‘The Bulldozer Show’, where on August 4, 1985, Eye drove a bulldozer through the front door and into the venue he was playing. He didn't know how to drive it, so he put the shovel up and the whole thing tipped over, leaking gasoline onto the floor. The audience held him down because it seemed like he was going to light fire to the gasoline.
Unsurprisingly, Hanatarash was quickly forbidden from performing at most venues, and they disbanded shortly after the bulldozer incident, having been together for just one year initially.
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Footer: There’s a lot more tees to feature, so let me know if you’d be interested in a part 2 of this thread.
It’s not often I get to talk of my second love aside from art and I really enjoyed doing the research for this. There’s some really special music in here, and if you want to check it out there’s links below.
As always, many thanks to @exchgART and @bonk_inu Art Masters for the support in publishing this thread.
Links: Merzbow interview: https://15questions.net/interview/merzbow-about-improvisation/page-1/… Merzbow Boiler Room Tokyo Live Set: https://youtu.be/fR_8gpJCT4I?si=L_6rodljLzyFnX_f… Merzbow, Pulsedemon: https://youtu.be/ukZYP5Dy43E?si=GD6yB1G2zhB5pqjX… 2R0I2P0, Boris and Merzbow: https://youtu.be/kvi6mDyVqZw?si=makMkOONmrtQinuH… Flare Gun, Merzbow: https://youtu.be/7iyHtopMcGg?si=sIlgCzrUh-ffv2lQ… MERZXIU ( Merzbow and Xiu Xiu) - https://xiuxiu69.bandcamp.com/album/merzxiu Aube, Shadeaway - https://youtu.be/9upGYhExzIw?si=sLMmXzoXbrJlg73N… Saint Laurent second hand tees: https://theguardian.com/fashion/2023/jul/21/saint-laurent-selling-secondhand-band-t-shirts-in-its-vintage-collection… Kurt Wearing Bands Merch: https://tumblr.com/lovvver/175986682466/kurt-cobain-wearing-band-shirts-collection… Nirvana Smiley lawsuit: https://radiox.co.uk/artists/nirvana/what-does-the-nirvana-smiley-face-logo-mean/… Gig Review for Swans; https://variety.com/1992/legit/reviews/the-swans-machines-of-loving-grace-1200429774/… Hanatarash 2: https://youtu.be/gOVePgTe5Pc?si=YfmNjO0Z3aBvBtXx… Hanatarash 3: https://youtu.be/1ygSGgTi7Xs?si=iMtfbFaXhEyLBbyd… Hanatarash Live Performance, 1985: https://youtu.be/jEW5dx-wZxE?si=IiD1L8V2kGNCEuV3…
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Added Oct 17, 2025, 11:49 PM
thank you🤝💌
of course🤝💌
appreciate it, glad you're here🫡
we must all dream...
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Added Oct 18, 2025, 1:33 AM
Amazing, perfect way to experience it I feel
Thank you brother, really fun to find out more about what I love to listen to as well
with noise, the music gatekeeps itself 💌
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Added Oct 18, 2025, 2:14 AM
totally get this 🫡
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Added Oct 18, 2025, 8:38 AM
thank you Kiki I will do it for you💌❤️🩹🫶
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Added Oct 18, 2025, 5:44 PM
Amazing, means the world to hear this actually, thank you !🫶‼️
Must hit you up about all this sometime too I'd love to know who you've interacted with
classic, I'm jealous !
Will get on it. thank you 🤝
Thread by @archivepilled · 25 tweets · Friday, October 17, 2025 · Archived via ThreadPilled · Original
