As fun as Melt-Banana may be, and as complex as the rhythms of Ruins are, there is one Japanese band that stands out above all others as the strangest: Boredoms. Led by Yamatsuka Eye and Yoshimi P-We, they are yet another group that is almost impossible to classify. Boredoms began in a similar style to Butthole Surfers. They took a surreal stoner humour, fused it with fuzzy and angry noise-punk, and added chaotic stage shows involving a lot of violence. Their first few albums are nutty creations, jumping from weird little dance freak-outs (Eye is a DJ outside of the band) to hardcore punk monsters in the space of a few seconds. Their releases were short, sharp and crazy: just the way weird music should be. Their sound relied heavily on the vocal acrobatics of Eye, who is probably the greatest avant-garde vocalist that music has ever seen (as noted by Laswell and Zorn in their selection of him to work on Praxis and Naked City). He belches, yelps, squawks, cries, screams, jabbers and bellows like a madman. It's seriously impressive. As the band grew, so did their sound. Unlike the Surfers, who slipped into pop music, Boredoms became interested in psychedelia. Their later albums draw on ambient, new age and tribal music styles, creating lengthier pieces that were largely comprised of percussive textures and electronic effects. These are some of their most inventive records, and despite being more "melodic" than their early work remain otherworldly and unusual. This style came to a head with their now legendary Boadrum performances, which featured the band performing a carefully composed piece with up to 99 drummers at a time. Boredoms have to be heard to be believed - a band that went from the gnarliest avant-punks to the most blissed-out psychedelic experimentalists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHWtJQ4wbnY
