Boris with Michio Kurihara - Live at FEVER 20181229 Boris with Michio Kurihara

Boris and Michio Kurihara collaborated for the first time from 2006-2008, releasing the albums Rainbow and Cloud (Chamber. Ten years after the years, not the band!) they got back together to play a show at FEVER in Tokyo. It was December 29th, 2018.

They ran through almost all their Rainbow songs with three additional Boris pieces and two from Kurihara. And so many missed it! Maybe even you? Now, international fans can be glad they’ve lived this long, if only because now they can get the whole show in a fantastic sounding two-LP package. How fantastic? The jacket: exquisite paper with pearl foil embossment lettering, a gatefold with photos of the band and who knows, possibly the sky from the night of the show? The credits are inscribed on an inserted sheet of translucent vellum. REALLY fantastic!

With pristine live sound and effects from Soichiro Nakamura, longtime producer and former bandmate of Kurihara in Japan’s legendary psychedelic White Heaven, Live at FEVER 20181229 highlights selections from a heavy rock show focused on the Rainbow songs, with even more Boris material, Kurihara solo songs and covers.

On that night eight years ago, Boris & Kurihara sound entirely ready to go all the places they need to go, employing easy power in a freewheeling yet practiced recital, visceral and granular as a matter of course. It’s simply what plugging in means to both artists, individually and collectively, to sound this awesome every time. This means the stage sound, recording, mix and pressing of Live at FEVER 20181229 are incredible! The band sounds massive AND pristine. Even without hearing much from the audience, you feel the sound of the room and the band charged by the presence of the audience. The feeling is alive.

Boris’ unique power trio have established dominance over the decades, in full evidence here. Kurihara’s moody brilliance comes through in full spectrum on “Shine” and “The Wind’s Twelve Quarters,” but everywhere he can be heard and felt. He’s behind the boomeranging dynamic shifts on side 3, snapping the head from the surging “Starship Narrator” to long moments of near silence In Stormy Nights at the start of “My Rain,” an extended elegance followed by the funky psych of “Sweet No. 1.” These studied textures form a polar other to the rock. The chime and grime of Kurihara’s tone adds a magic spell to the sound.

The album’s well titled. It easily could have been "Rainbow Live." Instead, a shuffling of the album order less one or two PLUS the addition of Boris and Kurihara songs make Live at FEVER 20181229 its own album experience. Just hearing the sound of a live experience distilled to the vinyl seems awesome and emotional. Imagine the raw wave!