Browse by Label: VHF

Artist:	SKULLFLOWER
Title:	This Is Skullflower
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	VHF 023CD

2010 repress of this all-time classic, originally released in 1996. "Evolving out of Pure and then Total, Skullflower coalesced in 1987 and debuted in 1988 with the self-titled EP on Broken Flag. Over the next decade, a large assortment of characters (including guitarist Matthew Bower and drummer Stuart Dennison, the only members to appear on all their releases) would generate a truly amazing amount of loud noise masquerading as music (or vice versa) before going on indefinite hiatus after 1996's This Is Skullflower, a release that confounded expectation by taking a quieter tack (not necessarily more minimal), away from the extreme noise for which Skullflower was known. 'Lounge' balances steady feedback with throbbing rhythm. On 'Glider,' piano provides steadiness while swirling guitar offers a strong contrast. 'Creaky Rigging,' with an entrancing, soft psych-jam guitar line, makes its way over an increasingly discordant drone arrangement as Dennison's viola adds an unearthly element. The final song, with Richard Youngs in on guitar, is the monster: 'The Pirate Ship of Reality Is Moving Out,' a nearly-40-minute piece recorded at a live club date in 1995. The sheets of white noise and feedback on top of feedback return with a vengeance as the song progresses -- by 12 minutes in, the damage level is near indescribable, yet a strong undercurrent of soft melancholy strips back to almost nothing -- a balance of abuse and restraint carefully performed."

Artist:	PELT
Title:	Techeod
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	VHF 036CD

2010 repress, originally released in 1997. "Pelt's mix of traditional (acoustic instruments, folk and ethnic music) and contemporary (about one million super-weird noise and avant-garde records) reaches a peak on Techeod (pronounced 'Teyhood'). Using tamboura, guitar, violin, tabla, banjo, flute, lap steel, oscillator, voice, organ and a variety of other instruments both conventional and homemade, Pelt issues forth a massive and extraordinary gust of sound. Recorded both at home and live in Washington, DC, it's a sound extravaganza complete with Indian-inspired modal trance, wall-of-sound layered melodica, and tape-loop exotica in the vein of compositional explorers like Terry Riley and Steve Reich."

Artist:	WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON
Title:	Butterfly Dust
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	VHF 044CD

"The first solo CD by Simon Wickham-Smith follows a long and prolific 10 year recording partnership with Richard Youngs. Recorded during a temporary relocation to Australia, Butterfly Dust is a strikingly intimate solo performance on organ, voice, Peruvian Reed, and didgeridoo. The performances here are informed by a rare combination of virtuosity and exploratory improvisation. In comparison with some prior performances (e.g. Simon's startlingly skilled assault on a grand piano on Knish), Butterfly Dust is in a more minimal style, where sounds are given room to build up and establish a mood over the long term. This is particularly true of the long organ solo "Objects Appearing", where notes are slowly added to a drone over a period of several minutes, giving each newly introduced note a significant impact."

Artist:	YOUNGS/SIMON WICKHAM-SMITH, RICHARD
Title:	Lake
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	VHF 052CD

"Originally issued in an edition of 300 on their No Fans label and for all intents and purposes unavailable and unheard for a decade, the tenth anniversary CD-ification of their classic debut double LP still sounds as revelatory and alien as it did when it was released. Tracks like the immortal college freak-out 'Dance: Help the Aged (Give Them A Heart Attack)', the minimal pulse epic 'Chord', and the psych-fuzz rock mania of 'Goat' have been undiluted in their majesty by the unbearable decade that has elapsed between then and now. Deep breath, keep the eyes from rolling back in the head, focus, focus, highest rating."

Artist:	WICKHAM-SMITH & RICHARD YOUNGS, SIMON
Title:	LAmmerGEIER
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	VHF 058CD

"This finds the duo continuing to pursue the head-scratching assortment and range of outer sound in a somewhat more contemporary style. LAmmERGEIR makes use of all sorts of exotic instruments, but like Metallic Sonatas, many of the pieces have undergone electronic transformation, adding an extra layer of unsettling aural alchemedia to the tunes. Some of the sounds show the influence of Simon's laptop work over the last couple of years. Laptops aside, the layers of microscopic detail on LAmmERGEIER should give listeners plenty of practice in differentiating sounds that are produced by complicated software and sounds that are produced by a guy whacking a baking tray with a stick."

