Boris live on March 23, 2012 at The Hifi in Brisbane, Australia all photos by Stephen Booth. Click here to see full gallery.
Tag Results: boris
Rave Magazine March Cover Story: Boris
JAKEB SMITH talks to ATSUO MIZUNO, drummer and vocalist of the indefatigable, genre-hopping, Japanese experimental rock trio BORIS; a band who are constantly calling into question the nature of who they are, what they do and what our roles, as listeners, should be.
(Source: ravemagazine.com.au)
Sludge Factory: 7 Questions with Boris
Japanese quartet, Boris, will be heading to Australia next week. Ahead of their tour, Atsuo answered a couple of questions.
1. Do you guys ever fight or disagree, and if so what about?
Atsuo: None at all these days. We had some long ago though as I was control freak. It is quite peaceful among us now, we have realised that democracy during song writing process is way wiser and it will lead better result and possibility. Any specific visions or goal hide the best one.
2. Apart from playing gigs, is there anything else you specifically want to do or see in Australia/Melbourne?
A: Wata would like to hold koala. We haven’t had a chance, we visited zoo last time.
Boris to Tour in Australia & New Zealand - March 2012
Boris will be playing the following shows in Australia & New Zealand in March 2012.
BORIS AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND 2012
March 20 - Perth, AU @ The Bakery
March 22 - Sydney, AU @ Metro Theater
March 23 - Brisbane, AU @ The Hi-Fi
March 24 - Melbourne, AU @ Corner Hotel
March 27 - Wellington, NZ @ Bodega
March 28 - Auckland, NZ @ The Kings Arms Tavern
Boris rocks for Nintendo Japan
Treble Review: Boris’ New Album
Boris - New Album (Sargent House)
It’s not quite enough to say that Boris is a versatile band. The Japanese trio, who once began life as a doom metal band, has taken heavy music well beyond the expected journey of balancing atmosphere, heaviness, noise and melody, and deeper into genres that sometimes expand outside some heshers’ comfort zones. But even more curious than the band’s forays into folky psychedelic rock or dance-friendly doom pop are their tendencies to revisit and re-contextualize their material. They’ve released two separate and unrelated albums under the same title — Heavy Rocks — and issued two strikingly different versions of their 2008 album Smile, the Japanese version revealing a more abstractly mixed version of the more straightforward stoner rock of the U.S. version.
Whatever confusion and surprise resulted in the odd Smile division is likely to be muted with any of the band’s further experiments, yet the transformation on New Album, their third full-length release of 2011, is the most drastic of the band’s catalog. New Album, originally released in Japan in March, compiles a handful of new tracks alongside songs from Heavy Rocks and Attention Please, re-imagined as glittery, dreamy J-Pop anthems. Where, in another life, these songs may have boomed, buzzed, slithered or slunk, here they flash and glisten with blinding starbursts. It would almost come a complete shock to the system, had the band not sent off a warning shot with Attention Please and its ensuing tour with American dream-pop outfit Asobi Seksu.
Though not entirely without precedent, New Album is Boris’ glossiest, most melodic and, unquestionably, weirdest album to date. At times, such as on opening track “Flare,” the exclamatory nature and avoidance of subtlety can seem like being transported into a frenetically paced video game. Yet, that’s also what makes New Album all the more charming in the long run. It’s a multi-colored firecracker of a record, popping and spinning in every direction with brilliant giddiness.
Circuit Sweets Rad Releases of 11’ Tera Melos’ Nick Reinhart’s Top 5
Rad Releases ‘11- Tera Melos
Continuing our Rad Releases feature is a band who have not only made our year here at Circuit Sweet but also been a regularly featured band throughout the past 12 months. We have the honor in speaking to Tera Melos to find out their top releases.
In June of this year Circuit Sweet had the honour of meeting Nick Reinhart after witnessing a tight engaging rapture bringing set from Tera Melos and being a part of their long overdue UK tour.
Following this we then had the privilege of getting even closer to Tera Melos; finding about influences, their live shows, highlights of their recent tour, their album, abominations and audio appeal in an interview with Nick Reinhart.
Following this we then had the privilege of getting even closer to Tera Melos; finding about influences, their live shows, highlights of their recent tour, their album, abominations and audio appeal in an interview with Nick Reinhart.
The trio have had a very intense and incredible year touring. Earlier this year Sargent House also announced the first ever pressing on vinyl of the very first ever album by the band. It never had a name, it’s often referred to as The Melody’s , Untitled or Tera Melos but none of those are actually its name it simply does not have one.
We catch up with Nick again to find out his favourites of the year.
Guitar World Names Wata from Boris in Top 10 Female Guitarists To know
Wata from Boris
“Tight, skilled and never a dull moment, Japanese trio Boris are known for combining metal, noise, psychedelic rock, ambient and pop to create their own unique take. Launched in 1996, the band has recorded 17 studio albums. Drummer-vocalist Atsuo, bassist-guitarist-vocalist Takeshi and guitarist-vocalist Wata rely on instinct and raw emotion to guide their creative path. Check out the slinky, cranky solo by Wata on “Statement.” So stoic and yet so badass!”
