The Boredoms
Seadrum/House of Sun
Vice (Vice 62309)
Seadrum comes from the now infamous recording sessions conducted by The Boredoms on a beach in Japan, in which they play with as well as in the sea, allowing the waves to reach the drums, placing mikes underwater and so on. If this conjures visions of surging, roaring surf, or swelling wave formations in the style of Nurse With Wound’s remarkable Salt Marie Celeste, the result is somewhat different. Building on the tribal drumming styles and psychedelic rhythms of their wonderful Vision Creation Newsun, Seadrum features speedy, shifting batucada style drum rhythms over which Yoshimi P-We sings in a freeform style that reminds me of Sun Ra’s June Tyson, while a harp-like piano improvises in a way that recalls Alice Coltrane. It’s exhilarating stuff, made for a dancefloor that doesn’t yet exist (but which surely will do soon!). And the sea? The sea is in the mix, a static-like spitting surge of sound that pushes up through the mix at irregular interviews, giving the music sudden highly focused pulses of noise-energy. After all that oceanic drive, “House of Sun” is a gentle tambura drone and strings driven mix of a thing composed by Yamataka Eye – sustained, repetitive: more like watching the ripples created by rain in an otherwise still lake.
originally published in Signal to Noise.
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