BORFUL TANG Herd And Unherd (Gigante Sound) cd-r 7.98
At long last, a new release from the elusive and mysterious Borful Tang (for his head scratching back history, please refer to our reviews for his Root cd and On The Back Of A Dying Beast 2cd-r). A mischievous sound collagist, he's like some peculiar sonic macrame'd synthesis of Negativland, John Oswald's Plunderphonics, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and the Sun City Girls / Sublime Frequencies camp... but he doesn't stop there! He then can match immersive wits with the best of the dronologists too. At times Herd And Unherded is languidly lulling, at others it's a barrel of percolating loopiness, while still at others sinisterly possessed. Mr. Tang is clearly something of an obsessive collector of sound sources. He's amassed a vaultful of tapes and vinyl - field recordings, video game soundtracks, religious AM radio broadcasts and other disembodied voices to name just a few. He consults with them, meticulously pares and processes 'em, and the pieces are then refashioned into something which is altogether new, yet haunted by the eclectic phantoms of the past. Add to this sonic palette an arsenal of a homemade electronic gadgets, and you have something festooned with mad scientist goggles and soldering goo. Go on, give your ears a wild feast to munch on. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Xevious"
MPEG Stream: "Herd And Unherd"

BORFUL TANG On The Back Of A Dying Beast (Gigante Sound) 2cd-r 9.98
First things first, please don't let the dvd-style case fool you! Contained within are not one but two cd-rs by the cryptic entity known as Borful Tang. If you need this mysterious being's back story, please refer to our review of his last release titled Root from a couple years ago.
As a brief recap though, legend has it that Borful Tang is not an earthly being, and its human conduit is Bay Area man-of-many-hats Dominic Cramp. On The Back Of A Dying Beast zeroes in on a select few of the key passages of the previous release (sadly tho' they don't include his previous churning NoMeansNo-isms), and explores them thoroughly -- fleshing out what was only glimpsed fleetingly on Root.
Disc One floods the air with effects-heavy layers of BBC Radiophonic style analog synth wanderings, sporadic android chatter and sludgy lumps of drone. Disc Two on the other hand is far more spare, hushed and calm even.
We suspect that with the consumption of the right, ahem, 'enhancing' substances this could really take you places. Quite the transportive listen. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Juggernaut Soliloquy"
MPEG Stream: "The Tides Of Land"

BORFUL TANG Root (Snurp) cd 9.98
Who or what is Borful Tang? Well, according to the website of the delightfully named Snurp (the folks who released this cd), the mysterious 'it' is a 'he', and outcast from a distant place and time. Legend has it that Borful Tang was a hill herder who moved hills with sound. Still with us? Okay then, if you'd like to discover his lengthy full story for yourself you can find it where we did, but in the meantime here we have his cd Root -- his wildly eclectic music apparently having been transmitted to us via the conduit known as Dominic Cramp -- quite a multi-faceted gent in his own right (also recording under the monikers of Qulfus, Amazing Colossal Man and Modular Set). Borful Tang's music is trippy, out there, and particularly in the early part of this album, very NoMeansNo-ish in its propulsive tech-y bass lines. Heck, the first track is titled "Borful Tang Loves NoMeansNo"! And we think NoMeansNo samples may be the secret. The latter tracks feature collaged computer voice conversations (sourced from what we guess were English speech lesson tapes) and burbly analog electronics. We'll bet quite a broad range of strange music lovers will dig this... if the names Plunderphonics, Negativland, NoMeansNo, BBC Radiophonic Workshop tickle your aural funnybone!
MPEG Stream: "Borful Tang Loves NoMeansNo"
MPEG Stream: "John And Mary In: "The Restaurant""

BORGES, LO s/t (Water) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We first heard Lo Borges as singer and songwriter on the mighty Clube Da Esquina, Milton Nascimento's 1972 epic double record, we listed awhile back. That record has been a consistently steady seller since we listed it, and with good reason, it's incredible! But while Nascimento and Borges actually collaborated together on much of it, it's mostly regarded as a Nascimento record. So it's great to see Lo Borge's self titled debut solo album from the same year finally reissued by the Water label, to shine a much deserved spotlight on this underrated artist. And we have to say, it's equally as incredible and essential as Clube De Esquina, Eduardo Mateo's Mateo Solo Bien Se Lame, Caetano Veloso's Transa, or Gilberto Gil's Cerebro Electronico! With a nod to the cover art, those are big shoes indeed!
Recorded when he was just entering his twenties, the scope of artistry on display seems to be by someone so much more experienced. Not only is Borges at the top of his game as a singer and songwriter, but the arrangements and musicianship are just as dazzling. Most of the songs barely squeak over the two minute mark, but he packs so many ideas into a song without losing its central focus and at the same time giving everything lots of space. Here and there a string section drops in and out, a flurry of baroque piano, soaring flutes, a jazzy organ swell, searing electric guitar, hints of electronic psychedelic washes. At times romantic and mysterious, other times more urgent with rhythms picking up and slowing down in tempo to evoke a wide range of emotive qualities. This is a record we'll probably be playing all summer long. We can't recommend it enough!
MPEG Stream: "Voce Fica Melhor Assim"
MPEG Stream: "Como O Machado"
MPEG Stream: "Nao Se Apague Esta Noite"
MPEG Stream: "Aos Baroes"

BORGHESIA Clones (Dark Entries) lp 15.98
Here, Dark Entries reissues the terminally obscure second album from the Slovenian minimal-wave quartet Borghesia. The band formed in 1982 during the death throes of the fractious Yugoslavian republic, operating in a liminal space between the art world and the underground punk scene, through their own club Disco FV. During these early years, the quartet produced video installations and performances alike, with the sound design being an instrumental, hard-edged variant on new wave sensibilities. By the mid '80s, the project stripped down to a duo and took up a sweaty DAF-inspired muscularity of industrial funk. But here on Clones (originally self-released as a cassette in 1984), we find Borghesia doing their best work. All instrumental trax of hypnotic, pulsing electronics with some very forward thinking 808 drum programming that foreshadowed the reductionist strategies of Detroit electro and techno, albeit within a context that favored the darker sounds of The Human League and Soft Cell. The A side features spry and punchy tracks with plenty of elliptical arpeggiations and ramped up BPMs, whereas the B side is more pastoral and slower, sporting an eerie, melodic homage to Cindy Sherman. Clones, indeed!

BORGHESIA Ljubav Je Hladnija Od Smrti (Dark Entries) lp 15.98
At the time Borghesia was formed in 1982, Yugoslavia was beginning to exhibit the cracks in its federalist system of government; by good fortune, the Croatian born members of Borghesia, Aldo Ivancic and Dario Seraval, chose to study in Ljubjana, located in Slovenia - the state which peacefully separated from the Yugoslavian federation in 1990, unlike those states to the south. Ljubjana had long been the home of a lively arts and music scene, having spawned a number of underground venues / art-spaces including the first gay disco which caused considerable controversy within the conservative society at large. This was also home for Laibach, the Irwin Group, and other arms of the Neue Slowenische Kunst collective. Borghesia had always played second fiddle to Laibach, even though they really sounded nothing like the band. Where Laibach offered bleak appropriation of cultural elements within a cold industrial context, Borghesia was one of the early proponents of "electronic body music" - the sweaty electro-funk that really exploded out of Belgium by the late '80s, with D.A.F., Cabaret Voltaire, and Chris & Cosey influencing Borghesia's hedonistic, leather-clad electronics. The mutant funk sensibility takes up tracks like "A.R." and "Brisk Vomit" with choppy guitars, darkly bubbled electronics, and neck-wrangled basslines. On the aforementioned "A.R.", Borghesia filters the vocals through a megaphone of barked sloganeering for the closest thing that the band ever came to sounding like Laibach. The dirge "Tako Mladi" with its whip crack, reversed delay, and stalking electronic sequences is probably the strongest track on the record, through its oppressive atmosphere.
This album was originally released on an Italian label in 1985, and came with Italian translations of the Croatian lyrics. Those have now been transcribed into English, but keeping the same oversized poster with dot-matrix artwork / text that was on the original. As with all Dark Entries releases, this has been exquisitely remastered and pressed on big chunky vinyl. Limited to 500 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Tako Mladi"
MPEG Stream: "Kdo Je Ugasnil Luc"
MPEG Stream: "On"

BORIS 1970 b/w Wareruraido (Inoxia) 7" 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yes, yet another new Boris release, however this one is not entirely new. Two of the best tracks from their epic Heavy Rocks release, slightly different demo versions as far as we can tell. Not sure if everyone needs this, as it is a bit pricey, but Boris freaks will no doubt want this, for the slightly different versions as well as the cool seventies line drawing band portrait cover art. And vinyl fanatics may want to pick this up since Heavy Rocks was cd only, so these are the only two tracks from those sessions to make it on to wax!

BORIS Akuma No Uta (DIWPhalanx) cd 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fans of the band that began as Japan's answer to the Melvins, and then took a wayback machine ride into the '70s, Boris, can start rejoicing now. After a long while, we've finally got a whole bunch of Boris back in stock. AND, we've got a whole brand new recording as well! Whoo-hoo. Akuma No Uta is a 32 minute, six song mini-album that offers up a smorgasbord of styles from past Boris albums, drawing from the heavier-than-thou rumble of Absolutego, the exquisite beauty of Flood, and the sheer jams-out-kickin' of Heavy Rocks. Starting off with a two and half minute Earth-esque drone-metal intro (although for some reason unknown to us, the intro track on the vinyl version is seven minutes longer than that on the cd, so drone freaks may have to get the lp, or what the heck, get both!), the record then slams into the riffed-out, noisy stormer "Ibitsu". Distorted, manic, tear-shit-up stuff. After another song in the same Hendrix meets the Stooges style psych-punk rawk vein, Boris switch gears again, for the album's centerpiece, a twelve-minute opus entitled "Naki Kyoku" that begins all super languid, quiet and pretty before building into a soaring psychedelic jam. The jams continue on the next track, another stoner rockin' blow-out. Finally, title track "Akuma No Uta" winds things up with a return to the immense sludge grind of track one, melded into a headbanging groove, ending the disc on an adrenaline high. I'm sure there's mulleted, pot-smoking high-schoolers in Japan scribbling Boris logos on their binders...or so we'd like to think.
You'll note from the price that the yen isn't doing us Americans any favors right now. Ah well. Boris is worth a few extra bucks, as fans will no doubt agree. Worth their weight in yen for sure, and well, you know they're heavy. The vinyl version is even pricier, but it's perhaps got the cooler artwork (yes, they're different) with a cover that perfectly re-creates Nick Drake's Bryter Layter! Except with double neck electric guitar-bass instead of acoustic guitar... Real nice.
And be aware (beware?), for soon to come is another Boris, the bottom-heavy full-length known as Boris At Last aka Feedbacker. We should have that as soon as it's out, we'll keep you informed!
MPEG Stream: "Furi"
MPEG Stream: "Akuma No Uta"