Artist:	KAWABATA & RICHARD YOUNGS, MAKOTO
Title:
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	VHF 064CD

"This untitled CD of duets by Kawabata Makoto, the leader of Acid Mothers Temple, and the slightly less available Glasgow librarian Richard Youngs shows the pair in a relaxed yet psychedelic mood where it is immediately apparent that the two are really listening to one another instead of merely adding to their already vast discographies. Throughout the five untitled tracks, simple modal melodies are performed on acoustic guitar, autoharp, organ, voice and other instruments rubbing against the swirling production and layers of shifting haze. Young's identifiable voice, guitar and autoharp greet Kawabata's echo treatments on the first track, while track three reverses the process with Young's minor key picking cutting against Kawabata's thick, visceral drones. Tracks two, four and five all use a base of beautiful fingerpicked guitar melodies, layering organ, synth, tape effects and echo until a mellow cosmic vibe is achieved."

Artist:	WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON
Title:	Extreme Bukake
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	VHF 065CD

"In contrast to the live performance-based pieces on Simon Wickham-Smith's 1999 CD Butterfly Dust, the perversely titled follow-up Extreme Bukake is a dissection of religious music, realized on laptop computer. Traditional components like Catholic hymns and Wickham-Smith's vocal on a Hare Krsna prayer get fragmented, splintered, and reassembled into a rich blob of sound. According to his notes on the tracks, 'The Self-Immolation of Thich Quang Duc' is a programmatic work based around the death of the titular Vi�tnamese monk who set himself alight to protest about the activity of the Vi�tnamese government in the early 1960s. He was a friend of Thich Nhat Hanh, whom Martin Luther King Jr. nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965. The music sounds like the insanity of the situation, the external noise of cars and people and the internal noise of the heart and the soul of this man. 'Sri Guru Vandana' is a song from the Hare Krsna (ISKCON) tradition of Krisna Vaisnavitism, a nod in the direction of Wickham-Smith's pre-Buddhist, teenager self, the young man who got into ISKCON and then freaked out at the evangelical nature of the organization. This track acknowledges the positive side of his experience. 'Ave Regina Celorum' is based on a Catholic hymn to Mary, an attempt to create a piece which could perhaps be used for meditation, either formal or informal."

Artist:	FROM QUAGMIRE
Title:	Caught In Unknowing
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	VHF 071CD

"Working from Dorothy Geller's assured finger-picked and plucked nylon-string guitar, and James Wolf's elegant violin lines, From Quagmire explores a kind of hushed, terse chamber song that is so unlike anything else it's hard to draw comparisons. V2G2's unorthodox interruptions of sawing bowed guitar, free-'jazz' drumming, and other unlikely audio splatter is the wild card that keeps things from getting too austere. Usually it's totally beside the point, but it's worth mentioning that unlike most underground folk/outsider weirdness, the music here is superbly recorded in close-up detail."

Artist:	NEILSON & RICHARD YOUNGS, ALEXANDER
Title:	Ourselves
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	VHF 082CD

"Ourselves was originally recorded in Glasgow 2003 as a one-hour special for broadcast on London's Resonance FM but turned out too good to leave to the ether. It is the first collaboration between VHF mainstay Richard Youngs and octopus-armed percussionist Alexander Neilson (currently working with the Glasgow big-band Scatter, whose debut is due soon on Cenotaph). The music here represents something of a return to the extended psychedelic mania of mid-'90-s R!!! outings such as Asthma and Diabetes and Enedkeg. 'Beam' kicks off the CD with Youngs ripping it up on electric guitar over a thick blanket of hand percussion, plucked strings, and backwards scraping noises. The 36-minute 'Mexico' follows with more string mangling, segueing into an atmospheric interlude for voices, bowed cymbals, and bells. The final track is an unusual rendering of the traditional 'God Bless The Master,' with Youngs's unmistakable voice carrying the original melody over the cloud of bric-a-brac and swells of electricity swirling in the background."

