Modern Boredom and Pop Tatari

Album: Pop Tatari
Artist: Boredoms
Year: 1992
Genre: Psychedelic Noise Rock.
Label: Warner Music Japan/Reprise/Very Friendly

With the Boredoms, certain questions arise. Are three drummers really necessary? Does Yamataka Eye’s throat ever hurt? Do you really like this band or you just trying to be cool? That last one is probably the most important. Speaking for myself, I like the Boredoms. I think that they are completely fucking mad and would love to see them live. Legends say that their live shows are unlike anything you’ll witness, in this world or the next, and that watching them is similar to an out of body experience. These days the Boredoms are know as V∞redoms and have stripped down their ensemble to a trio of drummers and Eye, who conducts them from a synth or the guitar-neck-wall-thing. But we’re here to discuss the Boredoms of yore and that means noise.

I originally learned of the Boredoms from listening to John Zorn’s Naked City, a Thrash Jazz group that would make even hardened metal heads wet themselves. Yamataka Eye, leader of the Boredoms and all around mad man, provided vocals for the Naked City’s self titled album. Screams, gurgles, yowls, howls and babbles, anything but actual words. Eye’s voice is an alien and frightening thing that, in the hands of evil, could level civilization as we know it.

I was curious to see where this man had come from and ventured out to find an album by the Boredoms. I returned home with their album “Pop Tatari” and have been in love with it ever since. Noisy? Yes. Psychedelic? Very. Avant-Garde? Maddeningly so. This is the sound of the world being sucked into a black hole and then re-emerging as something completely different. It is destruction and creation, Shiva the Destroyer repackaged for the apocalypse fixated generation of the 90’s and it still sounds fresh today. Actually, it sounds like a thousand sheep dying in the heat of a great red sun, but considering that you’ll never hear that anywhere else, I’d say fresh is fair.

Very little music makes me want to dance, and this isn’t dance music, but “Bo Go”, the 4th track on the album, makes me throw myself across the room like an epileptic having a fit. Most people wouldn’t call this dancing, but when I hear that song, I just have to move. Eye is surrounded by an enclave of extremely bizarre and talented musicians, but I couldn’t begin to tell you who played what on this album. If I had to guess, it was a larger ensemble than the current V∞redoms set up, and it sounds more like a rock band then the modern tribal percussion group that they’re now. I’m not saying one is better or worse, I’m just contrasting the difference in sound.

Drums have always been an important part of Boredoms music, it’s just these days that it’s the central focus. Eye once cited Sonic Youth and Funkadelic as primary influences, but I can’t say that just because you like one of those you’ll like this. That would be greatly misleading. This is music for people who are curious about where to start with the Boredoms, or those with a taste for the Avant-Garde. Every Boredoms album is different though, so this listen won’t tell you the whole story, only part of it. Only for the open minded.