I bought this in early 2002 purely on the strength of Julian Cope's review on his amazing Head Heritage site. (I wish I had time to keep up with everything happening there.)
Vision Creation New Sun is a masterpiece. And I mean that in the old sense. It's a masterpiece insofar as it creates a new genre. A new die has been cast. It's a sustainable sonic orgasm where before there was no sustainable sonic orgasm. Other musicians can now rip this masterpiece off (I surely fucking will) and humanity will be higher because of it. Nothing less. Album of November? Album of the Year!
I agree with all of that, except that I have yet to see a good rip-off of this new genre. Seriously, I don't even think the 'sonic orgasm' stuff is overstated. I said that Psychocandy was the last rock album, and, just as when you declare "the last Western" someone comes along and redefines the Western, so Boredoms have redefined rock. I said that the Jesus and Mary Chain had laid bare the 'tricks' of rock, but Boredoms have found some new ones. The unexpected turns this music makes get my pulse racing in ways that no 'rock' has managed to do for decades. I remember driving down the dual carriageway of the A38, between Derby and Birmingham, in the old Astra that I wrote off last July. I was doing 90, which felt like more in that Astra, and I had Vision Creation Newsun playing very loud. Driving under the influence of this album is exhilarating but unsafe. Happily the A38 was more or less empty.
This time I tried pinning down the bits that make the pulse race and coming back to them. But it's a proper album, and that doesn't work: you can't isolate how it works; you have to listen all the way through and the intensity depends on the parts that let you breathe and relax. I can't be sure, but I suspect that the album is spliced together from studio improvisations, a bit like those albums Teo Macero produced for Miles Davis, like Bitches Brew.
I don't know if one day they will release "The complete Vision Creation Newsun sessions", but I hope not, because I suspect they won't work as well. Indeed, much as I love this album, I haven't bought any other Boredoms albums for fear that they wouldn't live up to this one, and might somehow dilute its singular impact. I'm careful not to overplay it, either. I have seen Boredoms three times: with M at the New York Jazz festival in 1999 on a bill with John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Fred Frith etc (I thought M would hate them, but she was quite entertained); at the Royal Festival Hall in 2002 on a bill with John Cale; and at Shepherds Bush Empire last May. The latter two were good performances, but never quite caught fire like this album does.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
|
Comments