Vision Creation Newsun, Boredoms
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Vision Creation Newsun, Boredoms
Each week, Sunday School takes another look at a classic album worth revisiting years after its release. EMMIE staff handpick releases that shaped a genre, defined a generation or deserve a little more recognition. Keep up with Sunday School for your weekly dose of dusted-off classics + throwbacks that merit a second spin.
Released: October 27, 1999
Good For: Voyages to new planes of reality, Dance parties for people who are bored of dance parties
Standout Tracks: “Circle,” “Spiral,” “Tilde”
Boredoms’ 1999 opus Vision Creation Newsun is like a rocket of absurd alien design which thrusts its listener into space at hypersonic speeds. In its 67 minute runtime, Vision Creation Newsun takes the listener to places they never really conceived of. It gives glimpses of alternate sonic realities that bear little resemblance to the world of music as it is well known.
The album’s first track, “Circle” propels the listener in to this world almost immediately. Some panned out industrial noises resolve into an odd chant of “NEW SUN NEW SUN” which fades quickly to an immense wall of noise filled out with drumming, thumping, guitar riffage and chants. Somehow, the noise itself gathers energy and, like a bullet from a gun, propels itself forward with periodic chanting: “Vision! Creation! Newsun!”
The basis of the whole album is its unceasing, untiring machine gun rhythm. The drumming performance by Yoshimi P-We on the album is legendary. Her intensity and creativity permeates everything, and while each song is distinct on its own, all are united by a commonly brilliant thread of percussion. The album’s fifth song, “Tilde” is perhaps the best example of this. It’s a semi-ambient, glitched out exploration of rhythm interspersed with spacy chords and natural ambience that gathers steam and resolves into a beautiful chorus of plucked strings and driving yet scattered percussion.
The variety of sounds on Vision Creation Newsun is tremendous. Spaced out, wavering guitar riffs play against cacophonous, echoing vocals. Words can’t really capture the power of the album’s sound, though. The sheer intensity on songs like “Spiral” escapes easy description; imagine a volcano erupting while it flies through space at lightspeed, or a fast, pinwheeling fall through alternating chambers of light and dark and maybe you can get an idea.
Key to understanding and enjoying Vision Creation Newsun, or really any music that reaches or exceeds its level of unusualness, is to accept it for what it is: an experience. The sounds it presents can’t hurt the listener, and if the most bizarre parts of the album turn the listener off, the album should be absolved by its most elemental components. For instance, the ineffable energy of “Spiral” and its seamless, shapeshifting transition into the shamanistic “Tilde.”
What Vision Creation Newsun is most certainly not is an easy listen. The thing demands patience, attention and courage. Accept the weirdness; revel in it. Get up and dance to the infernal drumming of Yoshimi P-We. Let yourself be taken away by Vision Creation Newsun, and don’t try to figure out how something so strange can be so fun.