‘Sudden Fictions’ with Bo Ningen

Released by Alcopop! in June 2020, each track of Sudden Fictions —the fourth album by enigmatic Japanese noise-rock band Bo Ningen— hosts new worlds to be discovered. Having already left a mark on the international live music circuit with their explosive performances, Sudden Fictions pieces together ever yet unprecedented elements to leave a distinct aura.

Inspired by the magic realist literature of Jorges Luis Borges, Sudden Fictions is in fact composed like a conceptual exercise, accessing alternative timelines with rock music in order to confront its own limitations. While at times minimal, other times chaotic, and always staggeringly beautiful, far beyond a simple statement of impeccable instrumental skill, their soundscapes bridge together fragments of disparate influences to manifest temporary fictions. As musicians with more than a decade of releasing and touring, with this album they reinvent the many cross-cultural encounters made in their career, and in exploring a temporality that exists outside of given reality they confront their own specific contexts as artists. 

Heavy Rock Catharsis

Each from different prefectures across Japan, the members of Bo Ningen (‘Stick Man’ in Japanese) came together in Hackney Road Studios by magnetic forces, wherein relentless 12-hour jam sessions shaped their deafening instrumentation style, with shockingly complicated riffs and effect-doused chaos. As well as their distinct stage presences—with their long black hair and wearing their mothers’ dresses—the band have been vehemently followed for their unparalleled performances. Their music bears the esoteric knowledge of Japan’s heavy psych-rock legacy, an underground lineage traceable through groups like Les Rallizes Denudes and Flower Travellin’ Band, or figures like Boredom’s EYE or CAN’s Damo Suzuki. Meanwhile the band constantly play with expectations through their many projects—live scorings of Alexandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain, collaborations with Japanese producers such as Foodman, spin-off acts delving into the world of Japanese rap, and a regular radio show on NTS that introduces musical oddities.

Given the porousness of their stylistic approach, Sudden Fictions unfolds like mutations of obscured historical moments. The first track, ‘You Make a Mark like a Calf Branding’ chants in deconstructed rhythms and dissonant bursts, alongside a monochromatic guitar and analogue synth. ‘Silenced’ oscillates between dreamy folk verse and metallic chorus, bursting in cacophony in ‘Zankoku.’ As a collaboration that pays homage to dub’s influences on British rock culture, the fifth track ‘Minimal’ features Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream: the result is as ethereal as it is heavy.

Sudden Fictions essentially sings about the complexity of history through a rock band, and highlights the relationship of identity to historical trace. Guitarist Kohhei Matsuda explains in the press release, ‘If this apparent history of music has its root somewhere, and that root leads to a present where rock bands are being pushed away, we thought we could dig deep enough to the root, and re-write the present.’ An unknown future emerges for all.

Sudden Fictions  (2020), an album by Bo Ningen released by Alcopop! Records. Further information on Bo Ningen’s tour schedule and releases can be viewed on their official website.

An experimental video for ‘Minimal’ with Bobby Gillespie by Italo-Australian video artist Rebecca Salvadori can be viewed below.