I'm posting this record review here, 'cause WordPress is giving me an outrageously tough time on my real music blog, downPick, and I want to get this posted!

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Boris is dead.


The band that filled their stage with far too many full-stacks of amplifiers for the modest number of members; the band that liked to sit on one fat hairy note until their audience passed out from blissful exhaustion; the band that played heavy rock and roll--that band is no more.


The Japanese psych-punk-drone-hair-metal band Boris, while accustomed to reinventing themselves with each of their prolific releases, have put out New Album, a new album like nothing they’ve ever done before: It actually sounds Japanese.

But also electro. And also pop. And also punk. Much of could seemingly be the soundtrack to Mega Man X.


If Japanese bands have always had the penchant for soaring, sugary music, Boris has always bucked that cliche by playing a sort of dirty punk drone, which was rich in Orange and green texture, and massive, deep bass washes, which were brutal in their simplicity, and complex in their improvisational nature. Their live shows showed off their varying degrees; from fast and frenetic, to long and harrowing.


But on this new album, New Album, Boris shows a side of the band that they’ve only hinted at, in their occasional hammy live antics (particularly drummer Takeshi), or perhaps in their active denial of their proximal, if not musical, peers.

The album opens with an analog siren, perhaps a warning of what’s to follow: a Mars-Volta like galloped, arpeggiated intensity that launches into a J-Pop inspired frenetic heaviness that is the complete antithesis of what, at least Americans know as Boris. Pink, this is not.

The ride lasts, but never sounds influenced by anything you’ve known the band as before. It’s more Sleigh Bells than sunn0))), more electro than Akuma No Uta. From grimey UK-style beats, to driving, flying strings, reminiscant of Airship scenes from classic Final Fantasy games, with a healthy slathering of processed vocals for good measure. I’m sure this sounds unnerving to the long time fan, but know this: it’s done extremely well.

The record is always a ride; it holds the attention, and throws so many interesting sounds and textures your way that you just can’t turn it off. There is almost nothing here from the old Boris at all, but if you dissolve your expectations, throw away your reservations and just enjoy the ride, then Boris have a hell of an exciting trip to take you on. That said, I’m not sure there are that many bearded Boris aficionados with the moxie to let it all go, though they seem to have planned it thusly; New Album is only planned for release in Japan.

In fact, to put it as offensively as I can, if you thought the aftershocks from last weeks earthquake resonated hard, I predict that the outpouring of seismic energy coming from the international metal-hipster community when New Album drops will be mastodonic. This record is simply not aimed whatsoever at the demographic of Pink-aficionados, those that discovered the band through their Southern Lord pedigrees.

This album will be the go-to choice of those who did not discover Boris from the underground channels, but through the words of mouth, or the plugged-in automated recommendations of the digital era. This could be the band's rocket into the big time, propelling them far past their contemporaries, who were never as contemporary as Boris has always been, and still are.

Long live Boris.

My life, this one, is in a constant state of tribalistic, but normalistic flux. My own interpretation of my immediate is, while completely subjective in understanding, an understandably reactionary impulsive model, which I deem accurate and trustworthy, but which in essence is absolutely false in structure, being, and actuality.

It is the influenciers, the experiential happenstance, or the interpretations of actions from the you that defines it, that creates the interpretator of the first person self that we all share.

This rambling, not-to-be-read entry arrives by way of the Fat Tuesday celebration of the NOLA world. whodat.

PLAYLIST 12/29

What's been spinning around the office:

Junip - Fields

Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago

DDMMYYY - Black Square

Death - Individual Thought Patterns

Mugstar - Lime

Lento - Earthen

Deathspell Omega - Paracletus

Golden Panda - Lucky Shiner

I think I've figured out how the Gideons got here.

Borders can finally compete

Thirsty, biking on my way to work, I rode by the heretofore closing Borders Books, on 3rd Street and King, right by the NL West Champion Giants' Stadium. What to my wondering mind should appear, but massive CLOSING!! EVERYTHING MUST GO, FUCKFACE!!! signs, littering the visage of the friendly sidewalk. Ladies and Gentlemen, Borders is done and down.

Now, I don't know if all Borders are done, but this one certainly is. The one nearest to my house; the one that didn't carry Gurdjieff's Beezlebub's Tales to His Grandson when I wanted it; the one that didn't have Christopher Hitchen's The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice when I wanted it; the one that had plenty of books I did want, but didn't feel like paying retail price when a quick surf over to Amazon.com got me the same book (which, truth be told, my stack at home doesn't require an instant acquisition) for Ford-damn-half-off.

But this Borders, with the boards slowly being posted up over the windows covering their 40% OFF MOTHERFUCKERS!!! signs, can finally compete with that online Behemoth of Better Buys, by settling the clearance, dumping their racks and consigning to miserably going out of business.

So I walked right into that there Borders store, plunked down some cold hard cucumbers, and walked out, in person, that day, with the new Franzen novel 'Freedom', and 'House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski for the exact same price I'd get it at Amazon! Finally, Border's can compete!

Pity they had to go out of business to do so.

Ike's is back!

Hungry, biking back from from Dolores Park, I rode by the heretofore closed down grave site of Ike's Place, the vanguard of the delectable deli sandwich in San Francisco, evicted well before their time due to incessant douchebaggery of some entitled couple living on the same block. You see, Ike's is so good that people are willing to wait sometimes up to an hour on line outside their little bodega, for a session with that sweet dirty sauce on grilled dutch crunch, and these twatnuggets think that the line is a nuisance. So no more Ike's.

As the blessed little shop had officially closed down a week before, my bike-by was purely nostalgic, still lingering wafts of sammy dancing freshly in my soul. This Banksy-like tag, printed on the boarded up windows, further pulled at the heart strings.

BUT WAIT. Because I'm a total tool, I had to check my Verizon Google Motorola Droid X for social updates, and noticed that my friend and fellow follower Eli M Glad had updated his twit-feeder with an article proclaiming Ike's risen from the dead, relocated in the Lime building around the street (2247 Market St @ Sanchez), and this was DAY ONE.

Ladies and Gentleyouse, Ike's is back. I placed an order for a Hot Mama Huda, and if I can have a moment of your time, let me tell you what this sandwich is like.

Imagine walking through old Paris on a warm autumn evening, the cobblestones tickling the soles of your shoes as the whirring by of Renault and Fiat hatchbacks zip around the crowded streets. Every block is an olefactory delight, your hard won-empty stomach rumbling, the mustardy smells of sandwich shops titilating your tastebuds, wetting and setting your mouth ready for your delicious meal to come.

You turn a corner into an alley as the shade of a lampost cools your hot brow, and suddenly your path is stopped by the cool, freshly shaven leg of a voluptious vixen draped in flowing red, auburn hair falling lasciviously over her supple breasts. She puts a finger over your already moistened lips and whispers "Shhhhh," and you say not a word. She pulls your arm around her supple waist where your hand rests upon her backside, feathers falling over your forearm as you realize this is no ordinary Justine, this is an honest-to-harlot Angel in your arms.

She pulls you closer, and in a warm breathly whimper, sighs "have at me." She spreads her legs apart, her golden juices flowing like a Bacchanal symposium of love as you lap, invigorating your soul with the highest vitality; the throbbing ecstacy of angelic gyrations, pulsating in supreme divinity blowing away your entire earthly presence into one massive momentous explosion.


That's what the sandwich was like.