SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Archive Volume Three “2 Long Songs” (2005/2020).
In early August, Boris digitally released six archival releases. Volume Three is called “2 Long Songs” and that’s what it contains.
There are two songs in this live recording, one is 15 minutes, the other is 22 and this whole recording is just fantastic.
Originally released in 2005 from the US label “aRCHIVE”, limited to 600 copies which sold out immediately. A precious live recording from their early days, of Boris’s 1996 debut single song release, “Absolutego”, and “flood”, released in 2000, performed live together as “1 song, 1 production”.
(Reissued as part of Archive 1 on March 5, 2014. Limited to 1,000 copies).
Like the other Archive releases, this one was also recorded at Koenji 20000V. This time in 2001–so the band and the quality of the recording are much improved.
“Absolutego” is a sixty minute song released as one long track on Boris’ debut album. So a 15 minute version is quite truncated. This version has a slow three-note bass line that slowly adds feedbacking guitars and cymbals. At two and a half minutes, the drums loudly pound in–like Atsuo is introducing himself to the set. But five minutes, the full on washes of noise have taken over the song and a few minutes later, Atsuo starts scream/singing. The song starts speeding up and by 12 minutes there’s lots of cymbal crashing as the song crescendoes into a conclusion of feedback and warped sounds.
“flood” is a 70 minute song (!). It is their third album (which was recorded in four parts). This song is much prettier and far less abrasive and here is only 22 minutes long. It opens with a pretty, quiet melody. It is slow and moody punctuated by cymbals and echoing noises. At four minutes the vocals come in–quietly singing in harmony. Then the drums come crashing in, building to waves of guitar noise and cymbals as the loud bass pushes the song along. A break introduces a high three note riff as the singing continues. Is that Wata singing? By fifteen minutes, Atsuo is making judicious use of the gong–a great punctuating sound. The last seven minutes are a conclusion as the song drones out to the end.
This is one of my favorite archival releases. The band sounds great and they perfectly jam out these long songs.
Takeshi: Bass & Vocal ; Wata: Guitar & Echo ; Atsuo: Drums & Vocal
[READ: August 15, 2020] “The Report”
This is a short story and I agree with the first sentence: “The report is bizarre.”
A woman has hired a man to bring information about her husband. The man followed the woman’s husband who worked at an office in Barcelona. But he spends a lot of his time in Madrid. With another woman. They meet every Thursday and Friday
The wife does not want to know the other woman’s name.
But the man tells her that the other woman is very ugly–her husband turns off the light as soon as he can because, “her face frightens him.” He takes long showers after lovemaking.
Then the man stands up and says that there are solutions to problems like this–we know how to get rid of people. But the wife is not interested.
The man notices one of her husband’s sculptures–a phallic design for a fountain–water shoots out of the top.
While this is going on she takes dinner out of the oven. She says that even though she knows her husband never comes home on Fridays she always has dinner for him. He is appalled: “You do that while he’s pleasuring himself with another woman? You’re unbearable. He must hate you.”
Then he asks her: “Tell me how you fuck.” She is offended, but then they start laughing–they are drunk. She feels strangely charmed by him and intends to answer his question until she relies he’s not all that interested.
So he shows him the clay statue. She gets the fountain working but uses cava instead of water. She wraps the hose around his wrists and he laughs about being put in bondage.
The final line, when her husband returns the next morning is, much like the opening, very bizarre.
This was translated from the Swedish bu Saskia Vogel and I can’t tell if it’s a weak translation (I doubt it) or of this story is just really bizarre.
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