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Archive for the ‘Boris’ Category

Sam Lipsyte–“Package Tour” (New Yorker, June 8 & 15 2015)

Posted in Boris, Essays, History, Hitler, New Yorker, Sam Lipsyte, Soylent Green, Time Travel, Tiny Desk Concert on February 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »

815SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Heavy Rocks (2011).

Heavy Rocks, also known as Heavy Rocks 2011, was released at the same time as Attention Please and New Album.   The album has the same name and cover style and font as their 2002 album Heavy Rocks, although this one is purple and the 2002 release was orange.

Heavy Rocks shares the tracks “Jackson Head” and “Tu, La La” with New Album.
Heavy Rocks shares the tracks “Aileron” with Attention Please, although it is radically different.
New Album shares the songs “Hope,” “Party Boy” and “Spoon” with Attention Please. 

The vinyl edition features extended versions of “Missing Pieces” and “Czechoslovakia.”

Unlike the other two albums, this one is largely heavier, exploring their more metal urges.

“Riot Sugar” (“甘い暴動”, lit. “Sweet Riot”) 3:56  has a raw sound with a soaring solo and a chugging, heavy tone.  It abruptly ends mid guitar solo and segues into “Leak-Truth,yesnoyesnoyes-” (“Leak-本当の反対の反対の反対の反対-“, “Leak (The Opposite of the Opposite of the Opposite of a Real Opposition)”) 4:11  which opens with a quiet unprocessed guitar and then the song starts rocking out–a kind of grungy alt-rock sound.  The vocals are whispered with a kind of throbbing bass line throughout.

“Galaxians” 4:09 opens with pummeling drums and all kinds of (80s) arcade sounds–including a bomb dropping and Atsuo screaming and shouting.  It is heavy and raw and pure punk.

“Jackson Head” (“ジャクソンヘッド”) 3:00 The version of this song is less synthy than that on New Album.  It’s got those punky distorted vocals right up font a shouted chorus of Jackson Head repeated over and over.

“Missing Pieces” (14:27 on vinyl release) 12:22  starts slowly with a pretty guitar melody and muted vocals.  After 6 minutes the song rocks but doesn’t get too noisy.  But after two more minutes it turns into complete and utter noise for another 2 minutes.  Then it all drops away and goes back to the quiet intro guitars.  The last two minutes just rock out.

“Key” (“扉”, lit. “A Door”) 1:46 This is a quiet brief instrumental with twinkly keys and a soaring solo.  It segues into “Window Shopping” 3:57 which opens with a woman speaking Japanese and then some heavy riffage.  There’s a shoegaze echo on the whole thing, especially the doo doo/ doo doo chorus.

“Tu, la la” 4:21 Such a great riff they had to play it twice.  This is a heavier and more guitar based version than on New Album.  It’s my favorite Boris song.

“Aileron” (“エルロン”) 12:45  The version on Attention Please is 2 minutes of acoustic guitar.  This one is nearly 13 minutes, and it begins with a slow echoing guitar notes but it soon gets heavy.  It’s a long, slow, heavy piece with drones and echoed vocal for nearly the whole song, although after 12 minutes there is a delicate piano coda.

“Czechoslovakia” (“チェコスロバキア”, 5:46 on vinyl release) 1:35 Not sure what happens in the vinyl version, but this short rocker has loud guitars and thunderous drums.  Just as it’s about to take off it fades after 90 seconds and ends the album.  Always leave them wanting more.

[READ: February 8, 2016] “Package Tour”

This was the 2015 New Yorker fiction issue.  It featured several stories and several one-page essays from writers I like.  The subject this time was “Time Travel.”

For the final time travel essay Sam Lipsyte balks at a couple’s genuine desire to use a time machine to go back to Brooklyn a few decades to buy a cheaper brownstone.  People in Brooklyn apparently constantly bemoan who cheap places were in their youth, but this one, well:

I pictured the couple hunched in some rattling claptrap wormhole-traverser–because all time machines are built with scrap iron and held fast with duct tape and cut-rate rivets, even those designed for hunting down investment lofts.  Their lips would be peeled back by G-Forces as their ship shredded along the seam of the space-time continuum until they landed in Cobble Hill, 1974.  There they’d hop out, buy a building, and head back. (more…)

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Thomas McGuane–“Fall River” (New Yorker, June 8 & 15 2015)

Posted in Boris, Boston, MA, Essays, New Yorker, Racism, Religion, Sigur Rós, Stereolab, Thomas McGuane, Time Travel, Tiny Desk Concert on February 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »

815SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-New Album (2011).

In 2011, Boris released three albums at roughly the same time.  The three albums are linked because they share tracks (usually very different versions, sometimes radically different).  And, of course, the CD and LP feature different versions of several tracks (but none seem to have a different cover).

