SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Crossing Waltz (2016).
Boris have put out (by my understanding) eight live albums. As with most of their releases, they’re not all easy to find. I happened to get this one because they were selling it at the show I was at (many of their releases seem to be only for sale at the merch table). This one is from their own Fangs Anal Satan label. It was released in 2016 but was recorded sometime around 2011.
It happens that this era is one that I know best (they put out three albums on the same day and they are all still available) so this is a fun live album for me since it’s fun to hear the distinctions and their ability to translate them in a live setting.
The disc opens with a two-minute intro–sirens from the opening of “Heavy Rocks 2011” which leads into “Riot Sugar.” The song is heavy–it rocks out and is full of Atsuo’s whoops and yells–the sign of a real rocking song. “8” is a song I didn’t know. It starts with a lot of gong and has some great falsetto vocals.
“Statement” is great to hear live because it’s cool that they can play the songs just like on record. Not that it sounds like the record exactly, but that they can recreate the music live–and keep it all catchy too.
Then things slow down for a few songs from Wata. “Attention Please” is quiet and silky with cool guitar and effects. I love the way Wata delivers the quiet, whispered lyrics. It’s followed by “Party Boy.” “Party Boy” appears on two records. It’s hard to know which “version” this is but this one is slinky, dancey and heavy at the same time (we’ll say Attention Please, since there’s not much synth)..
“Flare” is from a 7″ and it is very heavy. Then it’s back to Wata singing the really catchy “Spoon” with heavy drums. The first disc ends with the 16 minute “Missing Pieces” (longer than the album by a few minutes). Like a good epic, it starts slowly. After three minutes Atsuo introduces a lot of drums and then the bass and guitar roar for about a minute. It fades to near quiet once again. There’s a minute or so of just vocals before the guitars come back, this time with soloing while Takeshi is singing. Around six minutes in it turns to noise, noise, noise–both guitars on feedback and scraping and the drummer going bananas. The band stops on a dime for complete silence and then takes off again–noise and more noise. There’s feedback and gongs and more feedback. And then at 11 and a half minutes the drums return–continuing through to the end.
Disc two opens with “Window Shopping” which is all about fuzz and buzz, full of Atsuo’s yeahs and a crazy wild solo at the end from Wata.
Then they move back to some older albums for 2 songs. “1970” comes from 2002’s Heavy Rocks album (the orange one). It is full of bass rumble. It leads to the classic “Pink” with gongs as the transition. Even all of these years later, these songs are full of power.
“Alierion” is the longer version. It starts slow and quiet and builds and builds, getting heavier for 12 or so minutes. The last minute is a solo piano melody, a dramatic departure for them. Then the sirens come in again for “Looprider.” “Looprider” is eight catchy minutes of shoegazey fun.
The by now standard closing of “Farewell” ends the show. Hearing those opening notes live was great and it is great here. The song sounds terrific.
One of the things about Boris live is that their vocals are never clear. Perhaps if you understand Japanese the vocals are more obvious, but it feels like they may be something of an afterthought, especially live. The band is all about the sonic experience and the vocals, the voice, is just another piece of that.
[READ: February 8, 2016] “Quaestio de Centauris”
I was sure that I had read or posted about stories from Primo Levi before 2016, but I see no evidence of it.
Perhaps I have never read him, just heard of him. I don’t know if this story is anything like what he typically writes, but it was a pretty unexpected story topic (continuing with the theme of this issue, apparently).
The story was translated from the Italian by Jenny McPhee. And, as one might decipher from the title, the story is about centaurs.
The narrator says that his father kept a centaur in the barn. Although he admonished the boy not to bother it, the bot and the centaur, Trachi, became friends. Trachi even allowed him to ride on his back from time to time. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 