Kicking Against The Pricks : An Album of the Year - Boris’ - Attention Please
Speaking objectively, there were better and more elaborate albums that 2011 had to offer. Bolder, though? Not really.
Thinking about music in 2011, especially in the “indie” sense of the word, terms like “safe,” “sanitary,” “sterile” come to mind. The threat of a non-accessible, non-commercial and non-saccharine underground being bolstered by do-it-yourself record labels seems more like a memory, the often ear-splitting, alienating and dangerous sounds of the independent music scene notably in absentia. This isn’t to say that performers and bands of this ilk no longer exist, but it’s difficult to associate any extreme with the idea of “indie” music, its sound having slacked and its bands growing formulaic and obtuse. This music is no longer doing its job.
To hear Japanese experimental rock trio Boris back away from their usual metallic and distortion-laden exuberance, opting instead to navigate their way through something more closely relatable to pop music, is the type of move that makes you consider what options you have once the supposed bastard stepchild of the music industry turns darling. For Boris, Attention Please is an initially confusing but ballsy interpretation of post-punk or new wave, a glam’d up push towards a more avant-garde idea of pop music and its potential. While a track like ‘Attention Please’ evokes dance music’s repetition and reliance on rhythm, something like ‘Hope’ defies the indie paradigm, its pose and grace the type of college rock perfection that many groups in the genre could only dream of reproducing. The song refuses to abandon its strength for the sake of sensitivity.
Boris ’ New Album Debuts #1 Most Added on CMJ
Boris’ “New Album” is the #1 most added on CMJ in it’s debut week. Nice. If you haven’t heard it yet you can stream it at SPIN in full - New Album is now available everywhere.
Purchase CD or Vinyl
Boris Announce Australian Tour - March 2012
Boris will be playing 4 select shows in Australia in March 2012.
BORIS AUSTRALIA 2012
March 20 - Perth @ The Bakery
March 22 - Sydney @ Metro Theater
March 23 - Brisbane @ The Hi-Fi
March 24 - Melbourne @ Corner Hotel
MSN: Top 50 Heavy Albums of 2011 Include: Russian Circles, Boris & Deafheaven
PREFIX Review: Boris’ New Album - Out TODAY
It’s been a very strange year for Boris, and that’s seriously saying something. 2011 saw the long-running Japanese experimental rock trio put out a total of three full-length albums this year (four, if you count Klatter, their sixth co-release with Merzbow). A quick summary for those just arriving to the game: Heavy Rocks, named after their 2002 album of the same name, was their fastball, a straight-forward collection of, well, heavy rockers that saw them playing entertainingly, but somewhat disconcertingly safe. Attention Please was the curveball, an album that featured guitarist Wata singing on all of its tracks, and the band exploring poppier, quieter new directions. Now, at the tail end of the year, we have the bluntly titled New Album, which features several higher production quality versions of four Attention songs, two HeavyRocks tracks, and exactly three songs it can call its own.
Despite those numbers, it’s the best of the bunch. In Japan, New Album was released through Tearbridge Records, an imprint of major label conglomorate Avex. This label support allowed them to link up with producer Shinobu Narita, who remixed and rearranged songs from the other two albums. An Auto-Tune-esque program called Vocaloid was also utilized. What results is Boris’ shining pop moment. While some would interpret that statement to mean their heft and grit has been removed, a more accurate statement would be to say that these songs have been strapped to an arsenal of high-powered rockets stuffed with fireworks and shot into the stratosphere to explode in glorious slow motion.
Video Interview with Atsuo of Boris in NYC
Boris’ Atsuo speaks to the Japanese Society while in New York City.
Henry Rollins Picks Le Butcherettes & Boris in his Personal Playlist for LA Times
If there’s any musician with a passion for potent playlists, it’s Henry Rollins. As a Saturday-evening DJ on KCRW-FM (89.9), you could say the former Black Flag frontman depends on them. His aggressively eclectic tastes range from iconic jazzmen to obscure Japanese acts. The gregarious punk legend shared some of his recent favorites with Pop & Hiss.
The bilingual punk band Le Butcherettes and their record “Sin Sin Sin”: “It’s a great record, but live, forget about it. [Frontwoman] Teri Gender Bender is a full-on rock star … in a good way. I saw her open for Iggy the other night and she just owned it up there. It’s great to have such raw talent happening right here in L.A. So I try to amplify anything like that.”
Japan’s Boris and “New Album”: “Boris is one of my favorite bands but they make it really difficult to collect them. It’s fun but it’s expensive. They’ll do like three versions of all of their albums. They did a version of the two albums mixed together called ‘The New Album’ and I think it had a few songs from ‘Heavy Rocks’ and a few from ‘Attention Please.’ Remixed and reinvented, it’s completely amazing and completely worth it.”
