A highlight of RISING's Japan in Focus music program is this Victorian exclusive performance by Japanese experimentalists Boris. With each album since 1992—and there have been dozens of them—the doom icons have given us radiant shoegaze, crust punk and plenty of noise. At Max Watt's, Takeshi, Atsuo and Wata will strap in and power through their 2002 record Heavy Rocks—a special set performed with Japan's leading bassist TOKIE—before diving deep into the sludge and psychedelia of their 30-year back catalogue.

Kicking us off are local horror rock riffers Rot TV (who delivered a searing Kinks’ cover last year for RISING Singles Club) and the transcendent, improvised drone hallucinations of Bonnie Mercer.