Bosch's With You - Dreams That Come a Thing (part two)
Today, I'm taking a look at the oddly named Russian band Bosch's With You, another solid release from KNVBI Records.
It's taken me a long, long time to get to the point in my life where I can enjoy music that could be classified as "ambient" or "psychedelic."
Let me explain.
In junior high I got into metal. Like any self-respecting metal kid I listened exclusively to metal. In high school I got into hardcore. Like any self-respecting hardcore kid I listened exclusively to hardcore. Any band that I was going to listen to had to fit into my, admittedly narrow, definition of what constituted music.
Sure, I listened to some stuff which had some dronier elements to it. Neurosis' "Through Silver in Blood" was a religious experience for me when it came out. Overall, though, only stuff that was heavy, preferably fast, and pissed off really appealed to me.
The band that really opened me up to the idea of more ambient music was Tristeza. My friends and I went to see Tristeza in 1998 or so because we heard that they had members of The Crimson Curse, Swing Kids, and Constantine Sankathi. With that kind of pedigree, we were expecting something chaotic, noisy, screamy, and rocking. What we got instead was a hypnotic wall of guitar arpeggios, burying us under a shimmering mountain of reverb drenched melody. They locked into a groove like no band I had ever seen.
I picked up their first album at that show and began listening to it constantly. I was able to justify my excitement for it, I think, because the members of Tristeza had been in hardcore bands. Somehow that made it okay to my young ears. As I got older, however, I began to stumble across more bands that did this kind of ambient, psychedelic thing, and became less and less opposed to the idea of listening to them.
Today, my iPod is full of ambient shit. The most frequently played song on there is the second track on 1 Mile North's "Minor Shadows." So thankfully, despite it taking me a long time to get here, I have a good context to appreciate Bosch's With You.
The album is called "Dreams That Come a Thing (part two)" and is apparently part of a trilogy of records the band is doing. My biggest problem with part two of this record is that I don't also have parts one and three. This record is absolutely gorgeous. Lots of tense, melodic riffing with layers upon layers of guitar effects and all kinds of ambient drones filling out the space. They're the kind of band that I imagine to be a giant, warm, cocoon of noise when they play live. I like bands like that.
They actually have a fair affinity with the aforementioned Tristeza, especially some of their more dreamy sounding material. Another band that they sort of remind me of is Grails. Like Grails, they kind of have this organic, unstructured, borderline improvisational feel. I'm sure neither Grails nor Bosch's With You are actually improvising their songs, but they both decidedly have a freefrom quality to them which makes it feel as if you're hearing this totally singular moment captured on record.
I also have to drop the obligatory "holy shit this vinyl looks good" comment that seems to be a running chorus with my reviews of KNVBI Records releases. Say it with me: please own this record on vinyl so you can hold the delicious, red slab of wax in your hands.
So it's taken me a while to get to this point. Ten years ago the just graduating high school me who still listened exclusively to metal and hardcore would have hated Bosch's With You. That me would have been missing out, however, on a great record.
Bosch's With You on YouTube? What A Country!
