Thursday 24 April 2014

Volcano The Bear ‎– "Five Hundred Boy Piano" (United Dairies UD500) 2001

Wasn't this title a Dr. Seuss story??
VTB goes on a tour of a pretentious chinstrokers mp3 collection on quick scan; we got dark folk, musique concrete, a bit of free jazz, Edgard Varese, the BBC Radiophonic workshop,and more outsider avant garde nonsense. At times this sounds like a lost soundtrack to an episode of Bagpuss, which is no bad thing.
I'm fed up of writing about VTB, so i'll let one of the fabulous Freeman Brothers,(see the write up of Volfur to reintroduce yourself to the brothers Grimm of Leicester), explain more fully,but alas, even more humourlessly!:(

Review from Audion #46 (2002)...
This starts in a totally different world to any Volcano The Bear that we've heard before. Hairy Queen introduces the album as an offbeat Barber Shop Quartet, a side-swipe from some early 1900's musical - totally tongue-in-cheek - it sets the trend for a much more eccentric album, with a largely acoustic footing.
Some of the material is old, and some is new, and there's much more in the way of traditional instruments, lots of different winds, violin, guitars, Aaron's usual nimble drums, spontaneous composition, avant-garde free-folk, archaic chantings occasionally fleshed-out by the patent Volcano loops and industrial grooves. Unusually very vocal, angular and scrappy, some familiar gig ideas resurface, but there's not much rock music in the concoction.
It's all great stuff, though, if not as immediate as past offerings, which I guess is down to the vocal elements, which are sometimes jarring, as well as a lot more "new-wave" cum RIO (elements of L. Voag, Etron Fou, Henry Cow, The Work, et al) mixtures in it, which makes it a rewarding challenge. That is right down to the free-form almost Henry Cow (Fred Frith destroying his guitar) Greasy Truckers feel of Five Hundred Boy Piano itself.
Of course, this could all be down to the "sound of five thousand tiny fingers" to quote the promo blurb. Though, I guess it was just the desire to do something completely different. They definitely succeeded!

Tracklist:

1 Hairy Queen 1:32
2 Seeker 7:40

The Tallest People In The World 14:17
3i Being
3ii Peanut Puppet
3iii Tic/Toc

-
4 Wooden Sailus 2:05
5 Five Hundred Boy Piano 14:51
6 I Am The Mould
8:07

DOWNLOAD a five hundred boy piano HERE!

2 comments:

bill said...

I love The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr T! That's a trip.

Jonny Zchivago said...

It's a fine surrealist masterpiece.. No need for drugs,just watch this film.