New Album shares the songs “Hope,” “Party Boy” and “Spoon” with Attention Please. 
New Album shares the tracks “Jackson Head” and “Tu, La La” with Heavy Rocks.
Heavy Rocks shares the tracks “Aileron” with Attention Please, although it is radically different.

Sargent House CD (Total length: 50:10).  Interestingly, this American release is longer than the other two.  It is quite poppy with some heavier elements.  There’s a lot of songs that could even be considered dancey (!).

“Flare” 5:04 opens with sirens blaring and a gentle electronic introduction a song bursts forth that feels like total J-pop.  A little heavy (in parts) but this is really dancey.  There’s a great Wata solo in the middle and a rather heavy ending.  The percussion throughout is very mechanical sounding like ea car engine sputtering.  It’s a remarkable sound for Boris.

“Hope” 3:43 is a poppy / shoegazey song sung by Wata. It’s synthy (with trippy synth sound effects  throughout).  It’s slick and catchy.  The version of Attention Please is a more organic, with strings instead of electronics.

“Party Boy” 3:48 opens with a synthy riff and thumping bass drums.  It is the catchiest thing they’re released with a really poppy chorus and interesting swirling synths around the vocals.  There’s even a harp in the middle of the song.  The version on Attention Please is much heavier with a buzzy bass guitar and almost no synths.

“Luna” 8:29 has fast electronic drums and processed Wata backing vocals.  It is super techno sounding.  The middle section is an instrumental with electronics that sound very Eastern (sped up, but that kind of scale).  It’s followed by some heavy guitars and pounding drums.  A ripping staccato guitar solo follows.  There’s even a few moments that sound like Sigur Rós.  Why the song “Black Original” didn’t make this album but is on the Japanese versions is a mystery to me.

“Spoon” 4:29 Opening with single keyboard notes over a pounding drums and distorted guitars, this song sung by Wata is fluid and catchy.  It’s the most shoegazey thing they’ve done so far.  There’s a total Stereolab vibe in this song.  The ending features a series of intense ascending chords.  The version on Attention Please has no synths, just shoegaze guitars.

“Pardon?” 6:00 The song opens with woozy electronic but soon changes to very gentle guitars and an almost jazzy bassline.  The whispered vocals are downright soothing.  There’s a trippy almost delicate guitar solo that runs through until the end.

“Jackson Head” 3:11 This is the most punk song on the record, but it’s electronic punk with very dark synths.  The lyrics are shouted with a repeated chant of “Jackson Head.”  The solo sounds like single, distorted snyth notes under the pulsing of the rhythm.  The version on Heavy Rocks is less synth menace, although it does sprinkle trippy synths throughout the song.

“Les Paul Custom ’86” 4:10 A whispered vocal over a thumping potential dance beat.  When Wata takes over vocals the song changes style, but only slightly.  Distant synths enter the song and try to install a melody on it, but it seems to be fighting everything else.  Wata’s spoken “echo” echos around your heads in a cool swirl (if you wear headphones).

“Tu, La La” 4:15 “Tu La La” has the best riff of any Boris song, It is fast and catchy and really interesting.  This version has strings that kind of overwhelm the greatness of the riff. (I prefer the version on Heavy Rocks)  The end of this version has an intense buildup of staccato strings.

“Looprider” 7:01 is a quiet song with a slow bassline and interesting guitar lines.   The last minute or so is fast synths, building and building with a siren effect that echoes the start of the album.

This is a pretty unexpected release from the band who created Heavy Rocks and Amplifier Worship, but I think it’s a great addition to their catalog.

For comparison sake:

Daymare LP Total length:       45:40

  1. “フレア (Vinyl Version)” (“Flare”; features introduction quoting the end of “Looprider”) 5:02
  2. “希望 -Hope-” 3:40
  3. “Party Boy (Vinyl Version)” 3:43
  4. “Black Original (Vinyl Version)” 4:33
  5. “Pardon?” 5:54
  6. “Spoon” 4:23
  7. “ジャクソンヘッド” (“Jackson Head”) 3:09
  8. “黒っぽいギター (Vinyl Version)” (“Dark Guitar”; English title “Les Paul Custom ’86”) 4:06
  9. “Tu, la la” 4:11
  10. “Looprider (Vinyl Version)” 6:59

Tearbridge CD Total length:       45:39

  1. “Party Boy” 3:49
  2. “希望 -Hope-” 3:43
  3. “フレア” (“Flare”) 4:21
  4. “Black Original” 4:27
  5. “Pardon?” 5:59
  6. “Spoon” 4:28
  7. “ジャクソンヘッド” (“Jackson Head”) 3:12
  8. “黒っぽいギター” (“Dark Guitar”; English title “Les Paul Custom ’86”) 4:09
  9. “Tu, la la” 4:15
  10. “Looprider” 7:13

[READ: February 5, 2016] “Fall River”

This was the 2015 New Yorker fiction issue.  It featured several stories and several one-page essays from writers I like.  The subject this time was “Time Travel.”

