Boris is a Japanese trio formed in Tokyo in 1992 by Atsuo, Takeshi and Wata, and named after a song by the American band Melvins. The group moves freely between noise, psychedelic rock, pop and metal, but its first release, Absolutego (1996), was a single droning track lasting around an hour, issued on the band’s own label: a statement of intent for heavy music slowed almost to stasis. Atsuo has since described it as a single rather than an album.
The band reached a wider international audience with Pink (2005), reissued in the United States by Southern Lord, and in 2006 released Altar with Sunn O))), a joint album the two groups later performed together in Kawasaki, London and New York. Boris has been unusually prolific: at the band’s 25th anniversary in 2017, its drummer admitted he had lost count of how many records it had made.