We asked Atsuo and Takeshi to name some personal favorites. “That has always been one of the ways we expressed ourselves…we wanted to show listeners our roots.” The positive response to NO encouraged the group to share an Archive Series of early-career cuts and live recordings on Bandcamp, further evincing how the mosh-ready sound of NO has always been present in their work, just not as pronounced.
Atsuo explains that extreme music can be a source of healing in tough times-both he and Takeshi say hardcore helped get them through the ups and downs of student life-and he believes the best thing they can offer people during a “nightmare time” like now is music like this. While Takeshi says the pace didn’t change the way the band works, they approached the sessions with a set of rules in mind: “Make the songs short, and embrace hardcore.” By throwing themselves into this process, Boris produced a late-career highlight, choosing to celebrate wild energy rather than looking inward. The resulting album, NO, came together over a week in late March. Pre-order buy pre-order buy you own this wishlist in wishlist go to album go to track go to album go to track
Boris found the only way to cope with the situation was to head into the studio and record: “It was the only way to stay calm during coronavirus,” Atsuo says. “After only one week, all of our live shows were canceled,” Atsuo says. But in February, not long after Boris’ weeklong stint in Australia, the COVID-19 outbreak flared up in Japan. Having spent the previous year touring Japan and hanging out with elder punk and hardcore acts, they were ready to hit the ground running.
The group-Atsuo, Takeshi, and guitarist/keyboardist Wata-had those origins in mind as 2020 began. “But when I think back on it, we mostly gravitated towards a hardcore and punk community.” As guitarist/bassist Takeshi put it, “Since we were teens, hardcore was our base. “I didn’t think we belonged to any specific music scene,” says drummer Atsuo. For all the sonic twists and turns the group have made throughout their nearly 30-year career-veering from stoner sludge to something approaching pop-they still remember where they started. Boris have always been a challenging band to pin down.
0 kommentar(er)
