Sleep / Boris at Liquidroom, January 12th 2018

Daymare Recording is a Japanese label that specializes in the most experimental aspects of metal. For a few years they held a festival showcasing their artists named Leave Them All Behind, like the song from Ride. The last one was in 2015; that edition consisted of mostly local talent. This year they relaunched the event inviting Sleep to play in Japan for the first time.

Sleep played three shows, one in Osaka and two in Tokyo, along with Japanese bands Nepenthes and Friendship. For a couple of shows Mutoid Man also performed. I decided to go the show at Liquidroom. The opening band for this show was none other than Boris.

Boris is an amazing band and their live performances are a testimony of that. When I first saw them back in 2008, they closed with the Untitled song from the Smile record, one of my favorite songs of theirs’, a 20 minute opus of drone with power chords. I think that’s one of the things that help them rank among the best. In their music there’s a balance of thick (and awesome) drone, sludge metal mixed with melodies accentuated with power chords. Their song Farewell is another example, from the Pink album. This performance closed with it and after about an hour, they left the audiences wanting for more.

Boris showcased their latest (in my opinion, vastly underrated) album Dear from 2017. Sleep’s latest was released almost 20 years ago: Dopesmoker. David Rees, writing for the New York Times, describes it as “a Mark Rothko painting hitting you over the head with a bag of hammers”. The concept of this 63 minutes song is to translate to music the image of a caravan of ancient/futuristic priests plodding through the desert preaching the gospel of weed smoking. It’s large in scope and minimalistic in execution. The show opened with this tune.

After a 30 minute wait the distinct opening notes from Dopesmoker could be heard from behind the curtain obscuring the stage from the audience. After a few seconds the curtain opened revealing the band in full trance mode reproducing those sounds. They played about a third of the length of the recording. One thing I noticed during the show is that their music dynamics seem to be underrated. I do agree with the Rees’ witty metaphor but I’d say there’s a lot more subtleties in Sleep’s music. At times Al Cisneros’ will be the sole voice on stage playing walking bass lines up and down his Rickenbacker’s neck. To later be joined by Jason Roeder —who also drums for Neurosis- just riding that cymbal with a soft touch really close to a jazz pattern; basically swinging. And what could be said about Matt Pike’s command of the guitar on stage. I mean, the musicianship of this band is off the charts and they deserve props for that.

I’m also a big fan of their concept. Their intricate lyrics evoking religious imagery, combined with the space/sci-fi/futuristic references, reminds me of Su Ra and Parliament Funkadelic. These elements put them in a category of their own and prove that metal is way more complex than the often used “pounding” stereotype.

Nonetheless there was pounding of the utmost quality during the performance. In my opinion, Sleep grooves like the best of them; they’re not funk, but they do groove. It was interesting to compare both bands on the bill and their distinct approach to drone. While Boris stretched tempos until they were almost non-existent, in a way that Japanese traditional music does, Sleep locked in a relentless groove. It was atmosphere from a Japanese and American perspective.

Sleep performed for about an hour and 45 minutes. A tweet from Daymare Recordings after the concert quoted Al Cisneros saying that the three of them thought their show at Liquidroom was one of the best that the band have performed in years. It was truly an amazing one.