So, gee whiz, it sure has been nice to discover this year that Vibracathedral Cathedral are back at full strength, and apparently as prolific as ever.

A few months back, my much-abused laptop keyboard had this to say about ‘Rec Blast Motorbike’:

“Thankfully, skillfully-wrangled chaos still eventually predominates, with waves of gnarled mystery soon piling up like jabbering goblin-spirits around the speaker cones. The start of side two throws us straight back in at the deep end of classic Vibracathedral intoxication, sounding like a Moroccan night-club being blasted through a space-hulk afterburner, coiled tentacles beating out a rhythm of pure noise, like a window into some sanity-challenging Jabba the Hut mushroom trip. Fans can chalk this one up as a solid gold bit of action for sure.

Side # 2 is a blast throughout actually; I absolutely love the last piece here (‘Precinct’) too – bold signifiers of ‘psychedelia’ (Doppler effect electronic whistles, rich splurges of fuzz, tinkling organ mess) splattered about like someone just took a knife to a Chocolate Watch Band master reel for some Jackson Pollack-inspired aggro – a spell-bindingly detailed & evocative blare.

Oh man, did I just type all that? Well I guess it stands as evidence of this record’s psychotropic efficacy, if nothing else. Because after all, this is Vibracathedral Orchestra, and they’re not going to let you down in that regard, any more than the London Philharmonic are going to forget to tune up one day and bugger up a Bach tracking session. ‘Rec Blast Motorbike’ is, as ever, proper psychedelia, taken straight to its ecstatic conclusion, and as such you should get on it whilst you still have the chance.”

‘Unnatural With Pain Relief’ meanwhile only turned up on my doorstep last week, so hasn’t had much of a chance to sink in yet amid all this end-of-year / pre-xmas palaver, but on first impression, it sounds sprawling, dissolute, elegiac and flattening, whilst the track on the B-side has an entire paragraph for a title. A glorious oppositional racket.

‘Rec Blast Motorbike’ can be sampled and bought straight from the (U.S. based) VHF, or otherwise can be sought out via your preferred local suppliers of such material.

‘Unnatural With Pain Relief’ represents the final release on the UK-based Krayon label, and can be acquired at an unbeatable rate directly from them. (As an aside, Krayon’s other releases are also going for a song prior to them shutting up shop for good, so do yourself a favour and dig in – there’s some great stuff there (I particularly recommend the Moon Unit LP) and you can get their entire discography for about the same price as one of those fancy Led Zep reissues [probably].)

Labels: best of 2015, Vibracathedral Orchestra