Artist:	ILK
Title:	Canticle
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	VHF 087CD

"Outrageous CD of prog rock from Richard Youngs' and Andrew Paine's Ilk, Canticle is a long promised follow-up to the group's 1998 CD Zenith, which was released on Youngs' No Fans label. Unlike Youngs' more 'minimalist' solo records, Ilk drapes his songs and voice in thick layers of heavy jams, and then piles on the production tricks, vocal layers, Steve Howe-style leads, synth bleeps, and other racket in beautifully intricate arrangements. Canticle is clearly influenced by the classic UK progressives but unmistakably contemporary. 'A Guiding Principle' and 'Landsong' marry Youngs' and Paine's multi-tracked voices with over the top full rock-band arrangements. 'Honour's Prospect' mixes mystical narration with some searing fuzz-guitar, and is followed by the bass-heavy march of 'The Weight of Stars.' 'Tilling' shimmers and echoes, leading into the spacey and cosmic 'Outward & Homeward.' The folky 'Of Souls' serves as a fittingly simple epilogue to the suite. Veronica Rennie's cover art completes the package in highly appropriate style."

Artist:	PELT
Title:	Untitled
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	VHF 090CD

"(untitled) is a devastating set of almost pure white light from the newly upgraded Pelt lineup. The album's intense drone music represents a return to 'sonic-ism' for the quartet of Jack Rose, Mike Gangloff, Patrick Best, and Mikel Dimmick. Like 2003's effort Pearls from the River, (untitled) is an all-acoustic affair. The group concentrates on producing dense clouds of overtones from guitar, cello, Tibetan bowls, gongs, sruti, and esraj. Track one is an overpowering straight line a la the Theatre of Eternal Music, an atmosphere of stasis with gong and bowl flickering subtly over the massive track bed. Track two is a 32-minute epic that begins with the soft strains of Jack Rose's 12 string, picks up dueling cello and esraj and gradually builds in intensity with the sounds of gongs and other unusual percussion. Track three is the live staple 'Sundogs,' where Rose's Weissenborn lap guitar and Gangloff's resonator guitar produce a stream of unearthly high, singing overtones in an uncanny acoustic impression of electric feedback. The final track is an epilogue of Best's keening cello, again ignoring the usual technique associated with the instrument in the pursuit of pure weirdness."

Artist:	VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA
Title:	Wisdom Thunderbolt
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	VHF 102CD

"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 the 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."

Artist:	YOUNGS & ALEX NEILSON, RICHARD
Title:	Electric Lotus + Lotus Edition
Label:	VHF
Format:	LP+CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	VHF 103LP

"This epic double set combines an LP of all-electric rock mayhem with a CD of subtle drum/shakuhachi tracks. Electric Lotus is the Youngs and Neilson's self-proclaimed 'rock' album, and it is a mind-boggling clutch of guitar/bass/drums demolition. Coming off like an amphetamine-fueled Guru Guru, the music tumbles out in a crazy quilt of stun-level attack zonage, especially on the side-long Electric Lotus. Neilson's staggering freedrumming hits a new peak here, stepping beyond his laudable work with Jandek, Bonnie Prince Billy, etc., into new realms. Youngs lights it up with raging guitar and bass action, including some deeply psychedelic leads, and on 'Kickin' The Glass,' some killer 'heavy' riffing. Lotus Edition is a companion CD of restrained and completely live duos for drums and shakuhachi. Youngs had previously issued a disc of shakuhachi solos with dense delay and layering effects, but here his untrained but highly musical output on the ancient instrument is in deep conversation with Neilson's drum set. A couple of the tracks feature the kind of long notes, bowed cymbals, and other droneage heard on previous releases like Partick Rain Dance, but in a stripped down live setting."

Artist:	VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA
Title:	The Secret Base
Label:	VHF
Format:	LP
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	VHF 120LP

"The Secret Base starts up at full throttle, straight into a raw-sounding live outing, with Flower's overdriven guitar occupying the same sonic space that gives his Japan banjo / shaahi baaja workouts with Chris Corsano their urgency. The sound is dark and rough, almost Xpressway-like in its claustrophobic atmosphere. The percolating Krautrock stylings of 'If You Can't Smoke 'Em' chugs along hypnotically for over 13 minutes to close out the side. The entire B-side's 20+ minutes are devoted to the clanging free sound of 'Eyes of Wood,' where gamelan-like metal percussion dominates the proceedings."

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Artist:	YOUNGS/STEVE TODD, RICHARD
Title:	Georgians
Label:	VHF
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	VHF 022CD