We last covered Borrisokane over two years ago, and it’s high-damn-time they got another Deli look. Since our review of their 2012 “Disaster Face,” this Austin indie-gone-complex band has only improved what was already an interesting sound.
Borrisokane use the word “orchestrated” to describe their music on their Soundcloud, and the term fits: Borrisokane tracks have many moving parts, all of which give the impression of having been carefully set down exactly where they should be in the song. Somehow the group walks the tightrope that is balanced, busy layering and avoids the easy pitfall of overstuffing, resulting in dense, but highly approachable pop songs. I get echoes of surf-rock and The Evangelicals in here, but then sometimes a Borrisokane track will go quite electroish, or throw in some Swans-like deep droning vocals. What I’m getting at is that Borrisokane shows their influences, but they use them as influences should be, nailing that Jim Jarmusch-endorsed “authentic theft” that takes the source material someplace new.
Another reason to bring these guys up is that they have been slamming through recording track after track in support of a seriously fucking cool idea this past year. It’s called The Versus Project, and it’s basically a series of EPs that features Borrisokane and another band covering one song each from the other’s discography, then recording a new song each. Bands they’ve worked with include Pageantry, Knifight, Young Tongue and Major Major Major, all interesting in their own right. The resulting records are solid, and well worth a listen, so get your ears over to both the Borrisokane page and the page for The Versus Project and feed those things some freshness.