Boris

Since 1992 · Japan

Boris formed in Tokyo in 1992 and took their name from a Melvins song. Their story

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Who they shaped

Behind them, left to right: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Nick Drake, The Stooges.

In front, left to right: Black Country, New Road, The Flaming Lips.

The bigger the face, the stronger the proof: they said it themselvesreporteda critic, or widely accepted

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Flood (2000)

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Flood is one seventy-minute piece in four parts that rises out of near-silence and takes its time getting anywhere. "Flood I" opens on a single clean guitar figure repeated almost to stillness, and only much later does the band let it swell into a long, crushing roar before it ebbs away again. Nothing is hurried; the patience is the point, and it lets a heavy band sound close to ambient music. It's the record that shows drone can be beautiful, not just loud.

Sleeve notes

Boris

Flood · 2000

Boris formed in Tokyo in 1992 and took their name from a Melvins song. The trio of Atsuo, Takeshi and Wata have since made records in almost every heavy and quiet shape there is: slow, crushing drone, garage-punk rushes, shoegaze haze and near-silent ambient pieces, sometimes all on one album.

Amplifier Worship and Flood made their name in drone around the turn of the century, and Pink (2005) carried them to listeners far beyond it. They have kept moving since, recording with Sunn O))), Merzbow and Ghost's Michio Kurihara, and wearing their loves openly: the sleeve of Akuma no Uta copies Nick Drake's Bryter Layter, and Atsuo has said Drake's music shaped theirs.