For this essay McGuane travels back to 1955 to his grandmother’s house in Fall River section of Boston.

He says there is little compassion between the duchies of this town.  The Irish Catholics dominate every neighborhood, with each having its own church.  But eventually Irish Catholic men like his uncles started showing interest in the Italian, French Canadian and Jewish girls–going so far as to marry some of them.

He wants to go back there to 1955 when there were half as many people and each town had its own personality.  The ragman is known as “the sheeny” and he imagines that the sheeny is a soon-to-be-famous sculptor.  He brings up a lot of other single incidents, like the “Portagee” boy who came to exact revenge on the author;s brother for breaking his arm.  Or how Emeril Lagasse comes from “up the Flint.”  There’s Cockney immigrants Down Almy Street who are known as “jicks” (a one-size-fits-all Irish insult). (more…)

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Daniyal Mueenuddin–“Lost Luggage” (New Yorker, June 8 & 15 2015)

Posted in Boris, Crocodiles, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Essays, Guns, India, Law, New Yorker, Time Travel, Tiny Desk Concert on February 19, 2018| Leave a Comment »

815SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Pink (2005/2016).

You never know exactly what you’re going to get with an experimental band like Boris.  Well, you sort of know what you’re going to get–it will be loud and heavy (mostly).

Boris is and pretty much always has been a trio from Japan: Takeshi on vocals, and double neck bass/ guitar;  Atsuo on drums and some vocals and Wata – with guitars effects and vocals.

.  Their first album came out in 1996 and was a 60 minute continuous piece of drone metal.  It is considered ground breaking (and ground shaking) and is completely influential.  It (along with half of their catalog) is currently out of print, at least in the U.S.  Boris is also nigh impossible to collect all of their music, if you like that sort of thing.  Their Japanese releases are inevitably different from any American release (and sometimes vinyl differs from CD).  Either by track order or length of song or even the mix of particular songs

A decade and eight (plus) releases later with names like Amplifier Worship and Heavy Rocks, they put out Pink.

Pink is a landmark album for Boris (two years ago they toured the album),  because even though it was still incredibly heavy, it also experimented.  Most notably with shoegaze.

.

Pink has a specific track listing on both American and Japanese releases, but the vinyl mixes things up.

The CD releases open with “決別” (“Farewell”) a beautiful soaring 7 minute slow song with a catchy chord sequence and lovely ringing guitars.  Although the beauty is interrupted by Wata’s wailing guitar solos.  She plays some wonderful soaring notes although at times they are rather piercing.  But it’s still kind of soothing and dreamy

Until track 2, when “Pink” scorches forth with a  super fast super heavy super guitar blast.  Four minutes of all out metal with soaring guitars, heavy drums and some appropriate screams from drummer/singer Atsuo.  And if you listen with headphones, there may be two or three guitars echoing in there (in addition to Wata, Tetsuo exclsuivly plays a doubleneck bass/guitar so you never really know what you’re going to get form him next.

The two and a half-minute “スクリーンの女” (“Woman on the Screen”) continues the thrash while the two-minute “別になんでもない” (“Nothing Special”) only increases it with a guitar so fuzzed out as to be almost recognizable.

“ブラックアウト” (“Blackout”) shows another side of the band.   Still loud, still heavy, but grindingly slow and sludgy (those shoegaze days are long gone).  The song ends with nearly a minute of ringing feedback before abruptly cutting off and switching to a more standard heavy metal sound in the 75 second instrumental “Electric.”

“偽ブレッド” (“Pseudo-Bread”) stomps along with fast drums and all kinds of distortion.  It’s even got a kind of mumbly sing-along chorus.  In the second half of these song there’s a great riff and even some “ooh oohs” to sing along to.  It’s really catchy until the ten seconds of noise tacked on at the end (the vinyl version extends this sheer brutal wall of noise to six minutes!).

“ぬるい炎” (“Afterburner”) changes tempo a lot.  It sounds like a big old 1970s rock song with chanted vocals and hand claps.  Wata’s solo is pure old school classic rock.  Prominent drums and highly distorted guitars split headphones as the vocals sit in the middle of the three-minute “6を3つ” (“Six, Three Times”).

“My Machine” is only two minutes on the CD, but it is eleven on the vinyl.  The Cd version taken from the middle of the song–where there’s more bass and echoed guitars underneath, while the eleven minute version has soaring guitars and washes of waves moving back and forth.  It’s dreamy and lovely until the ending feedback, of course.  But that fades out and then it’s just relaxing washes of waves until the main melody pokes it head back up briefly and then fades once more.  There’s a kind of rumble for the last minute or so of the extended version which leads into “Farewell” on the vinyl.  But the CD continues with “俺を捨てたところ” (“Just Abandoned Myself”).  On the American release, it’s eighteen minutes long, although it’s only ten minutes on the Japanese version.

