Boris is a Japanese musical group formed in 1992 in Tokyo. As of 2010, their lineup consists of: Atsuo - Drums, Vocals; Takeshi - Bass, Rhythm Guitar, Vocals; Wata - Lead Guitar, Vocals. Michio Kurihara - Live session guitarist. Boris are as prolific as they are experimental. They are known to regularly switch musical genres between albums, drawing from a wildly diverse variety of musical styles including psychedelic rock, punk, sludge, doom metal, drone, pop, noise, shoegaze, ambient, and more. The band's name is taken from a song on Melvins' album Bullhead. They made their first recorded appearance on an obscure 1994 compilation entitled Take Care of Scabbard Fish, released only in Japan and now out of print. Absolutego, their full-length debut, came out in 1996 on the band’s own Fangs Anal Satan imprint but was unavailable in the U.S. for years; this was remedied when the Los Angeles-based Southern Lord label reissued the album in early 2001 along with a bonus track. Their next album, Amplifier Worship, came out on the Mangrove label in 1998 and was also unavailable in the U.S. for several years. San Francisco’s Man’s Ruin had planned to reissue it in the fall of 2001, but the label folded before that could happen. Nineteen ninety-eight also saw the release of the Boris/Keiji Haino collaboration, a live disc entitled Black: Implication Flooding, which came out on Japan’s Inoxia Records. In 1999, Boris issued a split CD with fellow Japanese band Choukoku no Niwa, More Echoes, Touching Air Landscape, which also came out on Inoxia and featured Boris weighing in with a brief (for them) 28-minute contribution. Their third full-length album, Flood, was released two years later on the MIDI Creative label, and saw a departure from their previous drone doom style for a more sparse, ambient/sludge feel. The band’s 2005 album Pink was met with considerable critical praise, exposing many more to their now distinctly stoner rock pioneered on such releases as Heavy Rocks and Akuma No Uta. Their 2006 vinyl-only release, Vein, focused on a sound derived from classic Japanese noise and crust bands such as Gloom, Confuse, and GAI. Boris' latest full-length, Smile, was released in early 2008 in the United States on Southern Lord. For the Japanese release, the band handed the tapes over to Japanese producer Souichiro Nakamura, who created a drastically different sounding version of the album. Both versions are considered to be official parts of the Boris discography, although when playing the material live the band draws almost exclusively from the original mix. Boris has collaborated with fellow Japanese artists 灰野敬二, Michio Kurihara and Merzbow. Altar, a collaboration with Southern Lord labelmates Sunn O))) was released in 2006. Boris has released various splits with many unlikely pairings, and in the autumn of 2009 released the Japanese Heavy Rock Hits series of three 7” singles on Southern Lord. http://www.homepage1.nifty.com/boris/top.html
