ABSTRACT
From their early days in 1980s Osaka, the cult Noise group Boredoms have been an icon of Japan’s deep musical strangeness among a dedicated fan base of North American listeners. Propelled by charismatic leader Eye, Boredoms’ bizarre performances and recordings—as well as high-profile collaborations with US indie stars—were received by overseas fans as part of a culturally localized experimental genre they called “Japanoise.” This chapter traces the “cultural feedback” of Japanoise as a cyclical production of intercultural exchange and media circulation, which shows how the shifts, time lags, and breakdowns of popular media are increasingly essential to global receptions of contemporary Japan and to the promise of underground music as a transnational network. Boredoms have been continually rediscovered by overseas audiences, as they transformed over decades from local Japanese punks to wild-eyed emissaries of trans-Pacific psychedelia. Along the way, Japanoise has come to represent a “submergent” force of global culture, which fosters and fuels the social imaginaries that regenerate the possibilities of underground music in a digital age.
