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VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA - Wisdom Thunderbolt

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: VHF Records #102 Release Year: 2007 Note: digipack / special guests: CHRIS CORSANO, MATTHEW BOWER, PETE NOLAN (MAGIK MARKERS),etc.. // Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.00 More Info "Wisdom Thunderbolt marks the triumphant return of Vibracathedral Orchestra after more than three years in the wilderness of intermittent performance, tangential projects, and unfindable limited editions. The seven tracks on Wisdom are thee VCO's most rocking dispatch ever, neatly combining the Ra-like collage of tracks like "Wisdom Thunderbolt" with the insistent pulsing jams of "A Natural Fact" and "Order of the Broad Eraser." "Ochre Dust" and "Rainbow Whirlwind" are more in the old-school VCO thick-blanket of sound, with tuned-percussion melody peeking out from the fog. After a surprise opening, "Sway-Sage" heaves with raucous drumming (courtesy of Magik Marker Pete Nolan) under the swells of sound. Hard to imagine, but this is the first widely available music (except for the Tuning to the Rooster comp) from the VCO since 2003's acclaimed The Queen of Guess." [label info] "First proper full length in a while from these ur-drone space explorers, which is long overdue, considering the protracted near silence of VCO, and Matthew Bower all but abandoning his Sunroof! in favor of the noisier Hototogisu. Whatever you call that sort of music that Sunroof!/VCO traffic in, very few other outfits have managed to channel the same sort of ferocious guitar freakout and blissy ambient swirl into the magical metallic drift that those two groups did. So here we have Wisdom Thunderbolt, featuring the VCO usual suspects (Neil Campbell, Mick Flower, Bridget Hayden, Adam Davenport) with a whole mess of special guests, underground drumlord Chris Corsano, the aforementioned Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Sunroof!, Hototogisu, etc.), Pete Nolan of the Magik Markers and John Godbert (Skullflower, Total) and the sound is exactly as we remember it. Thick and dense, swirling and blissed out, druggy and blurry, smeared and shimmering. There is percussion, it mostly tinkles and skitters, but occasionally pounds and swings, organs and synths are woven into weird little buzzing soundscapes, horns wail and skronk, guitars growl and jangle... While the opening track is a ramshackle stumble, all over the place, but in a very good way, the second track is where the band locks into that perfect groove they've always been capable of. A blown out stretch of raga like buzz, tribal drums underpinning a simple riff, a spacey sea sick shimmer, all wrapped up in layers of guitar buzz and hissy synth, rich and thick and totally mesmerizing. The rest of the record is more of the same, longform buzz drenched krautrocky drone jams, with some notable exceptions. The 12+ minute "Rainbow Whirlwind, which sounds like some lost Spacemen 3 jam, the guitars pulsing and throbbing, tones beating against other tones, the synths and guitars creating constantly shifting rhythms, interrupted in the middle by a blown out free noise fest, before slipping back into spaced out pulse and dreamy drift. And, the uncharacteristically 'rock'-y intro to "Sway-Sage" that sounds like the Guess Who's "American Woman", before quickly slipping back into some super distorted space jam, with a glitchy buzz laid over a relentless rhythm, and with thick ropy swirls of guitar and synth buzz burying everything in that distinctly VCO warm washed out sonic blur." [Aquarius Records] www.vhfrecords.com