BORIS Akuma No Uta (DIWPhalanx) lp 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fans of the band that began as Japan's answer to the Melvins, and then took a wayback machine ride into the '70s, Boris, can start rejoicing now. After a long while, we've finally got a whole bunch of Boris back in stock. AND, we've got a whole brand new recording as well! Whoo-hoo. Akuma No Uta is a 32 minute, six song mini-album that offers up a smorgasbord of styles from past Boris albums, drawing from the heavier-than-thou rumble of Absolutego, the exquisite beauty of Flood, and the sheer jams-out-kickin' of Heavy Rocks. Starting off with a two and half minute Earth-esque drone-metal intro (although for some reason unknown to us, the intro track on the vinyl version is seven minutes longer than that on the cd, so drone freaks may have to get the lp, or what the heck, get both!), the record then slams into the riffed-out, noisy stormer "Ibitsu". Distorted, manic, tear-shit-up stuff. After another song in the same Hendrix meets the Stooges style psych-punk rawk vein, Boris switch gears again, for the album's centerpiece, a twelve-minute opus entitled "Naki Kyoku" that begins all super languid, quiet and pretty before building into a soaring psychedelic jam. The jams continue on the next track, another stoner rockin' blow-out. Finally, title track "Akuma No Uta" winds things up with a return to the immense sludge grind of track one, melded into a headbanging groove, ending the disc on an adrenaline high. I'm sure there's mulleted, pot-smoking high-schoolers in Japan scribbling Boris logos on their binders...or so we'd like to think.
You'll note from the price that the yen isn't doing us Americans any favors right now. Ah well. Boris is worth a few extra bucks, as fans will no doubt agree. Worth their weight in yen for sure, and well, you know they're heavy. The vinyl version is even pricier, but it's perhaps got the cooler artwork (yes, they're different) with a cover that perfectly re-creates Nick Drake's Bryter Layter! Except with double neck electric guitar-bass instead of acoustic guitar... Real nice.
And be aware (beware?), for soon to come is another Boris, the bottom-heavy full-length known as Boris At Last aka Feedbacker. We should have that as soon as it's out, we'll keep you informed!
MPEG Stream: "Furi"
MPEG Stream: "Akuma No Uta"

BORIS Attention Please (Sargent House) cd 15.98
Ah, BORIS! The band that everybody loves (or if they don't love 'em, they probably love to hate 'em...). The Melvins-worshipping Japanese "heavy rock" band that started off in the '90s as an import-only cult fave, and eventually got picked up over here by Southern Lord. The next thing you know, they turned into an unstoppable juggernaut of super limited edition releases and unlikely collaborations, and got BIG. For a while, they were definitely a band that could do no wrong, combining that Melvins-y sludge, and equally Melvins-y weirdness, with their own, innate Japanese "WTF?" aesthetic... In addition they boast the presence of a female singer/guitar player, Wata, who is both cute and talented. And making themselves even more potent proposition, they also recruited noted psychedelic guitar whiz Michio Kurihara (Ghost, White Heaven, Stars) more or less permanently into their ranks.
Yet, in recent years, Boris has also been courting a backlash, the way we see it, as anything hyped to the skies usually does. Those aforementioned ridiculously limited editions have something to do with it... and what can come off as a too ironic attitude to everything... and when we've seen 'em live, well, memo to drummer Atsuo: the gong is cool, but the headset microphone maybe isn't so much.
So, we've been Boris fans for a long long time, and still are, but we'll confess to wondering if it could be said that Boris finally (?) "jumped the shark" with last year's BXI ep, wherein they, oddly enough, teamed up with rock star Ian Astbury of The Cult (who is presumably still "big in Japan"). That disc was probably the first Boris release in history that didn't merit highlight status on our list... but hey, nobody's perfect.
But now, as if rising to the challenge, and/or making said challenge all the harder for themselves, Boris are back with not one but TWO* new albums for new US label Sargent House.
There's Attention Please, which undoubtedly will get a lot of attention, and not just 'cause of the glamor shot of Wata on the cover. She also sings on all the tracks, to this is definitely one for all you Wata fanciers out there! The other one is called Heavy Rocks, not to be confused with the earlier Boris album, that's also titled Heavy Rocks. Huh, what's with that, Boris? Why give two totally different albums the same name? Obviously to invite comparison (and for the record, while we're definitely digging this new purple 2011 one, if we had to choose between 'em, we'd pick the original, orange 2002 Heavy Rocks). Naming an album Heavy Rocks in the first place is a bold move, having two of 'em is just silly. Or ironic. Or something. Brilliant, perhaps. Oh, and this Heavy Rocks features another guest appearance from Ian Astbury, doing backing vocals on the track "Riot Sugar". There's other guests on the album as well: Aaron Turner (Isis, Mamiffer) and Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer), and regular Boris collaborator Kurihara. Heavy friends for Heavy Rocks!
First up, let's talk about Attention Please. Of the two albums, possibly more interesting to us as it's really quite a departure for Boris, plus we've always found Wata to be their most appealing singer anyway. Her delicate vocals are accompanied by some of the band's softest, most mellow material yet. There's acoustic guitars, and electronica elements, and it's all really quite nice. At times dramatic, dancey, dreamy, and/or rockin', one thing it's not is sludgey. Not that it doesn't get loud and noisy at times - shoegazing explosion of "Spoon" could probably have gone on the accompanying Heavy Rocks just as easily. But for the most part, if you didn't know it was Boris, well you wouldn't know it was Boris! The nervously rhythmic "Tokyo Wonder Land", with its stabbing psychedelic guitar sizzle, and glitchy tic-tic-tics of drums and electronics, is the highlight here for us, but we're pretty into the whole disc. Utterly captivating. Wata and Boris sound like they're channelling every dreamy girl fronted band from the nineties and beyond: My Bloody Valentine, Blonde Redhead, Adult, Amp, Noriko Tujiko, and even Grouper, and it works. Hopefully we'll hear more from this incarnation of Boris in the future, with Wata on the mic... we suspect we will! We think open minded Boris fans will indeed like this album - and it just might make 'em a lot of new fans too, who didn't have any idea Boris could or would sound like this.
Then, to Heavy Rocks (2011)... Drop the needle on track one, and you're greeted by a mean, heavy chugging riff, and it almost seems like, hey, they've gone full-on metal here, but that track, "Riot Sugar", becomes more of a howling psych stoner rock song, with hushed vocals. Off to a good start. The next track isn't nearly as heavy, it begins with some jangle, then a tangle of guitar soloing from Kurihara in his Quicksilver/Cippolina mode, there's also more of those hushed vox, and a general loud/soft songwriting dynamic, this track having echoes of both Nirvana and Can! Kinda sounds like something Kurihara's band Stars would do. Track three "GALAXIANS" is a more energetic, uptempo attack, lots of whoops and hollering going on, with thrashing drums, noisy guitar and electronic FX...
And so it goes, the album a mix of race-with-the-devil rockers and much moodier, shoegazey stuff. "Missing Pieces" is an example of the latter, a slow build from quiet ambience to almost Merzbowian jet-engine noise. The two final tracks are well worthy of mention, the penultimate, nearly 13 minute "Aileron" (greatly expanded, and of course heavied up, from the brief acoustic guitar version of the same track found on Attention Please), is another of the shoegazier pieces, super heavy, lumbering and lovely, reminding us a lot of Codeine, then after that there's "Czechoslovakia", at the very end of the album, a brief instrumental thrash metal number with electronic embellishments, sounds like something Circle would do in their NWOFHM mode, pretty killer, but of course we have to assume Boris sorta meant it as a joke, oh well, in any case it unfortunately fades out at 1:35, just as it's really gettin' good... if another five or ten minutes of this song as we imagine it actually existed, and were included here, that would definitely make Heavy Rocks even radder. Who knows, though, maybe it will continue on a forthcoming album entitled, Heavier Rocks?? (Our idea, but Boris you're welcome to it, sounds like something you'd do - well actually probably what Boris would do is release ANOTHER album also called Heavy Rocks.)
Anyway, to wrap up, these two new discs from Boris are both pretty darn good & satisfying overall. And both emblematic of the band's dabbling in an almost alt-pop, quasi-commercial (on their own terms, though!) direction, while staying HEAVY as they wanna be.
*There's actually a 3rd new Boris full-length as well, out in Japan only, the cleverly (?) titled New Album, which includes some of the same songs found on these two domestic US releases, though we'd imagine they're different recordings/versions, Boris being who they are (confusing!).
MPEG Stream: "Attention Please"
MPEG Stream: "Tokyo Wonder Land"
MPEG Stream: "Les Paul Custom '86"

