Chocolate Synthesizers

Boredoms | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 9, 1995)
• Original Release Date: May 9, 1995
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Reprise / Ada
• ASIN: B000005JCD
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,816 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Acid Police

2. Chocolate Synthesizer

3. Synthesizer Guide Book on Fire

4. Shock City

5. Tomato Synthesizer

6. Anarchy in the Ukk

7. Mama Brain

8. Action Synthesizer Hero

9. Voredoms

10. B for Boredoms

11. Eedoms

12. Smoke 7

13. Turn Table Boredoms

14. I'm Not Synthesizer (Ypy?)

15. Now Dom Go Synthesizer Way (Why?)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars my favorite album, March 8, 2000

By 

the lord - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chocolate Synthesizers (Audio CD)

This is my favorite album from my favorite band. When I listen to this I feel as though it was made for me only. I may be wrong. Buy it and see if you think it was made for you.

Many call what the Boredoms do "noise." This is dismissive. They create sound from nowhere and everywhere; a sound that does not resemble anything else. It is true art.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insane Japanese experimentalism--me rikey!, October 16, 2005

By 

Wheelchair Assassin (The Great Concavity) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chocolate Synthesizers (Audio CD)

Man, nothing like the Boredoms to remind me I haven't had a good mind-blowing in a while. Led by the mad-genius vocal stylings of Yamatsuka Eye, Chocolate Synthesizer is a wide-ranging, occasionally frightening, and endlessly fascinating listen. It's a messy (yet stangely addictive) pastiche of styles, effortlessly incorporating art punk, ambient, thrash metal, and krautrock, occasionally within the confines of a single song. If you enjoy such sissified devices as melody and "conventional" song structures Chocolate Synthesizer will probably leave you bewildered if not outright disgusted, but if you're in the mood for something different, something that pushes boundaries, challenges perceptions, and all those other cliches, this should fit the bill quite nicely. If you like acts like Can, Mr. Bungle, the Dillinger Escape Plan, and the Flaming Lips and you haven't checked out the Boredoms already, then you're missing out on some primo weirdness with this one.

The Boredoms can do the quiet thing pretty well-the title track is a nice little electronic interlude, and Synthesizer Guide Book has an eerily minimal feel led by hand drums and a hypnotic groove-but Chocolate Synthesizer is at its best when it's at its loudest and most confrontational, serving up bursts of caffeinated noise that should offend well-adjusted people everywhere. The opening Acid Police is a nice example, combining a searing riff and steamrolling rhythm with frightening group chants in either Japanese or gibberish (I can't tell the difference anyway). Similarly, the brilliantly twisted Shock City alternates psychedelic, quasi-spiritual mantras with ear-piercing screams, all while the band pounds away with some gonzo instrumentation in the background. Tomato Synthesizer, for its part, is a sonic beating of a track that provides a perfect representation of the album's no-holds-barred approach, combining harsh atmospherics with Mike Pattonesque vocal riffs and and skewed percussion before giving way to near-total anarchy for its conclusion. B for Boredoms is speed metal you can dance to, featuring a wildly addictive main guitar riff, while I'm Not Synthesizer (Ypy?) includes a lead guitar line that wouldn't sound too out of place on a Tom Waits album before a flurry of high-speed riffs and drum beats reminds you that Chocolate Synthesizer is anything but.

In spite of all the completely arbitrary and equally sudden stylistic shifts, the tracks on Chocolate Synthesizer do manage to hang together pretty well as something bearing a passing resemblance to songs-oddly enough, the boldness and willingness to experiment that led the boredoms to create such schizophrenic sound collages in the first place also provides a common thread even in the midst of all the insanity. What could in lesser hands be little more than a misguided if interesting mishmash of disparate sounds becomes a collection of fully realized pieces of deceptively lowbrow art, each of which manage to stand on their own. While it's by no means my favorite album, Chocolate Synthesizer has earned a special place in my collection by virtue of its sheer individuality. With this album, the Boredoms have a minor outsider-music classic on their hands.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Postmodern Cartoon Everything-core, January 1, 2005

By 

vyper (Minneapolis) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chocolate Synthesizers (Audio CD)

This cd was released after the mindblowing Pop Tatari.Pop Tatari really took Boredoms to a new level,incorporating all types of different music ground through Boredoms hardcore dada blender.

Compared to Pop Tatari,Chocolate Synthesizer seemed initially kind of weak to me.It seemed too loose and bizarre for it's own good.Although it's not my favorite of all the Bore records,I do see it's charm and I'll TRY to give a picture of what it sounds like.

There has always been a glorious snotty defiance in what Boredoms do.If they were really serious and angry,they could have been one of the most fearsome hardcore bands on the planet.But,these guys just wanna have fun!They never listened to all those sneering critics and "music"fans who screamed"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"

Really,part of what Boredoms do has to be considered performance art,or audio art,sound collage,because it's stretching it to call this pure music in terms of song structure,even by punk/hardcore/thash/garage rock standards.

It really seems Boredoms wanted to make the most obnoxious record of their career.Whereas Pop Tatari was focused and let you hear all the colors,Chocolate Synthesizer is all buzzy,fuzzy,overly distorted,with ear shredding screams and fingers on a chalkboard blasts of white noise.

It's the same formula as Pop Tatari,but they dirty it up even more.Alot of pummeling drums,all manner of lo-fi "trashcan"sounding percussion,lots and lots of screaming,primitive snatches of synths,all topped off with insane psycho cartoon vocals from all involved.

Because it seems more"off the cuff"and loose then Pop Tatari(Pop Tatari is sort of their big kitchen sink Sgt.Pepper)some may prefer this album.There are some great ideas in here although the intent is I guess for you to just be hit by it all,and perhaps abosorb it later.For example,alot of the songs stop out of nowhere,like the Boredoms are some band wandering around Tokyo in the fog late at night,getting lost and periodically stopping to play a song,then stopping THAT song and wondering where they are,and then picking up some OTHER song.

That's a horrible analogy,but needless to say this is an abrasive,noisy,cartoonish monster of sound.

Perhaps Boredoms weren't the most accomplished of musicians,but they were by no means a joke.Maybe some of their songs were meant as jokes,but these people knew what they were doing and had enough precision to pull it off.

As with any Bore album there should be a sticker on the album that says"You've been warned!"