SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-“urban dance” (2015).
Back in 2015, Boris released three albums on the same day all under the “new noise literacy” banner: “urban dance” “warpath” and “asia” [according to their label numbers, this is the order they go in].
All three records are experiments in abrasive noise. Despite the adorable child on the covers, these records will scare children.
This album has five songs, two of which actually take a break from the relentless noise that’s present on “asia.”
“Un, deux, trois” (French for “One, Two, Three”) starts out with a series of distortion bursts, a beat of distortion coupled with a wall of noise that follows up. It’s harsh and unwelcoming. But at just over 4 minutes it’s one of the shorter noise compositions on these three discs. Around three minutes it sounds like distorted electronic balloons being manipulated and then the air let out. The noise drops of for the last seven seconds before the next song starts.
“Surrender” is pretty much the only thing resembling a proper song on these discs. It’s got bass, drums, guitar and vocals. It’s also got a melody. The overall feeling is one of shoegaze and the melodies, both guitar and vocal are really pretty. Although this being an album of noise, it couldn’t help but add a hugely noisy field of distortion to the middle of the song almost as an instrumental break. There’s a second distortion interruption in the song that lasts long enough to make it seem like maybe there’s no more music. But the song returns, keeping that melody until the end.
“Choreographer” is nearly nine minutes long. It starts with a rumble and electronic feedbacking. There’s some soaring sounds buried in the rumble–some lead guitar notes (feedbacking) that add a little structure to the noise; at times it sounds like a guitar trying to fight its way out of a pile of noise.
“Endless” is a little different than the other songs. It has a bit more of a drone feel than a noise and distortion feel. It’s still a wall of sound, but rather than a low rumble of noise, it’s more like high notes feeding of of each other. After three minutes it feels like a distant dreamy melody is soaring in from afar. A couple minutes later some drums come in, a militant beat putting some tempo to the rest of the sounds. With about four minutes left, a series of four drum hits with a cymbal add a nice regular pattern to the song–making the drums an almost catchy element because of its consistency. The end of the song has a bit more notable percussion until it drops out and the song fades on its own.
“Game of Death” is even longer at over 11 minutes. It starts with sharp feedback and low pulsing space sounds full of distortion and noise. But after a minute it turns into a full on raging distortion fest. It feels like maybe two or more different sources of distortion rumbling in and playing atop the other ones. About midway through, a higher-pitched distortion comes in and swirls around. But for the most part it’s a relentless barrage of noise, with some interesting new (but still noisy) sounds in the last minute.
The album is credited to: takeshi: guitar, bass & vocals / wata: guitar & echo / atsuo: drums & electronics.
[READ: November 1, 2020] “Hungry Self”
I’ve noted that I rather enjoyed Rebecca Curtis’ more recent stories, so I was disappointed by how much I didn’t really like this one.
As I think about it there was nothing bad about it, it just felt a little flat and mean-spirited without much more.
The narrator is working at a Vietnamese restaurant. She is a waitress. She likes the boss’s son; he thinks she is disgusting. One of the chefs likes her. He has no teeth and sells cocaine in the basement. She snorts with him but nothing else.
She noticed that a customer who sat down was her former therapist. The woman gave “the smile you give a waitress if you’re the kind of person who is nice to a waitress.”
Her ex-psychiatrist was overweight and this issue had caused them all trouble. Initially, the waitress’ whole family was seeing the psychiatrist together and the waitress’ father commented about her weight. He asked the waitress how much she thought the psychiatrist weighed and the waitress replied 260. The psychiatrist insisted that they be seen individually from then on.
The next time, when the waitress was alone, the psychiatrist told the waitress about Harry’s Diet Pretzels which she now ate all the time.
The psychiatrist was very nice, but the waitress didn’t want that.
I wante a shirtty tip so I could have a reason for hating the fat ugly lesbian, a reason other than that she had once seen me cry.
The psychiatrist and her lover ordered lo mein (noodles in oil–food that the fat woman definitely did not need) and egg drop soup (the soup most likely to have a roach at the bottom).
When the psychiatrist left, the tip was good, “so as to say ‘We like you’ but not too good so as to say, ‘We feel bad for you obviously.'”
I wanted more to happen here. Oddly enough I couldn’t tell where the story was set. I initially thought Vietnam, but that doesn’t make sense.
I was really bummed when this show was postponed. I was even more bummed when it was moved to the Church. I really liked the venue when we first arrived, but by the end, I was hot and sweaty and crowded and worn out.
Einstürzende Neubauten are infamous–they have been making noise (their name means collapsing new buildings) for forty years.