BORIS Attention Please (Sargent House) lp 25.00
Ah, BORIS! The band that everybody loves (or if they don't love 'em, they probably love to hate 'em...). The Melvins-worshipping Japanese "heavy rock" band that started off in the '90s as an import-only cult fave, and eventually got picked up over here by Southern Lord. The next thing you know, they turned into an unstoppable juggernaut of super limited edition releases and unlikely collaborations, and got BIG. For a while, they were definitely a band that could do no wrong, combining that Melvins-y sludge, and equally Melvins-y weirdness, with their own, innate Japanese "WTF?" aesthetic... In addition they boast the presence of a female singer/guitar player, Wata, who is both cute and talented. And making themselves even more potent proposition, they also recruited noted psychedelic guitar whiz Michio Kurihara (Ghost, White Heaven, Stars) more or less permanently into their ranks.
Yet, in recent years, Boris has also been courting a backlash, the way we see it, as anything hyped to the skies usually does. Those aforementioned ridiculously limited editions have something to do with it... and what can come off as a too ironic attitude to everything... and when we've seen 'em live, well, memo to drummer Atsuo: the gong is cool, but the headset microphone maybe isn't so much.
So, we've been Boris fans for a long long time, and still are, but we'll confess to wondering if it could be said that Boris finally (?) "jumped the shark" with last year's BXI ep, wherein they, oddly enough, teamed up with rock star Ian Astbury of The Cult (who is presumably still "big in Japan"). That disc was probably the first Boris release in history that didn't merit highlight status on our list... but hey, nobody's perfect.
But now, as if rising to the challenge, and/or making said challenge all the harder for themselves, Boris are back with not one but TWO* new albums for new US label Sargent House.
There's Attention Please, which undoubtedly will get a lot of attention, and not just 'cause of the glamor shot of Wata on the cover. She also sings on all the tracks, to this is definitely one for all you Wata fanciers out there! The other one is called Heavy Rocks, not to be confused with the earlier Boris album, that's also titled Heavy Rocks. Huh, what's with that, Boris? Why give two totally different albums the same name? Obviously to invite comparison (and for the record, while we're definitely digging this new purple 2011 one, if we had to choose between 'em, we'd pick the original, orange 2002 Heavy Rocks). Naming an album Heavy Rocks in the first place is a bold move, having two of 'em is just silly. Or ironic. Or something. Brilliant, perhaps. Oh, and this Heavy Rocks features another guest appearance from Ian Astbury, doing backing vocals on the track "Riot Sugar". There's other guests on the album as well: Aaron Turner (Isis, Mamiffer) and Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer), and regular Boris collaborator Kurihara. Heavy friends for Heavy Rocks!
First up, let's talk about Attention Please. Of the two albums, possibly more interesting to us as it's really quite a departure for Boris, plus we've always found Wata to be their most appealing singer anyway. Her delicate vocals are accompanied by some of the band's softest, most mellow material yet. There's acoustic guitars, and electronica elements, and it's all really quite nice. At times dramatic, dancey, dreamy, and/or rockin', one thing it's not is sludgey. Not that it doesn't get loud and noisy at times - shoegazing explosion of "Spoon" could probably have gone on the accompanying Heavy Rocks just as easily. But for the most part, if you didn't know it was Boris, well you wouldn't know it was Boris! The nervously rhythmic "Tokyo Wonder Land", with its stabbing psychedelic guitar sizzle, and glitchy tic-tic-tics of drums and electronics, is the highlight here for us, but we're pretty into the whole disc. Utterly captivating. Wata and Boris sound like they're channelling every dreamy girl fronted band from the nineties and beyond: My Bloody Valentine, Blonde Redhead, Adult, Amp, Noriko Tujiko, and even Grouper, and it works. Hopefully we'll hear more from this incarnation of Boris in the future, with Wata on the mic... we suspect we will! We think open minded Boris fans will indeed like this album - and it just might make 'em a lot of new fans too, who didn't have any idea Boris could or would sound like this.
Then, to Heavy Rocks (2011)... Drop the needle on track one, and you're greeted by a mean, heavy chugging riff, and it almost seems like, hey, they've gone full-on metal here, but that track, "Riot Sugar", becomes more of a howling psych stoner rock song, with hushed vocals. Off to a good start. The next track isn't nearly as heavy, it begins with some jangle, then a tangle of guitar soloing from Kurihara in his Quicksilver/Cippolina mode, there's also more of those hushed vox, and a general loud/soft songwriting dynamic, this track having echoes of both Nirvana and Can! Kinda sounds like something Kurihara's band Stars would do. Track three "GALAXIANS" is a more energetic, uptempo attack, lots of whoops and hollering going on, with thrashing drums, noisy guitar and electronic FX...
And so it goes, the album a mix of race-with-the-devil rockers and much moodier, shoegazey stuff. "Missing Pieces" is an example of the latter, a slow build from quiet ambience to almost Merzbowian jet-engine noise. The two final tracks are well worthy of mention, the penultimate, nearly 13 minute "Aileron" (greatly expanded, and of course heavied up, from the brief acoustic guitar version of the same track found on Attention Please), is another of the shoegazier pieces, super heavy, lumbering and lovely, reminding us a lot of Codeine, then after that there's "Czechoslovakia", at the very end of the album, a brief instrumental thrash metal number with electronic embellishments, sounds like something Circle would do in their NWOFHM mode, pretty killer, but of course we have to assume Boris sorta meant it as a joke, oh well, in any case it unfortunately fades out at 1:35, just as it's really gettin' good... if another five or ten minutes of this song as we imagine it actually existed, and were included here, that would definitely make Heavy Rocks even radder. Who knows, though, maybe it will continue on a forthcoming album entitled, Heavier Rocks?? (Our idea, but Boris you're welcome to it, sounds like something you'd do - well actually probably what Boris would do is release ANOTHER album also called Heavy Rocks.)
Anyway, to wrap up, these two new discs from Boris are both pretty darn good & satisfying overall. And both emblematic of the band's dabbling in an almost alt-pop, quasi-commercial (on their own terms, though!) direction, while staying HEAVY as they wanna be.
*There's actually a 3rd new Boris full-length as well, out in Japan only, the cleverly (?) titled New Album, which includes some of the same songs found on these two domestic US releases, though we'd imagine they're different recordings/versions, Boris being who they are (confusing!).
MPEG Stream: "Attention Please"
MPEG Stream: "Tokyo Wonder Land"
MPEG Stream: "Les Paul Custom '86"

BORIS Heavy Metal Me (DIWPhalanx) dvd 32.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's indeed that time again. Where our customers act like crazy junkies who have FINALLY received their latest fix, which I guess they technically are. Although in this case the drug of choice is Japan's Boris, and the current fix is twofold, the just released full length Pink (reviewed elsewhere on this list) and this here DVD, the misleadingly titled Heavy Metal Me. Boris fans of all stripes will find stuff on here that is essential -- videos, a short film, and two live sets for those of you not lucky enough to see Boris on their recent tour.
First up is a video for the track "A Bao A Qu" from the soundtrack Mabuta No Ura, the perfect visual accompaniment to that track's ambient post rock drift, a sort of languid stroll around town, various band members walking down streets, sitting in parks, shots of skies and trees and shops warehouses and woods. Gorgeously tranquil. The next video is for another track from Mabuta No Ura, can't tell you the title cuz it's in Japanese, but it is an absolutely breathtaking series of abstact landscapes, that are perhaps either pieces of frayed and slowly undulating fabric, or maybe even internal organs, so alien looking and so beautiful.
The short film Heavy Metal Me is up next, a ten minute, super arty silent film with subtitles (in either Japanese or English), super blown out overexposed black and white and scratchy color Super8, very French New Wave, with quite a bit of sitting, and thinking, and walking and standing, lots of static shots and very obtuse subtitles. No sound, just occasionally the sound of no sound, a hissing distant white noise static. Quite beautiful actually!
Returning to the main, music side of Boris, you then get a live performance of "Feedbacker", the full 30 minutes, slow building and totally epic. With the stage drenched in rich colored lights, Wata stands illuminated, completely expressionless and immobile, a statue like guitar God! All the while the drummer and bass player work their way into a rock frenzy as the song reaches its superdistorted fuzz drenched climax.
The bonus track is a live performance of "Flood" in a tiny Japanese club, packed to the gills, with a ceiling just high enough for the band to stand on stage. Twenty minutes of creeping, drifting shimmering guitars and cymbal swells, before the sludge sets in, a monstrous pounding metallic crawl, with stoic guitarist Wata actually, for once, rocking out! Pretty amazing. And will definitely hit the spot for everyone who missed seeing Boris live last month.
As with everything Boris releases, beautifully designed and packaged. Even the menu and the credits look amazing, the credits especially with their dreamy ambient abstract Boris guitarscape accompaniment.

BORIS Heavy Rocks (2011) (Sargent House) cd 15.98
Ah, BORIS! The band that everybody loves (or if they don't love 'em, they probably love to hate 'em...). The Melvins-worshipping Japanese "heavy rock" band that started off in the '90s as an import-only cult fave, and eventually got picked up over here by Southern Lord. The next thing you know, they turned into an unstoppable juggernaut of super limited edition releases and unlikely collaborations, and got BIG. For a while, they were definitely a band that could do no wrong, combining that Melvins-y sludge, and equally Melvins-y weirdness, with their own, innate Japanese "WTF?" aesthetic... In addition they boast the presence of a female singer/guitar player, Wata, who is both cute and talented. And making themselves even more potent proposition, they also recruited noted psychedelic guitar whiz Michio Kurihara (Ghost, White Heaven, Stars) more or less permanently into their ranks.
Yet, in recent years, Boris has also been courting a backlash, the way we see it, as anything hyped to the skies usually does. Those aforementioned ridiculously limited editions have something to do with it... and what can come off as a too ironic attitude to everything... and when we've seen 'em live, well, memo to drummer Atsuo: the gong is cool, but the headset microphone maybe isn't so much.
So, we've been Boris fans for a long long time, and still are, but we'll confess to wondering if it could be said that Boris finally (?) "jumped the shark" with last year's BXI ep, wherein they, oddly enough, teamed up with rock star Ian Astbury of The Cult (who is presumably still "big in Japan"). That disc was probably the first Boris release in history that didn't merit highlight status on our list... but hey, nobody's perfect.
But now, as if rising to the challenge, and/or making said challenge all the harder for themselves, Boris are back with not one but TWO* new albums for new US label Sargent House.
There's Attention Please, which undoubtedly will get a lot of attention, and not just 'cause of the glamor shot of Wata on the cover. She also sings on all the tracks, to this is definitely one for all you Wata fanciers out there! The other one is called Heavy Rocks, not to be confused with the earlier Boris album, that's also titled Heavy Rocks. Huh, what's with that, Boris? Why give two totally different albums the same name? Obviously to invite comparison (and for the record, while we're definitely digging this new purple 2011 one, if we had to choose between 'em, we'd pick the original, orange 2002 Heavy Rocks). Naming an album Heavy Rocks in the first place is a bold move, having two of 'em is just silly. Or ironic. Or something. Brilliant, perhaps. Oh, and this Heavy Rocks features another guest appearance from Ian Astbury, doing backing vocals on the track "Riot Sugar". There's other guests on the album as well: Aaron Turner (Isis, Mamiffer) and Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer), and regular Boris collaborator Kurihara. Heavy friends for Heavy Rocks!
First up, let's talk about Attention Please. Of the two albums, possibly more interesting to us as it's really quite a departure for Boris, plus we've always found Wata to be their most appealing singer anyway. Her delicate vocals are accompanied by some of the band's softest, most mellow material yet. There's acoustic guitars, and electronica elements, and it's all really quite nice. At times dramatic, dancey, dreamy, and/or rockin', one thing it's not is sludgey. Not that it doesn't get loud and noisy at times - shoegazing explosion of "Spoon" could probably have gone on the accompanying Heavy Rocks just as easily. But for the most part, if you didn't know it was Boris, well you wouldn't know it was Boris! The nervously rhythmic "Tokyo Wonder Land", with its stabbing psychedelic guitar sizzle, and glitchy tic-tic-tics of drums and electronics, is the highlight here for us, but we're pretty into the whole disc. Utterly captivating. Wata and Boris sound like they're channelling every dreamy girl fronted band from the nineties and beyond: My Bloody Valentine, Blonde Redhead, Adult, Amp, Noriko Tujiko, and even Grouper, and it works. Hopefully we'll hear more from this incarnation of Boris in the future, with Wata on the mic... we suspect we will! We think open minded Boris fans will indeed like this album - and it just might make 'em a lot of new fans too, who didn't have any idea Boris could or would sound like this.
Then, to Heavy Rocks (2011)... Drop the needle on track one, and you're greeted by a mean, heavy chugging riff, and it almost seems like, hey, they've gone full-on metal here, but that track, "Riot Sugar", becomes more of a howling psych stoner rock song, with hushed vocals. Off to a good start. The next track isn't nearly as heavy, it begins with some jangle, then a tangle of guitar soloing from Kurihara in his Quicksilver/Cippolina mode, there's also more of those hushed vox, and a general loud/soft songwriting dynamic, this track having echoes of both Nirvana and Can! Kinda sounds like something Kurihara's band Stars would do. Track three "GALAXIANS" is a more energetic, uptempo attack, lots of whoops and hollering going on, with thrashing drums, noisy guitar and electronic FX...
And so it goes, the album a mix of race-with-the-devil rockers and much moodier, shoegazey stuff. "Missing Pieces" is an example of the latter, a slow build from quiet ambience to almost Merzbowian jet-engine noise. The two final tracks are well worthy of mention, the penultimate, nearly 13 minute "Aileron" (greatly expanded, and of course heavied up, from the brief acoustic guitar version of the same track found on Attention Please), is another of the shoegazier pieces, super heavy, lumbering and lovely, reminding us a lot of Codeine, then after that there's "Czechoslovakia", at the very end of the album, a brief instrumental thrash metal number with electronic embellishments, sounds like something Circle would do in their NWOFHM mode, pretty killer, but of course we have to assume Boris sorta meant it as a joke, oh well, in any case it unfortunately fades out at 1:35, just as it's really gettin' good... if another five or ten minutes of this song as we imagine it actually existed, and were included here, that would definitely make Heavy Rocks even radder. Who knows, though, maybe it will continue on a forthcoming album entitled, Heavier Rocks?? (Our idea, but Boris you're welcome to it, sounds like something you'd do - well actually probably what Boris would do is release ANOTHER album also called Heavy Rocks.)
Anyway, to wrap up, these two new discs from Boris are both pretty darn good & satisfying overall. And both emblematic of the band's dabbling in an almost alt-pop, quasi-commercial (on their own terms, though!) direction, while staying HEAVY as they wanna be.
*There's actually a 3rd new Boris full-length as well, out in Japan only, the cleverly (?) titled New Album, which includes some of the same songs found on these two domestic US releases, though we'd imagine they're different recordings/versions, Boris being who they are (confusing!).
MPEG Stream: "Riot Sugar"
MPEG Stream: "Leak -Truth,yesnoyesnoyes-"
MPEG Stream: "Aileron"

