Boris with Merzbow – Klatter – Neon Pink Vinyl Record

Description

Boris with Merzbow – Klatter – Neon Pink Vinyl Record

Klatter brings together two of Japan’s most important experimental forces: the shape-shifting heavy trio Boris and noise pioneer Merzbow. Recorded during the mid-2000s and first issued in 2011, the collaboration treats songs, feedback and electronic abrasion as parts of the same dense physical environment. The project belongs to a long history of collaboration between Boris and Merzbow, but each meeting produces a different balance. Here the band remains clearly present as a rock unit while the electronics behave like weather, sometimes surrounding the performance and sometimes cutting directly through it.

The opening “Introduction” functions as a threshold before “Akuma No Uta” arrives in an altered, more unstable form. Boris supplies the weight and forward motion, while Merzbow adds layers that flicker, scrape and erupt around the band. The result is not a conventional remix, but a performance in which noise changes the apparent size of the room. Listeners familiar with the original Boris recordings will recognize themes while hearing their proportions change. A guitar line that once dominated may become partially submerged, and a small rhythmic accent can suddenly feel important when the surrounding noise drops away.

A version of “Jane,” associated with the German progressive group Jane, widens the record’s psychedelic reach. On the second side, “Klatter 1” and “Naki Kyoku” move between oppressive mass and unexpectedly spacious passages. Volume matters, but texture matters just as much; the most compelling moments come from hearing small shifts inside the larger roar. The quieter spaces are crucial. They prevent the album from becoming a continuous wall and make each return of distortion more dramatic. A good playback system reveals depth, but the record’s emotional impact does not depend on audiophile neatness.

Because Boris refuses a fixed genre, Klatter can appeal to several kinds of adventurous listener. It has the low-end force of doom, the repetition of psychedelic rock and the confrontational surface of Japanese noise. Merzbow’s presence does not erase the songs; it exposes new edges within them. The collaboration also challenges the usual division between composed rock and pure noise. Merzbow’s interventions are not background effects added after the fact; they function as active musical choices, reshaping momentum and forcing attention toward timbre.

Relapse Records’ 2023 reissue presents the five-track collaboration on neon pink vinyl in a tip-on-style gatefold sleeve with a vellum side strip modeled after the original packaging. It is a carefully produced edition of a demanding, rewarding record and an excellent fit for experimental, drone and heavy-psych collections. The neon-pink pressing complements a release whose physical design has always mattered. Relapse’s attention to the gatefold and side strip gives the reissue the feel of a deliberate archival edition rather than a routine repress of experimental material.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic

Track Listing

A1 Introduction
A2 Akuma No Uta
A3 Jane
B1 Klatter 1
B2 Naki Kyoku