The Boredoms - "Vision Creation Newsun"
(Birdman Records 2001, BMR028)
The Boredoms - "Vision Creation Newsun"
(Birdman Records 2001, BMR028)
From Aural Innovations #21 (October 2002)
Reading the liner notes on the Flaming Lips album, I became curious as to who Yoshimi P-we and The Boredoms were, so I did a bit of research. The Boredoms formed in Japan in the late 80's. Led by keyboardist and vocalist Yamataka Eye, they played a brand of Sonic Youth influenced noise rock, with punk-style energy, before turning their interests to cosmic, krautrock influenced freakouts in the late 90's. Yoshimi Yokota (aka Yoshimi P-we) has played drums and percussion with them since 1988. It piqued my interest enough to go pick up their latest, Vision Creation Newsun.
Nothing I had read prepared me for the aural assault I was about to experience.
The album starts off innocently enough, almost new-agey, with Yamataka Eye's chanting/singing "new sun, new sun" before it kicks into a chaotic bubbling stew of electronics, drums, guitar, and voices. The drumming suddenly heats up into a kinetic tribal rockfest, and it doesn't let up from that point on. Eye's cosmic synths dive and soar through clouds of percussion, vocal chants, and guitarist Yama-Motor's crazy guitar frenzy. And that's just the first track!
There are no titles to the songs, only symbols, as one track bleeds into the next. Through the pastoral panic of (Heart), with Yama-Motor's Steve Hillage-style gliss guitar mellowing things out, to the jangling acoustic guitars and hyper percussion of (Tide) to the slow harmonic build and eventual blissful sonic orgasm of (Arrow Up), to the bubbling astral oceans of (Omega), the energy rarely lets up and when it does, you still get to sink into totally cosmic seas of liquid resonance. The band even gets into a blazing Hawkwind-style jam during (Spiral), which reminded me at times of You Shouldn't Do That till it suddenly space warps into a brain spinning synth and vocoder freak out near the end.
I gotta say, Vision Creation Newsun scorched my ears and totally melted my mind!
The Birdman Records web site is at: http://www.birdmanrecords.com/.
A good fan site for The Boredoms is: http://www.boredoms.co.uk/.
Reviewed by Jeff Fitzgerald