BORIS Heavy Rocks (2011) (Sargent House) lp 29.00
Ah, BORIS! The band that everybody loves (or if they don't love 'em, they probably love to hate 'em...). The Melvins-worshipping Japanese "heavy rock" band that started off in the '90s as an import-only cult fave, and eventually got picked up over here by Southern Lord. The next thing you know, they turned into an unstoppable juggernaut of super limited edition releases and unlikely collaborations, and got BIG. For a while, they were definitely a band that could do no wrong, combining that Melvins-y sludge, and equally Melvins-y weirdness, with their own, innate Japanese "WTF?" aesthetic... In addition they boast the presence of a female singer/guitar player, Wata, who is both cute and talented. And making themselves even more potent proposition, they also recruited noted psychedelic guitar whiz Michio Kurihara (Ghost, White Heaven, Stars) more or less permanently into their ranks.
Yet, in recent years, Boris has also been courting a backlash, the way we see it, as anything hyped to the skies usually does. Those aforementioned ridiculously limited editions have something to do with it... and what can come off as a too ironic attitude to everything... and when we've seen 'em live, well, memo to drummer Atsuo: the gong is cool, but the headset microphone maybe isn't so much.
So, we've been Boris fans for a long long time, and still are, but we'll confess to wondering if it could be said that Boris finally (?) "jumped the shark" with last year's BXI ep, wherein they, oddly enough, teamed up with rock star Ian Astbury of The Cult (who is presumably still "big in Japan"). That disc was probably the first Boris release in history that didn't merit highlight status on our list... but hey, nobody's perfect.
But now, as if rising to the challenge, and/or making said challenge all the harder for themselves, Boris are back with not one but TWO* new albums for new US label Sargent House.
There's Attention Please, which undoubtedly will get a lot of attention, and not just 'cause of the glamor shot of Wata on the cover. She also sings on all the tracks, to this is definitely one for all you Wata fanciers out there! The other one is called Heavy Rocks, not to be confused with the earlier Boris album, that's also titled Heavy Rocks. Huh, what's with that, Boris? Why give two totally different albums the same name? Obviously to invite comparison (and for the record, while we're definitely digging this new purple 2011 one, if we had to choose between 'em, we'd pick the original, orange 2002 Heavy Rocks). Naming an album Heavy Rocks in the first place is a bold move, having two of 'em is just silly. Or ironic. Or something. Brilliant, perhaps. Oh, and this Heavy Rocks features another guest appearance from Ian Astbury, doing backing vocals on the track "Riot Sugar". There's other guests on the album as well: Aaron Turner (Isis, Mamiffer) and Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer), and regular Boris collaborator Kurihara. Heavy friends for Heavy Rocks!
First up, let's talk about Attention Please. Of the two albums, possibly more interesting to us as it's really quite a departure for Boris, plus we've always found Wata to be their most appealing singer anyway. Her delicate vocals are accompanied by some of the band's softest, most mellow material yet. There's acoustic guitars, and electronica elements, and it's all really quite nice. At times dramatic, dancey, dreamy, and/or rockin', one thing it's not is sludgey. Not that it doesn't get loud and noisy at times - shoegazing explosion of "Spoon" could probably have gone on the accompanying Heavy Rocks just as easily. But for the most part, if you didn't know it was Boris, well you wouldn't know it was Boris! The nervously rhythmic "Tokyo Wonder Land", with its stabbing psychedelic guitar sizzle, and glitchy tic-tic-tics of drums and electronics, is the highlight here for us, but we're pretty into the whole disc. Utterly captivating. Wata and Boris sound like they're channelling every dreamy girl fronted band from the nineties and beyond: My Bloody Valentine, Blonde Redhead, Adult, Amp, Noriko Tujiko, and even Grouper, and it works. Hopefully we'll hear more from this incarnation of Boris in the future, with Wata on the mic... we suspect we will! We think open minded Boris fans will indeed like this album - and it just might make 'em a lot of new fans too, who didn't have any idea Boris could or would sound like this.
Then, to Heavy Rocks (2011)... Drop the needle on track one, and you're greeted by a mean, heavy chugging riff, and it almost seems like, hey, they've gone full-on metal here, but that track, "Riot Sugar", becomes more of a howling psych stoner rock song, with hushed vocals. Off to a good start. The next track isn't nearly as heavy, it begins with some jangle, then a tangle of guitar soloing from Kurihara in his Quicksilver/Cippolina mode, there's also more of those hushed vox, and a general loud/soft songwriting dynamic, this track having echoes of both Nirvana and Can! Kinda sounds like something Kurihara's band Stars would do. Track three "GALAXIANS" is a more energetic, uptempo attack, lots of whoops and hollering going on, with thrashing drums, noisy guitar and electronic FX...
And so it goes, the album a mix of race-with-the-devil rockers and much moodier, shoegazey stuff. "Missing Pieces" is an example of the latter, a slow build from quiet ambience to almost Merzbowian jet-engine noise. The two final tracks are well worthy of mention, the penultimate, nearly 13 minute "Aileron" (greatly expanded, and of course heavied up, from the brief acoustic guitar version of the same track found on Attention Please), is another of the shoegazier pieces, super heavy, lumbering and lovely, reminding us a lot of Codeine, then after that there's "Czechoslovakia", at the very end of the album, a brief instrumental thrash metal number with electronic embellishments, sounds like something Circle would do in their NWOFHM mode, pretty killer, but of course we have to assume Boris sorta meant it as a joke, oh well, in any case it unfortunately fades out at 1:35, just as it's really gettin' good... if another five or ten minutes of this song as we imagine it actually existed, and were included here, that would definitely make Heavy Rocks even radder. Who knows, though, maybe it will continue on a forthcoming album entitled, Heavier Rocks?? (Our idea, but Boris you're welcome to it, sounds like something you'd do - well actually probably what Boris would do is release ANOTHER album also called Heavy Rocks.)
Anyway, to wrap up, these two new discs from Boris are both pretty darn good & satisfying overall. And both emblematic of the band's dabbling in an almost alt-pop, quasi-commercial (on their own terms, though!) direction, while staying HEAVY as they wanna be.
*There's actually a 3rd new Boris full-length as well, out in Japan only, the cleverly (?) titled New Album, which includes some of the same songs found on these two domestic US releases, though we'd imagine they're different recordings/versions, Boris being who they are (confusing!).
MPEG Stream: "Riot Sugar"
MPEG Stream: "Leak -Truth,yesnoyesnoyes-"
MPEG Stream: "Aileron"

BORIS Looprider (Remix) (Catune) 12" 15.98
One of the tracks from Boris's recent J-Pop infused opus New Album gets the 12" remix treatment, making for a Boris release that's even further removed from their Melvins-y heavy rock roots.
The A side features ALTZ's "Fall In Love Mix", the B side's got Hatchback's "Pacific Wind Mix". Hatchback we're less familiar with, but ALTZ is interesting, we know 'em from their Boredoms remix on Super Roots 10 - and also the isophonic boogie woogie of the Altz Meets Roland P. Young album that EM put out a while back.
We just have a handful of these imports, and they come in black sleeves, nothin' fancy. For super big Boris fans and DJs only, we assume.

BORIS Mabuta No Ura (Inoxia) lp / poster / picture cards 40.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. More on that at the end of the review -- and we definitely suggest you read that stuff before you buy! But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds. Packaged in a gorgeous chipboard slipcover die cut sleeve, with a dozen cd sized photos, presumable from the film, with stories printed on the other sides, unfortunately all in Japanese.
So here's the complicated stuff. There are FOUR versions of this record. All of them slightly different. This is the ULTRA LIMITED Japanese lp version. 500 made, we got about 1/5 of those. Once they are gone they are gone for good. And since it's so limited, only one per customer. The deluxe lp version comes in a gateflod sleeve, with a big poster, and a dozen 12" x 12" cards with images from the film on one side and Japanese / English text on the other. We also have the Japanese cd version in stock, which comes in a cool diecut chiboard sleeve, has the same music as the lp, and is not limited. There will be another cd version, released by the Brazilian label Essence, and there will be two versions of that. A super deluxe boxed version, and a regular digipak version. The deluxe version is super limited. Only 120 copies made. We're getting half. Those will all be spoken for by the time we get them, so if you want one of those, pre-order it now. The regular Brazilian version is the same as the deluxe version just with less packaging. And is not limited.
Confused yet? Well, stick with us just a little bit longer. The Brazilian version has more music than the Japanese version. BUT, the Japanese version has music NOT on the Brazilian version. Okay. So if you just want to make sure you have ALL the music, you need both the Japanese version AND the Brazilian version. And since the Japanese cd and the Brazilian regular cd are not limited, you can easily pick up both. The lp and the deluxe version are just for those of you who need the fancy versions or feel compelled to collect them all. Finally, the Brazilian cd version won't be out until end of August or thereabouts, so orders WILL NOT be held for those! If you want both, we'll send you the Japanese cd or lp (or both!) now and the Brazilian version when they show up in a month or so. Phew!
MPEG Stream: "A Bao A Qu"
MPEG Stream: "The Slow Ripple Of A Puddle"
MPEG Stream: "It Touches"