The song is a favorite of many fans.  It’s got a totally catchy riff with distant vocals singing a catchy melody.  It’s like 7 minutes of a super catchy metal song with great vocals, a catchy melody and a terrific baseline riff.  There’s some very cool sounds that bounce around the song too.  Around eight minutes the heaviness goes away and soaring guitars take over, but with a low rumble to keep it grounded.  The next six or so minutes are pretty much classic metal drone–two chords repeated slowly while a feebacking guitar wails over the top.  The only difference is the kind of quieter guitar that;s sort of soloing throughout–almost plucking out notes amid the noise.

Pink was reissued in 2016 as a deluxe two disc package.  The second disc is called Forbidden Songs with nine well-produced and great-sounding tracks.

“Your Name Part 2” is dreamy and melodic.  It opens quietly almost like a spaghetti western with some bass notes, soaring guitar notes, and quietly echoed vocals.  “Heavy Rock Industry” starts with some loud droning chords and then about a minute an a half in there’s just drums and Atsuo whooping until the song takes off again.  “SOFUN” is four minutes of a heavy pummeling riff and scorching solos.

“non/sha/lant” is like a heavy short jam with bass riffage and soloing followed by some guitar work.  “Room Noise” is catchy with a cool bassline and soaring guitars.  “Talisman” is slow and heavy with loud distortion.  There’s a shouted chorus with heavy downtuned guitars that makes it almost singalongy.

“N.F. Sorrow” is nearly eight minutes long.  starts off slow with echoed vocals and a shaker.  It’s a quiet moody piece that builds to a heavy chorus with rumbling slow bass.  When the song really gets moving around 6 minutes there’s some great driving bass under Wata’s solo.

“Are You Ready?” is a simple two note riff on the guitar with a chorus of loudly whispered menace.  The song fades on a wild solo.  And the bonus disc ends with the 2 minute “Tiptoe” a quiet piece of gently plucked guitars and echoed notes that resolves into a really catchy melody.

Boris has dozens of records out but this is certainly the place to start–you get to experience pretty much all phases of the band.

[READ: July 21, 2015] “Lost Luggage”

This was the 2015 New Yorker fiction issue.  It featured several stories and several one-page essays from writers I like.  The subject this time was “Time Travel.”

Mueenudin imagines travelling back in time to the 1930s when India was still unified, to visit his father when he was young.

His father was a lawyer and when he studied at Oxford, the girls nicknamed him The Shiek. (more…)

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Boris (Union Transfer, Philadelphia PA, October 28, 2017)

Posted in Boris, Endon, Helms Alee, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer on October 28, 2017| 2 Comments »

[ATTENDED: October 28, 2017] Boris

I’ve been a fan of Japanese band Boris for about ten years since my friend Lar got me into them.  But I really got into them with the reissue of Pink last year.  I was bummed to have just missed their tour supporting the Pink reissue and immediately put them on the top of my bands to see live.

And how much do I love that touring poster.

There was a rumor that they were about to call it quits after 25 years, but they decided to do one last album (which has turned into something more entirely).  It also meant another tour of the States.

I could say that I was slightly disappointed when I discovered that they were only going to be playing the new album in its entirety, until that is I realized that Boris could play pretty much anything I and I’d be excited to see them (plus the new album is really good). (more…)

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Helms Alee (Union Transfer, Philadelphia PA, October 28, 2017) [BORIS]

Posted in Boris, Endon, Helms Alee, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer on October 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 28, 2017] Helms Alee

It was going to be hard to follow up Endon.  And thankfully, Helms Alee did not try to out-intense them.

Rather, they went for a different sound–one that was really fantastic.

Helms Alee is a trio from Seattle.  I was standing more or less in front of bassist Dana James and drummer Hozoji Matheson-Margullis.

Dana James had an incredible bass sound.  Low and fat and loud and rumbly.  It was great.  And Hozoji Matheson-Margullis was so intense on the drums.  Her kit was fairly small (I loved the design on the drum head even if I still can’t figure it out), but man, did she bring the power.

On the right was guitarist Ben Verellen.  He and James played similar rumbling riffs for much of the songs, but he would occasional punctuate the songs with some great solos.   (more…)

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Endon (Union Transfer, Philadelphia PA, October 28, 2017) [BORIS]

Posted in Boris, Endon, Helms Alee, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer on October 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 28, 2017] Endon

I had never heard of Endon before this show.  They are a Japanese metal band who seems to have coined the term “catastrophic noise metal.”

And they were easily the most intense band I have ever seen live.

The guys on the left walked out on stage.  They said nothing, just picked up their gear.  The guitarist played a chord and everyone around me immediately put in earplugs. (more…)

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