Boris & His Bolshie Balalaika - Psychic Revolution
Delerium DELEC CD 014
Release Date: 14th November 1994
Tracklist:
1. Toadstool Soup - 7:21
2. Onward Christian Soldiers - 4:24
3. Purple Haze - 3:42
4. Burnin' With The Fire - 6:41
5. Blacklisted Blues - 5:10
6. Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) - 3:59
7. Moonsong - 6:17
8. Goin' Nowhere - 4:19
9. Psychic Revolution (Sunsong) - 7:40
Boris was born the son of a Russian diplomat. In the early '60s his family defected whilst on a shopping trip to Sweden and Boris was brought up to experience life in the West. In 1967 he was lucky enough to see Hendrix perform his legendary Stockholm gigs, and as a result had a mystical glimpse of the future.
Boris saw himself as a psychedelic crusader joining East and West with his musical vision of cosmic love and hope. He borrowed his Father's Balalaika, painted it dayglo, and left home for a life on the road. He performed a combination of street theatre and bizarre acid influenced Balalaika music in every club that would take him, and every street corner that needed him. By 1968 he was in Hungary helping to stir up the student's Psychedelic Surrealist Democracy movement and as the Russian tanks rolled in that same year, to put an end to the flowering movement, a naked and Bolshie Boris stood at the front of the crowd playing Purple Haze, through a huge PA, on his newly created electric balalaika. Of course Boris was arrested and spent the next 10 years in a Russian labour camp. By the time he got out, he was a changed man, the sparkle in his minds eye was dimmed, dowsed by the despair of imprisonment. When he finally discovered his family, he found them in England and so spent the years 1978-83 a quiet recluse studying the pagan roots of English culture. However things changed in 1983, when Boris discovered the Stonhenge Free Festival, and at 1984's event his old self returned. He was the star of the solstice night, his medley of traditional Russian folk songs and space rock improvisations brought tears to the eyes of anyone who was with it enough to remember what happened. 1985 however brought back dark memories for Boris, when the police trashed the travellers, at the infamous Battle of The Bean Field. Many people remember the cheers from the press when Boris smashed his Balalaika over the head of a foaming, out of control riot squad officer who was attacking a defenceless, old hippy. Of course this was never shown on TV...
And so Delerium finally persuaded Boris to go into the studio and record his first ever album. After an epic life of psychedelic adventure, Boris together with his Bolshie Balalaika has finally created the musical vision that he saw 26 years ago in Sweden, at the feet of the great guitar God, Jimi Hendrix.
Thanks to: Vicki, James & Robert, Richard Allen (Freakbeat / Delerium), Louise MacAuley (Artwork), Bun, Bri & Co (Poisoned Electrick Head), Tim Howard, Dave Evans & St. Helens Music Collective (RIP), Damian & Rob (Tansads), Rat, Geoff & Sue (THC), Sharon & Joe (wherever you are!), Mark Radcliffe, Club Dog, Keith & Steve (Space Agency), Daevid A., Hawkwind, Geoff C, Eugene (LCC), Pixie, Pete W, Demetri (for getting me up on stage in the first place, scanning & DTP), Stephen 'HQ' Lea, Splash Studios (Wigan), Syngen & RTS for DAT mastering, Baal's Brook, Paul (Dungeon) & Barry for illumination, and all those who took the pi** in the early days!
Press Reviews
* Making Music, Sept 1993.
* Crohinga Well, Feb 1995.
* Rockerilla, December 1994.
Making Music
The concept here is as inspired as Boris's appearance. Boris' Balalaika is a triangular, three stringed Russian folk instrument which has been electrified and put through so many effects that its original sound is unrecognisable. While the music inevitably takes a back seat to image in cases like these, for the record, Boris deals in rambling psychedelia with some "serious" messages and the odd Hendrix cover thrown in. The songs aren't great, but that's not the point. Boris is a brilliantly conceived novelty act - he deserves to be huger than Take That.
Crohinga Well
Modern entertainment music is populated by lots of strange characters, but the hero of this review is really something special.
The first time I ever heard of Boris, musically speaking that is (for his reputation was a fast-spreading rumour even before then) was in 1993 when Delerium Records released their fantastic "Fun With Mushrooms" compilation. Boris opened the album with the hilarious "Toadstool Soup", a track that is also present on "Psychic Revolution" albeit in a different, much longer version. Boris's debut album features nine songs: two Hendrix covers and seven self-penned compositions that express his visions of cosmic love and social awareness; like in "Onward Christian Soldiers" (about the Gulf War), "Blacklisted Blues" (about unemployment) or "Moonsong" (about pagan consciousness) while the title track, "Psychic Revolution" is a seemingly old-fashioned but still bitterly needed plea for universal brotherhood and such things. The album is a true solo project on which Boris handled all the instruments himself, including of course his mucho distorto electrified balalaika, thus creating a psychedelic framework for his excellent lyrics to develop within. All the recording and producing was done in the Dead Fly Studios (of Poisoned Electrick Head) in Liverpool. It took Boris a few years to create this album but the end result is really worth listening to: about 50 minutes of warped sounds, intelligent (humane, even) lyrics end enough tongue-in-cheek humour to turn this debut into a real winner. Rock music (and the rest of the world, for that matter) needs people like Boris real bad!
A really recommended album from a true free spirit who needs your support. Go for it!
Rockerilla
An anti-nuclear propelled anarchist balalaika is spreading emissions of multicoloured light over one of the most original Delerium products for this prolific 1994: "Psychic Revolution", made of material in some cases dating back to two years ago, is a mushroom shaped melting pot, loaded with electricity and rhythm, related to the end of Sixties rebel and pacifist acid rock tradition but employing present days languages and technologies. Son of a defected Russian diplomat, guest for ten years of a Soviet working camp after a hot '68 in Budapest, he'd been previously struck down the way to Stockholm by one of those renowned Hendrix exhibitions in the Scandinavian lands; after such a long wait, his extraordinary experience has eventually been exploited for a vinyl synthesis in the Dead Fly Laboratories, i.e. Poisoned Electrick Head's headquarters, and the result is coherent with the premises: the powerful cosmic energy effortlessly channelled thru' the album's nine tracks reflects a nimble dance of synapses and neurones, fed by a rich scanning of effects and timbres and, at the same time, by a genuine underground inspiration. The opening is care of a refined version of "Toadstool Soup", the tasty consomme which acted as ouverture and leitmotiv for Delerium's catalogue of titbits "Fun With Mushrooms"; the very personal cover versions of "Purple Haze" and "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" transcribe for the three stringed instrument the seminal Hendrix blazes, "Onward Christian Soldiers" is the whipping post for both Bush and Saddam, and an ideal ark is traced from Vietnam to the Gulf, from T. Leary to the new shamanism, from Country Joe's and Jefferson's desecrating irony to Club Dog's psychedelic rites, without minding the risk that a little excess of naivete could ever weaken the strength of the protest; the cocktail of cosmic balalaika and glissando guitar, of synths and programmed percussions, stirred by Boris' wise wand in a mostly solo performance, brings the reaction to conclusion so crystallising the new plan of peaceful evolution; "Psychic Revolution (Sunsong)" talks of cosmic evolution, of love and of violence reject, and be careful not to underestimate the power of alchemical persuasion. This balalaika kills fascists...
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