BORIS Mabuta No Ura (Brazilian Version) (Essence Music) cd 21.00
We figured that since this list was so chock full of new Boris releases we oughta let folks know that we also got back in the Brazilian version of Boris' Mabuta No Ura soundtrack, so for those of you who somehow missed it last time around, check it out:
Finally! The Brazilian version of the Boris soundtrack Mabuta No Ura. And why is another version of a record you may already own so essential? Well, for the precise reason we all find Boris so enticing and simultaneously frustrating. This new version is SIMILAR, but NOT identical to the Japanese version. Obviously the packaging is completely different. But the music is too, which means all you Boris obsessives will need this as well as the Japanese version if you want all the Mabuta No Ura music there is. Some of the tracks here are -not- on the Japanese version, however, there are a few tracks on the Japanese version that are not found here. ARGHHHH. But thankfully Boris are so good, and Mabuta is so completely amazing, that it makes all this multiple version craziness go down just a little bit easier. But as we said before:
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds.
The Brazilian version comes in a nice thick oversized mini lp gateflod sleeve, housed in a deluxe die cut slip case. Inside are mini reproductions of the inserts that came with the original lp. So nice.
MPEG Stream: "A Bao A Qu"
MPEG Stream: "The Slow Ripple Of A Puddle"
MPEG Stream: "It Touches"

BORIS Mabuta No Ura (Japanese Version) (Catune) cd 25.00
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. More on that at the end of the review -- and we definitely suggest you read that stuff before you buy! But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds. Packaged in a gorgeous chipboard slipcover die cut sleeve, with a dozen cd sized photos, presumable from the film, with stories printed on the other sides, unfortunately all in Japanese.
So here's the complicated stuff. There are FOUR versions of this record. All of them slightly different. This is the Japanese cd version. comes in a chipboard diecut sleeve and is NOT limited. In the next week or so we will be getting the vinyl version, which comes with a dozen 12x12 photo prints and IS limited. Only 500 were made and we're getting about a fifth of those, but as with all things Boris they will not last long. So if you want one, best to preorder it now. There will be another cd version, released by the Brazilian label Essence, and there will be two versions of that. A super deluxe boxed version, and a regular digipak version. The deluxe version is super limited. Only 120 copies made. We're getting half. Those will all be spoken for by the time we get them, so if you want one of those, pre-order it now. The regular Brazilian version is the same as the deluxe version just with less packaging. And is not limited.
Confused yet? Well, stick with us just a little bit longer. The Brazilian version has more music than the Japanese version. BUT, the Japanese version has music NOT on the Brazilian version. Okay. So if you just want to make sure you have ALL the music, you need both the Japanese version AND the Brazilian version. And since the Japanese cd and the Brazilian regular cd are not limited, you can easily pick up both. The lp and the deluxe version are just for those of you who need the fancy versions or feel compelled to collect them all. Finally, the Brazilian cd version won't be out until end of August or thereabouts, so orders WILL NOT be held for those! If you want both, we'll send you the Japanese cd now (lp when we get them) and the Brazilian version when they show up in a month or so. Phew!
MPEG Stream: "A Bao A Qu"
MPEG Stream: "The Slow Ripple Of A Puddle"
MPEG Stream: "It Touches"

BORIS Mabuta No Ura - Deluxe Brazilian Box Set Version (Essence Music) cd / box / cards / flowers 50.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally! The Deluxe Brazilian box set version of the Boris soundtrack Mabuta No Ura. And why is another version of a record you may already own so essential? Well, for the precise reason we all find Boris so enticing and simultaneously frustrating. This new version is SIMILAR, but NOT identical to the Japanese version. Obviously the packaging is completely different. But the music is too, which means all you Boris obsessives will need this as well as the Japanese version if you want all the Mabuta No Ura music there is. Some of the tracks here are -not- on the Japanese version, however, there are a few tracks on the Japanese version that are not found here. ARGHHHH. But thankfully Boris are so good, and Mabuta is so completely amazing, that it makes all this multiple version craziness go down just a little bit easier. But as we said before:
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds.
This box set version is limited to 120 copies, 70 of which we got here. The normal Brazilian version of Mabuta is packaged insied a white painted and textured box, wrapped in white cord. Along with the cd inside you'll find dried flowere and flower petals as well as a ton of extra inserts, photos, and text. Really beautiful, ultra limited and most likely by the time you read this out of print.
MPEG Stream: "A Bao A Qu"
MPEG Stream: "The Slow Ripple Of A Puddle"
MPEG Stream: "It Touches"

BORIS Pink (DIWPhalanx) cd 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Some of us are still reeling from the mighty ass kicking delivered by Boris on their recent US tour. And before our ears have even stopped ringing, it's time for yet another new blast of ultra hyper space psych sludge rock n' roll in the form of Pink. Continuing to hone their rock chops, having shed their doom sludge past for the most part now, Boris continue to sound like some MC5 / Hendrix hybrid, albeit supercharged and drenched in LSD and lit on fire and launched into space. Big old fuzzy riffs, churning basslines, and wild spastic drumming underneath Wata's wailing sixties styled leads. You can almost imagine these strange Japanese rockers wandering into the Fillmore in the sixties, like some bell bottomed aliens and proceeding to melt the minds and ear drums of everyone in attendance. Pink starts off with some fuzzed out ultra distorted post rock (reminiscent of some of the stuff on Mabuta No Ura) wrapped in a spacy psychedelic haze, but then it's immediately back to the full on, overblown distorto RAWK that has become THE SOUND of Boris. This is easily their most lo-fi, most blown out recording yet, almost like Boris is channelling Guitar Wolf or something. The drums and cymbals sizzle as the needle goes into the red on almost every track, and the guitars are so drenched in distortion they become huge squirming smears of fuzz. A couple tracks harken back to the slow motion sludge of Flood or Amplifier Worship, and there is the dreamy ambient drift of the second to last track "My Machine", but those are just brief respites, time to catch your breath before hurling yourself back into the fray, an endless maelstrom of head banging, fist pumping, guitar smashing, drumset destroying, hair swirling, sweating, bouncing, pounding pummeling ROCK AND ROLL.
The packaging is amazing too, with a tray card that's transparent, with clear pink printing, and a booklet that is actually a three panel fold out perforated sheet of Boris Pink acid tabs (with one already missing, presumably already ingested!) wrapped in a thick pink transparent sleeve. Wow!
MPEG Stream: "Song One"
MPEG Stream: "Pink"
MPEG Stream: "Song Two"

BORIS Pink (Southern Lord) cd 14.98
Alright!! Finally, the most recent release from Japan's mighty masters of Orange Amped sludge groove drone rawk 'n' roll gets a more affordable, domestic release, but don't fret Boris nerds! There are plenty of reasons to hang on to your Japanese version, or heck, even own both. The new version does NOT replicate the mindblowing pink-plastic-see-through artwork of the import version, but the -new- design, courtesy of the ubiquitous Stephen O'Malley, ain't so shabby either, with some washed out pink and white imagery, some of his distinctive repeating shapes collages and a cool art deco font. The nicest part, is probably the sheets of 'acid tabs' inside, three of 'em, each printed on one side with that same pink and white geometric motif, the other sides with cool old fashioned woodcuts and oil paintings. Wow.
The one big difference (why must they always do this?!?!) is that -this- version, is about 8 or 9 minutes LONGER than the import version -- one track's got some extra drone tacked on. The music is the exact same as the super limited and now out of print double lp version. Hard to keep track of Boris sometimes, what with all their different releases and versions and limited editions, but we have to say, Boris are so good it just might be worth it.
Here's what we had to say about Pink first time we laid ears on it:
Some of us are still reeling from the mighty ass kicking delivered by Boris on their recent US tour. And before our ears have even stopped ringing, it's time for yet another new blast of ultra hyper space psych sludge rock n' roll in the form of Pink. Continuing to hone their rock chops, having shed their doom sludge past for the most part now, Boris continue to sound like some MC5 / Hendrix hybrid, albeit supercharged and drenched in LSD and lit on fire and launched into space. Big old fuzzy riffs, churning basslines, and wild spastic drumming underneath Wata's wailing sixties styled leads. You can almost imagine these strange Japanese rockers wandering into the Fillmore in the sixties, like some bell bottomed aliens and proceeding to melt the minds and ear drums of everyone in attendance. Pink starts off with some fuzzed out ultra distorted post rock (reminiscent of some of the stuff on Mabuta No Ura) wrapped in a spacy psychedelic haze, but then it's immediately back to the full on, overblown distorto RAWK that has become THE SOUND of Boris. This is easily their most lo-fi, most blown out recording yet, almost like Boris is channelling Guitar Wolf or something. The drums and cymbals sizzle as the needle goes into the red on almost every track, and the guitars are so drenched in distortion they become huge squirming smears of fuzz. A couple tracks harken back to the slow motion sludge of Flood or Amplifier Worship, and there is the dreamy ambient drift of the second to last track "My Machine", but those are just brief respites, time to catch your breath before hurling yourself back into the fray, an endless maelstrom of head banging, fist pumping, guitar smashing, drumset destroying, hair swirling, sweating, bouncing, pounding pummeling ROCK AND ROLL.
MPEG Stream: "Song One"
MPEG Stream: "Pink"
MPEG Stream: "Song Two"

BORIS Pink (DIWPhalanx) 2lp 49.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally here, Boris' Pink on deluxe double LP vinyl. Supposedly sold out in under an hour from the label's website! Well, fear not, we have about 40 copies up for grabs (folks who pre-ordered, please DO NOT order it again, your copies are on hold, safe and sound) and boy have they outdone themselves this time. If you thought the super deluxe pink transparent cd packaging was amazing, all we can say about the 2LP is WOW. A bright pink oversize cardboard sleeve, with the band name and the album title cut out stencil style revealing still more pink inside, a full color (mostly pink) insert. Super cool. And obsessives should note, the musical program here is slightly different on the vinyl, so Boris nerds will definitely need (or at least want) both formats!! Here is what we said about the cd:
Some of us are still reeling from the mighty ass kicking delivered by Boris on their recent US tour. And before our ears have even stopped ringing, it's time for yet another new blast of ultra hyper space psych sludge rock n' roll in the form of Pink. Continuing to hone their rock chops, having shed their doom sludge past for the most part now, Boris continue to sound like some MC5 / Hendrix hybrid, albeit supercharged and drenched in LSD and lit on fire and launched into space. Big old fuzzy riffs, churning basslines, and wild spastic drumming underneath Wata's wailing sixties styled leads. You can almost imagine these strange Japanese rockers wandering into the Fillmore in the sixties, like some bell bottomed aliens and proceeding to melt the minds and eard drums of everyone in attendance. Pink starts off with some fuzzed out ultra distorted post rock (reminiscent of some of the stuff on Mabuta No Ura) wrapped in a spacy psychedelic haze, but then it's immediately back to the full on, overblown distorto RAWK that has become THE SOUND of Boris. This is easily their most lo-fi, most blown out recording yet, almost like Boris is channelling Guitar Wolf or something. The drums and cymbals sizzle as the needle goes into the red on almost every track, and the guitars are so drenched in distortion they become huge squirming smears of fuzz. A couple tracks harken back to the slow motion sludge of Flood or Amplifier Worship, and there is the dreamy ambient drift of the second to last track "My Machine", but those are just brief respites, time to catch your breath before hurling yourself back into the fray, an endless maelstrom of head banging, fist pumping, guitar smashing, drumset destroying, hair swirling, sweating, bouncing, pounding pummeling ROCK AND ROLL.
MPEG Stream: "Song One"
MPEG Stream: "Pink"
MPEG Stream: "Song Two"

