Review Summary: One of Japan's most infamous noise bands's greatest spectacles to date.
What is music?
1. The art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.
2. The vocal or instrumental sound produced in this way.
Technically speaking, however, music doesn't have to produce "beauty" (at least in the mainstream sense). One band that has been constantly pushing the boundaries of music has been the infamous, Boredoms, from Japan. Hailing from Osaka, the band was labelled infamous immediately, seeing as how frontman, Eye Yamantaka, was also the frontman of Hanatarash, an EXTREMELY controversial noise group (one of their most infamous shows consisted of Eye crashing through their stage show in a bulldozer.) Word has it that one of their shows even included Eye cutting a deceased cat in half with a machete. These antics quickly got Hanatarash banned from most clubs, and when Eye wasn't causing mayhem with Hanatarash, he was causing it with the Boredoms. Throughout their long history, Boredoms have been critically acclaimed for their ever-changing music style, and have just about experimented with practically every genre known. With the 1992 release of "Pop Tatari", Boredoms strive to make a release that combines literally every genre of music known to man, in a little over an hour. Needless to say, this goal is accomplished, and Pop Tatari is considered an important piece of noise history. Not for the feeble by any means.
In order to truly dissect a Boredoms album, one must prepare themselves for the truly bizarre. One will either love them, or one could easily despise them. The album kicks off with "Noise Ramones" (the majority of Japanese noise bands have a relatively bizarre history with Ramones, the most significant example being the Gerogerigegege), which is nothing by obnoxious high pitch beeps, and then kicks off with "Nice B-O-R-E Guy & Boyoyo Touch", which is a highly disjointed piece consisting of chants by Eye, bizarre sound effects, and an acoustic guitar. The album then shows its true colors with the official album opener, "Hey Bore Hey", which has drummer Yoshimi P-We and Eye Yamantaka shrieking together over an atypical punk sound, giving the official Boredoms kick. The album then goes off into "Bo-Go", which has a chaotic, thunderous feel, and progresses into a bizarre mutation of funk and carefully organized Boredoms-esque noise. "Bore Now Bore" reintroduces the signature punk sound, and is once again destroyed by the Boredoms sound effects and shrieks. The track has a nice, brief electro point, but is once again slaughtered by the main Boredoms sound. "Which Dooyoo Like" is a track that kicks off with the question, of course, "WHICH..... dooyoo like?" and then, after a few seconds of noises, the track then evolves into a stomping feel of a track, then breaks off into a ***ed acoustic, wah-wah mixture. "Molecicco" can be seen as a mockery of punk rock in general, is one of the few somewhat straightforward tracks on the album, and actually follows a somewhat followable (and listenable) pattern. "Telehorse Uma" features a sax, and takes the (somewhat) followable pattern of "Molecicco", and stretches it out so far, that this one track experiments with various highly disjointed styles, and is arguably one of the most disturbing tracks on the album.
"Hoy" is another basic sludge/punk track that is twisted and contorted to be Boredoms friendly. "Bocabola" is arguably one of the greatest tracks on the album, that kicks off with intense guitars, and is kicked off by Eye's bizarre ramblings, and by the time Yoshimi's "Coca Cola" intro starts, the track is thrust into the deep tunnels of sludge-like hell. "Heeba", on the other hands, is much more of a hardcore track, that starts off with a bluesy kind of sound, before breaking off into a hardcore track, and then having a screwy campfire like sound, and then cycling this over again about two more times. "Poy" is musically the most impressive track, and shows off the band's rather 'unique' skills. "Cheeba" echoes the future sound of Chocolate Synthesizer, as it has the same hollow kind of sound as CS does. The self titled track just regurgitates all the listener experienced, and then goes off into the album's most impressive tracks, "Corey & the Mandara Suicide Pyramid Action or Gas Satori" which has an overall reggae sound, mixed together with the unique Boredoms sound (highly concentrated hardcore/noise). The 10-minute track alone makes the album a sheer classic in the experimental genre.
This album can be seen as a clever mockery of mainstream music, or it can be seen as a bunch of retards shrieking into a microphone with no time on their hands at all. It all depends on which side of the spectrum you would most likely lean closer too. Either way, the early style of the Boredoms (Pop Tatari in particular) helped revolutionize a style of sheer hardcore mixed together with often humorous shrieks, and damn right entertaining executions. One of the most influential and damn right bizarre albums in the 90's, the Boredoms reach their peak, and never again recapture the sheer insanity of Pop Tatari. Overall, this album is recommended to music experimenters ONLY, and ABSOLUTELY NOT to any closeminded music fans at all. As a matter of fact, one must be very openminded to enjoy the unique sound of Boredoms. Otherwise, you could be agitated to the point of icepicking your eardrums and chucking your disc (or MP3 Player) off a cliff, then throwing yourself off as well. In other words, if you're not REALLY openminded, stay away. Otherwise, if you are indeed highly openminded, you might enjoy this noisy one-of-a-kind screwball of an album!