BORIS Vein (Important) 12" 36.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There hasn't been a Boris record yet that has made people this angry in ages. And it's not for lack of trying. Super limited releases, multiple version, each with slightly different artwork, or subtly altered music. By the time you read this, Vein will already be out of print, and if you want one, it'll cost you $80 or so on eBay. In a nutshell, 1500 copies pressed, after a botched and discarded first pressing, 300 copies to the band, 400 sold on the label's website, leaving 800 copies to go to stores and distributors worldwide. 800 copies when they could have sold 3000. We ordered 100, and got 50, so it never even made it on our email list. And because of the botched pressing among other things, the price is exorbitant. As if that weren't enough, there were TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE RECORD. A twelve track punk rock version that went to the US, a 2 track noise version that went to Europe. And as Boris fans tend to be incredibly obsessive completists, fans freaked out when they realized they only got one of the two Vein's. Sigh. Boris need to learn that with popularity comes responsibility to the fans that have made them popular, and the more popular a band gets, the more artistic sacrifices have to be made. A band that routinely sells 5000 or 10,000 copies of a record, can not make 7"s or eps or lps and limit them to 500 or 1000. All that means is that the -majority- of your fans, the ones who just love your music, the ones who buy all your records and buy tickets to your shows, the ones who through their support enable you to play music for a living and tour and rock, will NOT get to hear those records, will become increasingly frustrated and eventually stop being fans. It happened to Stereolab as they continued to do stupidly limited releases, it could happen to Boris.
let's hope it doesn't. Cuz we love this band. And their music. And music this good was not meant to be heard by so few.
-Obligatory record review portion: Pretty cool stuff. Furious grindy punk rock. Pretty surprising coming from these dirgey behemoths. Beautiful packaging too. Silkscreened insert, silkscreened filigree on the outside of the actual vinyl. Too bad almost no one got to see or hear it....

BORIS / JOE VOLK split (Invada) lp 28.00
Japanese psychedelic heavies Boris return, this time sharing a split with UK psychfolkie (and former frontman for Crippled Black Phoenix) Joe Volk. Apparently born of a chance meeting at a festival, it's a bit of a weird match up, but both sides are pretty cool.
Boris deliver a sidelong three part epic, which begins with a sprawling bit of field recording flecked, sample heavy shimmer, all softly swelling chords, and dense clouds of cymbal shimmer, dreamy and druggy and delightfully drifty, which leads directly into the second part, a glorious blast of bombastic metal pop heaviness, which weirdly enough is a dead ringer for late period Cave In, powerful soaring vocals, big bashing drums, droned out guitars, swirls of electronic squiggle, really it's not that far removed from recent Boris jams, but it's super polished and catchy, and hell it suits them! The final movement bookends the proper song second track with another stretch of swirling synths and murky woozy guitars, lots of shifting textures and buried vocals, everything blurred and bleary and abstract, a long form coda/outro that takes the classic slo-mo sludge of old Boris and recasts it as something much more serene and tranquil.
The flipside introduces (many of) us to Joe Volk, who starts things off super spare, just acoustic guitar, the vibe is darkly dramatic and subtly psychedelic, the sound surprisingly lush, definitely reminiscent of classic seventies acid folk, fingerpicked steel string buzz, ghostly background harmonies, Volk's voice raspy and weathered, the whole first track a gradually slow build, culminating in the final few minutes of brooding buzz, moaning cellos and dense tribal drumming. The second track seems like more of an outro, sonically similar but even more stripped down, instrumental, a spare bit of skeletal, minimal folk, dark and dreamy. While we never got all that into Crippled Black Phoenix, this definitely has us hankering to hear more solo stuff from Volk.
Packaged in super striking full color sleeves, with printed full color insert with liner notes and lyrics. Weirdly expensive too for some reason, sorry...

BORIS / STUPID BABIES GO MAD Damaged (DIWPhalanx) 10" 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We took pre-orders on this ultra limited Boris rarity, but we managed to get a handful of extra copies, so for those folks who forgot to preorder, or folks who are only hearing about this now, here's your chance (however brief) to nab one of theseÉ
As with all Boris stuff, it's gorgeously packaged, a red and black pictured disc, printed to look like it's cracked into pieces, to go along with the title. It sits behind a piece of red vellum, with the band names printed lightly across the top so you can also see the picture disc through the vellum. Includes a DVD in a similarly 'damaged' packaging.
So the 10" matches up Boris with their more punk rock countrymen Stupid Babies Go Mad, both it seems paying homage to Black Flag's "Damaged" in their own way. Each apparently covering a song by the otherÉ
SBGM are up first and kick out the super aggro old school So-Cal punk rock jams, but way supercharged, with ultra distorted vocals, squealing feedback everywhere, super heavy and intense and very much in the tradition of the track and the band this is a tribute too. But it seems as if SBGM have jammed three tracks into one, the second two are sort of two parts of the same song, slightly more groovy but still pretty punk, a chunky main riff and seriously pounding drumming, and a cool minor key guitar harmony refrain that makes the band sound almost like a more punk rock Iron Maiden.
The flipside finds Boris doing their punk rock thing. Starting off in full on dirge mode, droning and downtuned, maybe channeling later era SST, huge slooooow riffing, monstrous drumming, feedback wrapped around crumbling distortion, until the band kicks it into gear, more aggro punk rock, Boris style, complete with squiggly leads, shouted vocals and an old school sing along chorus.
Included with the 10" is a 70+ minute dvd, capturing a live show by both bands. It begins with about one minute of awesome Boris footage, blown out and tinted red, in some huge venue, an extended psych blowout, the drums a chaotic swirl, the guitar and bass soaring and shriekingÉAnd then it stops, and suddenly we're watching Stupid Babies Go Mad, kicking out the jams big time in a furious 30 minute set, super high contrast, damaged film stock, a blazing live show, looks pretty amazing, wild and sweaty and boozy and brilliantÉ
Then it's back to Boris, on the same blown out red tinted film stock, doing some gorgeous tripped out slow psych, super in the red and heavy as fuckÉ until they launch into more rocking territory, a whole set packed with heavy, distorted garage psych freaked out jams, with lots and lots of gong action!!! And the band destroy, the sound is raw and ultra hot, distorted and really fierce, the band is definitely on fire, and the way it's filmed makes it seem even more wild and intense.
LIMITED TO 1500 COPIES. Once these are gone we won't be able to get more.

BORIS / THE DUDLEY CORPORATION split (Scientific Laboratories) 7" 3.99
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
New single from AQ faves Boris. Paired on this split single with the Dudley Corporation, a band from Ireland who apparently played some shows with Boris on their recent tour. which explains this otherwise rather unlikely pairing. Boris offer up a buzzing fuzzy slab of big riff rock and roll, very reminiscent of their most recent Heavy Rocks record -- actually that's 'cause it's an alternate version of "Ibitsu" off of that record. While the Dudley Corporation give us 2 tracks of jangly, minimal indie rock, pleasant enough, but no match for the crushing super rock of Boris.

BORIS / TORCHE split (Hydra Head) 10" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What more do you need to know? Two new songs, one from sludge pop masters Torche, and one from Japanese psychedelic post doom drone metallers Boris. The Torche track is of course incredible, taking their crushing downtuned pop and stretching it WAY out into a sprawling downtuned prog-pop, post-metal epic, with bursts of frenzied riffing, pounding drumming, weird almost industrial sounding percussion, constantly shifting tempos, slipping from weird doomed out feedback drenched crush, to Melvins-y lurch and lumber, to full on power-pop-in-metal's-clothing, to pounding relentless metallic chug. It's only 6 minutes but there's plenty of Torche-y goodness crammed into those 6 minutes...
The Boris track is twice the length, and takes its sweet time, a brooding slow build, all minimal skeletal guitars, and strange distant grinding ambient whirr, before exploding into a washed out woozy slowcore, that goes right into a full on black metal blast beat, accompanied by barely audible insectoid riffing, while over the top, dreamy sweet pop vocals are draped, making for just about the strangest juxtaposition ever. But it works, it's bizarre, and unexpected, but it sounds like some weird black metal / dream pop hybrid, and it sort of slips back and forth for the rest of the song, the blackened shoegaze side often bleeding into the lumbering slowcore side, the various elements constantly shifting, but that strange black metal pop thing making this really really rad. After a long stretch of shimmering ambient drift, the song shifts gears yet again, and the band get all sludge-y and doomy, their monstrous plod laced with both melody and bursts of grinding hissing noise, before blinking out as if the tape suddenly ran out.
Killer artwork from Hydra Head's Aaron Turner, and of course crazy crazy limited, we got a bunch of these, but are not sure if we'll be able to get more once they sell out, so get one while you can, and we apologize in advance if you can't...
BTW: This is the same Boris / Torche record that was released in Japan last year, only now getting a domestic release, same music, but new artwork! So if you plunked down for the expensive import, you already have this, and don't need another one, unless of course like most Boris fanatics you need multiple versions of the same release. But for everyone else, do not hesitate, this rules, and you most definitely NEED it!

BORN HELLER s/t (Locust) cd 14.98
'70s style Brit-folk emulated by an American indie rock couple.

BORN RUFFIANS Red Yellow & Blue (Warp) cd 14.98

BORN RUFFIANS Red Yellow & Blue (Warp) lp 17.98

BORN RUFFIANS s/t (Warp) cd ep 8.98
Don't know too much about the Born Ruffians other than HOLY SHIT! does the first track on this ep, "This Sentence Will Ruin / Save Your Life" sound like the greatest song the Pixies never wrote but sure as shit should have. The minute we threw this on we were just completely floored. So what if it sounds like the Pixies. It is such an unbelievably gorgeous and hook filled chunk of angular indie pop perfection. High end jangle, weird tribal drum fills, hand claps and a dangerously Frank Black like delivery. We can NOT stop listening to this. Over and over and over. Super kinetic and bouncy and so joyfully wild and fun. This would be worth eight bucks even if it was only one song long.
But thankfully the rest of the disc (all 16 minutes of it) is almost as catchy, although a little less riled up. Loping simple guitars, that gorgeous high croon, simple drumming, dense sheets of jangle, propulsive drum pound, a bit of classic new wave, a little of that new-wave-of-new-wave (we definitely hear a bit of Maximo Park in there) but ultimately it all boils down to how bad you've been jonesing for some of that classic era Pixies sound. If you're anything like us, this will hit the spot in a HUGE way. But don't write these guys off as a Pixies rip-off. Similar to how the Robbers On High Street take their uncanny resemblance to Spoon and deftly twist it into their own beautiful shapes, the Born Ruffians work the same kind of magic, taking big chunks of Pixies bliss and mixing them up with all kinds of other glorious pop into a truly catchy concoction.
Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "This Sentence Will Ruin/Save Your Life"
MPEG Stream: "Hedonistic Me"

BORN RUFFIANS Say It (Warp) cd 16.98

BORNEO Charismatic Megafauna (self-released) cd-r 5.98
Not sure what happened recently, but for a while there, there was a serious dearth of heavy bands in the Bay Area. And we mean HEAVY. Not just regular old metal bands, but bands doing something new with that heaviness. Prizehog, with their post Harvey Milk sludge, guitar synth and drums whipped up into a heaving black wave of crush. Wildildlife, who did call the Bay Area home for a while, their fractured psych pop metal weirdness, equal parts Butthole Surfers, Gaye Bykers On Acid, Black Sabbath and Adam Ant. Then there's Pigs, reviewed elsewhere on this list, who do their own sort of Melvins meets Motorhead thing. And now Borneo. Who are not nearly as heavy as any of those groups, but who infuse their considerable heft with some serious poppiness. The guitars are thick and crunchy and distorted and just slightly blown out, the drums pounding and propulsive, but where other bands might go for something more metallic, or totally chaotic, these guys tap into their indie rock roots, and the result is a super hooky hybrid, Jesu betwixt godheadSilo, with vocals, that less distorted and buried in the murk, could have been plucked right from a Pavement or Polvo song. It's a killer combo too, the music thick, and muscly and intense, with plenty of chug and grind, but all wrapped around some total classic indie rock. It's almost like Harvey Milk or Jesu covering Lync or Seam or even Codeine. The heart of these jams is melancholy and melodic, wistful and emotional, but that sound is given a serious facelift, and the result is, well, THIS. A kind of shoegaze-y metallic indie post rock that we are digging big time. Not sure what to call it, but usually, the harder it is to describe something, the cooler it is. And Charismatic Megafauna is indeed super cool...
MPEG Stream: "Rob Anderson"
MPEG Stream: "Shadows"

BORNGRABER & STRUVER Urlaub + In G (M=Minimal) cd 23.00
Maybe we've been going through a bit of a techno phase here at aQ lately, freaking out about the likes of Shed and Silent Servant, among others. For some of us here, it's waaaay more than a phase... And you know we love the krautrock. So Christian Borngraber & Jens Struver are just what the doctor ordered. The Berlin based duo (whom we first encountered remixing the late great Conrad Schnitzler) offer up what could arguably be considered "techno krautrock" on this disc, which collects together two of their vinyl 12" releases (still available separately, we got 'em), Urlaub and In G, originally from 2011 and 2010, respectively.
The three tracks of Urlaub are all quite compelling, rhythmically and otherwise, full of hushed pulsations and eerie echoing electronic hypnosis. There's the tremulous atmospheres of 16 and half minute opener "Reise". The icy dancefloor noir of "Berlin Tribal Music". And then the nearly 12 minute "Dancing Queen", which has a breathy, flute-like lick looping throughout as part of its happy chugging shuffle that we can't help but associate with early, traffic cone era Kraftwerk (gone disco). All of Urlaub is groovy, minimalist, motorik stuff we're really digging.
Maybe even better, and even more krautrockish, is the second half of this disc, In G parts I and II, totaling almost 32 minutes, a slow-building beatscape with whispery, wind-like textures and choppy samples of sweetly sawing strings. It's both haunting and groovy, quite a krauty techno tour de force that incorporates clicks n' cuts, drones, and pop ambient 20th century classical sounds. Wow. We note that it bears a dedication to revolutionary free jazz bassist Sirone.
In particular, if you liked a couple of other releases we've reviewed recently - Oren Ambarchi's Sagittarian Domain, and/or Elektro Guzzi's Live P.A. - this might be right up your alley. Recommended, of course!
MPEG Stream: "Reise"
MPEG Stream: "Berlin Tribal Music"
MPEG Stream: "In G - Part I"

BORT, EDUARDO s/t (Fonomusic) cd 23.00
Man! The '60s and '70s psych reissues from around the world just keep wowing us. I mean, there's lots that don't, but those that do, DO. Spain's Eduardo Bort (the guy floating cross-legged in space on the cover with his guitar in his lap, presumably) and his band released this album back in 1975 and we'd never ever have heard of it if Fonomusic hadn't just done this nicely digipacked cd reissue. We put it on and thought, this is pretty good, yeah...and then a track or two later we were all just, like, 'I need this!" From soft gentle folkiness to hard rock guitar workouts, there's a lot to like here. The record consists of six epix of many moods, from spaced out psych to symphonic prog -- moody, melodic, dynamic and bombastic. Bort & Co are capable of sudden energetic, frantic prog outbursts and fuzz-riffed heaviness, like when about seven minutes into "Walking On The Grass" Bort's band really starts rippin' (with a total Iron Maiden galloping bass-line). Very cool. And the vocal majesty of that track reminds us of Deep Purple's "Child In Time" quite a bit. The production is amazing too. Recommended ('specially if you also dig Steamhammer's Speech or Wishbone Ash or Uriah Heep or anything sorta prog, sorta hard rock, sorta psych from the same era!).
MPEG Stream: "Walking On The Grass"
MPEG Stream: "Pictures Of Sadness"

BOSS HOG Boss Hog (DGC) cd 14.98
Christina Martinez, her husband Jon Spencer, the rest of the band.

BOSS HOG White Out (In The Red) cd 13.98
After the major label debacle of Geffen getting bought up by some other huge megadork, Boss Hog's 4th album needless to say didn't end up on a major. As consolation to returning to the indies, Cristina does appear naked on the cover (as she did on all of her AmRep albums). Musically, Cristina and company (including her husband Jon Spencer) have produced another saucy swampy rock album of bluesy grit.

BOSTON SPACESHIPS Brown Submarine (Guided By Voices) cd 14.98
Hmmm, that album title makes me think of... poop. Don't know about you, but it's not exactly what I want to have in my head while listening to music... unless it's G.G. Allin of course, but even then! Anyhoo, Boston Spaceships is yet another one of Robert Pollard's alter egos. Well, actually it's an altogether new band, a supergroup even! The band lineup includes Chris Slusarenko (also of GBV and Takeovers) and John Moen (also of Decemberists and Mr. Malkmus' Jicks). On the road, they're joined by Tommy Keene and Jason Narducy (who also plays with Bob Mould). Don't worry, it's the farthest thing from poopy. This is Pollard and co. at their loosest limbed indie rockin' fun. Reelingly garagey raucous with lots of wonkily bent electric guitar chords, lyrical silliness ("Soggy Beavers"?!), vocal yowling, primal drumming. Sounds like they had great time recording it. You might have just as much fun listening too, especially if you're a Pollard fanatic. Highlights: "Andy Playboy" and "Rat Trap"!
MPEG Stream: "Zero Fix"
MPEG Stream: "Andy Playboy"
MPEG Stream: "Rat Trap"

BOTCH An Anthology of Dead Ends (Hydra Head) lp 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Reissued on vinyl for Record Store Day, this was the final record from these aQ beloved math metal crushers. This new version comes pressed at 45rpm on nice thick vinyl and housed in a heavy full color jacket, an almost exact reproduction of the original, here's our brief review from way back in 2002:
Final missive from these aQ faves, the mighty Botch. A wicked math-metal machine spitting out super heavy but surprisingly melodic and complex metalcore. As good if not better than Coalesce and Converge but criminally underappreciated. Maybe that's why they're calling it quits. Must be tough making music this amazing and not being HUGE. Every song is an epic, with earth shaking bass rumble, keening high-end guitar melodies, lots of chugging riffs, stop/start rhythms, pounding drums and one of the fiercest roars around. WAY RECOMMENDED!
MPEG Stream: "Japam"
MPEG Stream: "Framce"

BOTCH Unifying Themes Redux (Hydra Head) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "God Vs. Science"
MPEG Stream: "Third Part In A Tragedy"
MPEG Stream: "Inch By Inch"

BOTHER, THE The Night Bleeds Gold (Three Ring Records) cd 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Local indie combo The Bother make straightforward gentle indie pop with laidback emotive male vocals. Breezy and wistfully bittersweet tunes with a few nice moody embellishments -- an effected vocal, a textural sound sample, a slinky tremolo'd guitar, a flute -- for added atmosphere and loveliness. A bit reminiscent of early Beck and Pavement.
MPEG Stream: "Upon Low Tide"
MPEG Stream: "Our Nameless Glamour"

BOTTICELLIS Old Home Movies (Rocinante / Antenna Farm) lp 12.98
Such warm, woozy and punchy West Coast pop delivered spot on by this San Francisco band, whose songs are made for that Eternal Summer we all wish we could live in. Their sound reminding us of everyone from the breeziest side of The Kinks, the more at ease moments of The Strokes, a looser Vetiver, a more sun soaked Grizzly Bear, some of that early solo McCartney magic... In other words the Botticellis write some pretty damn great irresistible pop that we can imagine being blasted in the bedroom with the window open so everyone playing in the backyard could soak up these infectious sounds. Pressed on clear vinyl and sounding better and better each time we lay the needle in its grooves.

BOTTOM OF THE HUDSON Holiday Machine (Absolutely Kosher) cd ep 8.98
Geez, it's getting increasingly difficult to keep up with the flurry of release activity bursting forth from the Absolutely Kosher label these days -- Sparrow, Jim Yoshii Pile-Up, Moggs, Get Him Eat Him, and the list goes on! We welcome this new EP from veteran indie popsters Bottom Of The Hudson as a kind sign that they A.) don't want to crowd out their labelmates, B.) don't want to monopolize the stereo, C.) do want to keep the listener wantin' more or D.) all of the above? For these half dozen songs they've injected a dose of the sullen mope-rock dourness of Interpol into their rough-hewn popcraft a la Guided By Voices to good effect. Lots of those ol' familiar strummy-jangle indie rock guitars, boyish vocals and an occasional lo-tech drum machine percolating up every so often.
MPEG Stream: "Holiday Machine"
MPEG Stream: "One Of Us"

BOTTOM OF THE HUDSON Songs From The Barrel Commando (Happy House) cd 14.98
Here's the latest full length from Bottom Of The Hudson (their follow-up to 2003's The Omaha Record), and it reveals a transformation of sorts. While they're still deeply immersed in their studies at Robert Pollard's School of Fine Indie Pop, they've tempered and toned things down considerably. Gone are the pounded piano lines and crunchy guitars in favor of slower, more contemplative folksy acoustic numbers. Perhaps they've been (re)visiting Pink Floyd's Meddle album? Be sure to stick around 'til the final two songs 'cuz they're definitely the stand-outs (although when the second to last song started we thought it was a cover of k.d. lang's "Constant Craving"... which in itself is a fine song, innit?). And if this isn't enough B.O.T.H. for ya, expect a new ep sometime this summer!
MPEG Stream: "Take Me In"
MPEG Stream: "Hallways Of Rachel"

BOTTOM OF THE HUDSON The Omaha Record (Absolutely Kosher) cd 12.98

BOTTOMLESS PIT Blood Under The Bridge (Comedy Minus One) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We were hugely obsessed with Silkworm back in the day. Their sound was dark and mysterious, a twisted and bitter take on indie rock, that somehow managed to evoke an impossible hopefulness at the same time. Super melodic, 3 of the 4 members sang, each with a distinctive style and sound, which only helped make their music more interesting. Joel Phelps, perhaps our favorite voice of the bunch, left, and the band sadly seemed to flounder. Then tragically, their drummer was killed in an automobile accident, and Silkworm was over.
Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen, the core of the original Silkworm lineup, reunited and returned with Bottomless Pit, which to our ears sounded like a return to the classic Silkworm sound, still dark, and depressive, brooding and melancholy, but the songs were so good, tense and dramatic and crazy catchy, with the spirit and feel of classic nineties indie rock, but dragged into the now. That first record was on seriously heavy rotation around here, spacey and spare, warm and lush, totally fantastic and a surprising return to form.
And now we have Blood Under The Bridge, which offers more of the same, dark and haunting stripped down indie rock. Someone here thought it sounded like Belle And Sebastian, but to our ears it sounds like a heavier My Dad Is Dead, the same sort of world weary, minor key, broken hearted indie rock. The first few tracks slither and creep, hushed and minimal and way moody, but then comes "Summerwind" that is surprisingly rocking, and sounds like it could have been yanked off one of the classic old Silkworm records, and the vibe and the energy stays relatively charged after that. "Late is another slow burning rocker, with some gorgeous vocal melodies, and some awesome psych guitar, "Dixon" alternately pounds and broods, with an almost surfy sounding main riff, but then "Kiss Them All" brings it back down again, a gorgeous low slung pretty indie pop drifter, that sounds as good as anything these guys have done.
The last three tracks bounce back and forth between energetic crunch, spacey contemplative drift, and driving grooves, finishing off with the epic emotional catharsis of "38 Souls" that feels just like the old days.
Along with the Versus record reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, a sweet dose of classic indie rock, the kind they don't really make anymore (except when it's made by the guys and gals who were making it the first time around anyway!)...
MPEG Stream: "Winterwind"
MPEG Stream: "Rhinelander"
MPEG Stream: "38 Souls"

BOTTOMLESS PIT Blood Under The Bridge (Comedy Minus One) lp 27.00
Now on vinyl!
We were hugely obsessed with Silkworm back in the day. Their sound was dark and mysterious, a twisted and bitter take on indie rock, that somehow managed to evoke an impossible hopefulness at the same time. Super melodic, 3 of the 4 members sang, each with a distinctive style and sound, which only helped make their music more interesting. Joel Phelps, perhaps our favorite voice of the bunch, left, and the band sadly seemed to flounder. Then tragically, their drummer was killed in an automobile accident, and Silkworm was over.
Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen, the core of the original Silkworm lineup, reunited and returned with Bottomless Pit, which to our ears sounded like a return to the classic Silkworm sound, still dark, and depressive, brooding and melancholy, but the songs were so good, tense and dramatic and crazy catchy, with the spirit and feel of classic nineties indie rock, but dragged into the now. That first record was on seriously heavy rotation around here, spacey and spare, warm and lush, totally fantastic and a surprising return to form.
And now we have Blood Under The Bridge, which offers more of the same, dark and haunting stripped down indie rock. Someone here thought it sounded like Belle And Sebastian, but to our ears it sounds like a heavier My Dad Is Dead, the same sort of world weary, minor key, broken hearted indie rock. The first few tracks slither and creep, hushed and minimal and way moody, but then comes "Summerwind" that is surprisingly rocking, and sounds like it could have been yanked off one of the classic old Silkworm records, and the vibe and the energy stays relatively charged after that. "Late is another slow burning rocker, with some gorgeous vocal melodies, and some awesome psych guitar, "Dixon" alternately pounds and broods, with an almost surfy sounding main riff, but then "Kiss Them All" brings it back down again, a gorgeous low slung pretty indie pop drifter, that sounds as good as anything these guys have done.
The last three tracks bounce back and forth between energetic crunch, spacey contemplative drift, and driving grooves, finishing off with the epic emotional catharsis of "38 Souls" that feels just like the old days.
Along with the Versus record reviewed recently, a sweet dose of classic indie rock, the kind they don't really make anymore (except when it's made by the guys and gals who were making it the first time around anyway!)...
MPEG Stream: "Winterwind"
MPEG Stream: "Rhinelander"
MPEG Stream: "38 Souls"

BOTTOMLESS PIT Hammer Of The Gods (Comedy Minus One) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There's something magical about the original lineup of a band. The struggle to make it, the passion of music making. That's why debut records are often so powerful, and while many times it's the best record a band will ever make. Subsequent records are made over the course of a year or two, but that first record was the culmination of a lifetime.
In some cases, bands soldier on, when a key member departs. Sometimes the band reinvent themselves, instead of desperately trying to recapture a sound that was partially created by the absent member. But sometimes, when a member leaves, it's like a death knell for the band.
With Silkworm, when Joel Phelps left, the band seemed to falter big time. They made some decent records, wrote some killer songs, but Phelps was the spark, the magic went missing for the most part when he left. But they soldiered on, until the tragic death of drummer Michael Dalquist in 2005. The band wisely chose to hang it up, as Dahlquist was a founding member and his powerful idiosyncratic drumming style was a critical part of Silkworm's sound.
The surviving members resurfaced as Bottomless Pit a year or two later, and something happened. Not sure if it was going through the death of Dahlquist, or the new members, but this is the best Silkworm have sounded since the Phelps days. And while it may be called Bottomless Pit, sonically it sounds as much like Silkworm as ever. Which in this case is a very good thing.
A dark dark record. Moody and melancholy, introspective, but plenty rocking. The two Silkworms, Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen, still share vocals and songwriting duties, so in that way too, the sound is reminiscent of Silkworm. The drums are simple and solid, the guitars tightly wound, the vocals weary and warm, the second track "Dogtag" might be the best Silkworm song Silkworm never wrote. A muted chug holds the song down, never quite exploding into full on rocking, the tension building and building, the vocals managing to sound so worn and haggard, and yet so emotional The menacing groove of "Dead Man's Blues" sounds angry and bitter, with a jagged tangled chorus and a killer wall of gnarled guitar second half. "Human Out Of Me" is another brooding slow burner, all warbly falsetto vocals and simple cyclical melody. The record finishes up with "Sevens Sing", a real strange one, with haunting processed drums, shimmery talk box sounding guitars, space-y effects, all very spare and whispery, distant whirs and wheezing strings, the song never really getting loud or aggressive, just slithering along intensely, sounding like it might never end, a gorgeous, yet tripped out funereal indie rock sprawl.
Way recommended. Old Silkworm fans, this might be the one you've been waiting for...
MPEG Stream: "The Cardinal Movements"
MPEG Stream: "Dogtag"

BOTTOMLESS PIT Lottery 2005-2012 (Home Recording Is Killing Music) 2cd 32.00
Killer double disc compendium collection pretty much everything recorded (two albums, a 12", and some bonus tracks) by this incredible indie rock band, an offshoot of the late great Silkworm, a group we were hugely obsessed with back in the day, and still love. Silkworm's sound was dark and mysterious, a twisted and bitter take on indie rock, that somehow managed to evoke an impossible hopefulness at the same time. Super melodic, 3 of the 4 members sang, each with a distinctive style and sound, which only helped make their music more interesting. Joel Phelps, perhaps our favorite voice of the bunch, left, and the band sadly seemed to flounder. Then tragically, their drummer was killed in an automobile accident, and Silkworm was over. The surviving members resurfaced as Bottomless Pit a year or two later, and something happened. Not sure if it was going through the death of Dahlquist, or the new members, but it was the best these guys had sounded since the Phelps days. And while it may be called Bottomless Pit, sonically it sounds as much like Silkworm as ever. Which in this case is a very good thing.
Hammer Of The Gods (from 2007) is a dark dark record. Moody and melancholy, introspective, but plenty rocking. The two Silkworms, Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen, still share vocals and songwriting duties, so in that way too, the sound is reminiscent of Silkworm. The drums are simple and solid, the guitars tightly wound, the vocals weary and warm, the second track "Dogtag" might be the best Silkworm song Silkworm never wrote. A muted chug holds the song down, never quite exploding into full on rocking, the tension building and building, the vocals managing to sound so worn and haggard, and yet so emotional The menacing groove of "Dead Man's Blues" sounds angry and bitter, with a jagged tangled chorus and a killer wall of gnarled guitar second half. "Human Out Of Me" is another brooding slow burner, all warbly falsetto vocals and simple cyclical melody. Hammer Of The Gods finishes up with "Sevens Sing", a real strange one, with haunting processed drums, shimmery talk box sounding guitars, space-y effects, all very spare and whispery, distant whirs and wheezing strings, the song never really getting loud or aggressive, just slithering along intensely, sounding like it might never end, a gorgeous, yet tripped out funereal indie rock sprawl.
The second Bottomless Pit album, 2010's Blood Under The Bridge, offers more of the same, dark and haunting stripped down indie rock. Someone here thought it sounded like Belle And Sebastian, but to our ears it sounds like a heavier My Dad Is Dead, the same sort of world weary, minor key, broken hearted indie rock. The first few tracks slither and creep, hushed and minimal and way moody, but then comes "Summerwind" which is surprisingly rocking, and sounds like it could have been yanked off one of the classic old Silkworm records, and the vibe and the energy stays relatively charged after that. "Late is another slow burning rocker, with some gorgeous vocal melodies, and some awesome psych guitar, "Dixon" alternately pounds and broods, with an almost surfy sounding main riff, but then "Kiss Them All" brings it back down again, a gorgeous low slung pretty indie pop drifter, that sounds as good as anything these guys have done.
The last three tracks on Blood Under The Bridge bounce back and forth between energetic crunch, spacey contemplative drift, and driving grooves, finishing off with the epic emotional catharsis of "38 Souls" that feels just like the old days. A (bitter)sweet dose of classic indie rock, the kind they don't really make anymore (except when it's made by the guys and gals who were making it the first time around anyway!)
This new collection also includes the 2008 Congress EP which we were never able to get, as well as three previously unreleased and unheard (by us at least, and probably you) tracks, all of which, sound as good as anything on the records proper.
MPEG Stream: "The Cardinal Movements"
MPEG Stream: "Dogtag"
MPEG Stream: "Winterwind"
MPEG Stream: "Rhinelander"
MPEG Stream: "38 Souls"

BOULDER Reaped In Half (Tee Pee) cd 14.98
Ohio punk rockers turned metalheads shed more of their punk rock skin and emerge a bright and bloody hard rockin' butterfly! Hard to tell if this is 'irony rock' or not, but it hardly matters. This is high kicking, devil sign, Budweiser tallboys, T-top camaros, 7-11 parking lot, ass kicking, drug gulping, friday night party metallic rock and roll. Think Hellacopters, Drunk Horse, Grand Funk Railroad, Motorhead and this time around: AC/DC, with the simple stomping 4/4 rhythms and the snake-y noodly riffs. Meathead metal 'n' roll that's mindless and fun as hell!!
RealAudio clip: "Krank It Up"
RealAudio clip: "Live Or Dead"
RealAudio clip: "Ripped In Half"