from; Signal
To Noise, spring 2004 issue
VRIL Effigies in Cork (Recommended Records)
Vril is a new project, instigated by Drake, who goaded guitarist and sometimes
collaborator Lukas Simonis to come up with catchy fragments and unfinished bits
for the 21st C. equivalent of the surf record. Simonis' guitars sometimes wiggle
with a nervous twangy tremolo, but they're often just drop-dead gorgeous as
they flesh out little compact rock puzzles with odd cadences and unexplored
melodic quirks. At moments it could be the post-Zeppelin guitar album that Jimmy
Page has never managed to make, for all it's texture. ' Effigies in Cork ' with
it's brief song-like pieces, seems simple on the surface, but it's an illusion
-it's got depth equal to 'Spoors', plus a charming quality that makes it the
more immediately hosptable.
James Beaudreau
Effigies in Cork by VRIL Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike)
Mosher
Saginaw Valley State University, University Center MI 48710 USA
The first notes of this CD made me think of a more intellectual NRBQ or Ben
Vaughan Combo. VRIL is twangy, guitar-rich instrumental rock yet with riskier
melodies and time signatures than expected. Its rhythmic creativity marks it
as another project of productive percussionist Chris Cutler, who has drummed
for over nearly four decades with experimental and individualistic players like
the Art Bears, the Residents, Fred Frith, David Thomas, and many others.
VRIL teams Cutler’s drums with the fascinating runs of Dutch guitarist,
Lukas Simonis, atop the able support of bass player Bob Drake. The result is
music that a Cal Tech physicist who surfs on weekends would enjoy. After the
opening tour-de-force "supersonic canteen" (all titles are lower case),
the playlist remains interesting, though running out of steam a bit, until picking
back up with the cut "implacable swordfish". ReR Megacorp's packaging
gives the Effigies in Cork CD the variegated delights of a well-designed vinyl
album of old, from a classical look parodying Deutsche Grammophon's label to
Tim Schwartz's odd neo-Victorian imagery. Frank Keyes provides verbose, funny
liner notes and obscurantist song titles. Plenty to keep one interested and
alert on that long drive to the beach.
here is the
Amazon.com editorial review :
"Vril is an adrenalized, poppy, rampant batch of rock guitar instrumentals.
The Shadows, The Ventures, Surf music, early Hendrix are invoked, but they’re
all put through the intense mangle of 21st century thinking and studio trickery.
It’s a twangy guitar album gone mad, complete with a fascinating art-and-texts
booklet which reads like a liner notes by Edgar Allen Poe. The album features
three unlikely avant-garde musicians: Dutch guitarist Lukas Simonis, bass player/mastering
wiz Bob Drake and famed percussionist Chris Cutler."
Breathless prose, eh? Flattering though it may be to be compared to the great
neurasthenic one, I'm not sure I see the connection.* And couldn't they have
spelled Allan correctly?
* NOTE. Bob Drake writes (17th December 2003) : "It is true. Have you not
read any of Edgar Allen Poe's work? (Not to be confused with Edgar Allan Poe.)
He mentions stolen paint, calcium, unguents, poultices, swollen diagrams, purposeless
turnips, cilliated plumula, and cormorants in every one of his works."
.
VRIL //EFFIGIES IN CORK //CD //RER MEGACORP //RERVRIL1
Three unlikely avant-garde musicians have come together to make this record.
The rhythm section teams up bassist Bob Drake (Thinking Plague, the 5UUS, Hail)
with avant rock UK drummer Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, Art Bears, Cassiber, Pere
Ubu). Dutch guitarist Lukas Simonis came up with the tunes, and the band worked
out the arrangements live in the studio. The cover is a Deutsche Gramaphon spoof
by artist Frank key, who also wrote the surreal sleeve notes.This album rocks!
It's a quirky, poppy rampant batch of rock guitar instrumentals, with echoes
of The Shadows, The Ventures, Surf music, Spaghetti Western soundtracks, early
Beatles and early Hendrix, all rammed through the mangle of 21st Century thinking
and studio tricke
VRIL [CHRIS CUTLER/BOB DRAKE/LUKAS SIMONIS] - Effigies
in Cork (ReR Vril 1) Chris Cutler plays drums & electrified percussion,
was a member of the legendary Henry Cow & Art Bears bands and runs the great
ReR label. Bob Drake plays bass & guitars, was once in US prog legends Thinking
Plague & Hail and has number of adventurous solos efforts. Lukas Simonis
plays guitars & mandolin, but his background is unknown to us. The liner
notes include a fictitious story about three shady characters named the Trashkent
Terror, the Badger and Bim. The character that inspired this tale is none other
than Lothar Preen and VRIL stands for "Vain, Resplendent, Impossible Lothar".
The most is an odd blend of feisty and fun-filled power/pop/prog done instrumentally.
This is much different than anything that I've heard from Chris Cutler, who
is one of the greatest of progressive/rock/jazz drummers. I dig the way Bob
and Lukas layer a variety of different guitar (and a bit of mandolin) parts
on each piece without ever getting too dense or intense. A number of surprising
influences sail by like some surfin' twang guitars and cheesy, somewhat Beefheartian
rhythmic angularities. Certainly an unusual change of pace from our favorite
rhythmatist, record label head and occasional philosopher and author.
Vril ‘Effigies in Cork’ (Recommended 2003)
Boccata d'ossigeno; dopo l'abbastanza orrido 'Spoors' sotto la sigla Science
Group era palesemente difficile stabilire quali fossero le condizioni di salute
artistica dei signori Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, Art Bears, Cassiber, Pere Ubu
e qualche altro migliaio di collaborazioni sparse) e Bob Drake (Thinking Plague
ed Hail ). Li ritroviamo a distanza di poco tempo di nuovo insieme in compagnia
del chitarrista Lukas Simonis in un progetto che sgombra il campo dalle numerose
ombre sollevate dal precedente lavoro sotto altra sigla, i muscoli paiono di
nuovo tirati a lucido e sopratutto la scrittura giocosa apparentemente semplice
che ci viene in questo caso proposta sembra giovare non poco nel ritrovare la
condizione ideale.
Ci si muove lungo coordinate palesemente pop che di volta in volta s'infettano
allegramente con soluzioni quasi surf, spesso rigurgiti da colonna sonora spaghetti
western affiorano prepotentemente alla superficie ed in altre occasioni si assiste
anche al sollevarsi di un leggero venticello che riporta alla luce anche il
nome dei Beatles se non addirittura in certe scorribande chitarristiche la palese
citazione di un certo signor Hendrix.
Piace lo spirito dimostrato oltremodo ed il batter giovanile quasi sempre semplice
ed in 4/4 che ristabilisce la vera intensità e la più profonda
sensibilità dei mostricini qui presenti che si godono palesemente questa
avventura condotta lungo percorsi giocherellosi che idealmente riattizzano la
fiamma ultimamente piuttosto bassa di certa scuola propria di casa Recommended
che ci era tanto cara.
Da notare infine come in certi passaggi piuttosto calmi e rilassati affiori
una certa propensione per l'indolenza tipica di certo folk che idealmente sembra
mutazione delle più belle pagine scritte da Amy Denio.
E quanto deve la simpatica Amy a questi signori?
Ritorno di fiamma...........
Aggiunto: December 8th 2003
Recensore: Marco Carcasi
RIL Effigies in Cork (Recommended Records)
The description is simple: an album of instrumental guitar tunes circa 1965,
something like The Shadows, or some form of psychedelic surf music. But nothing
is ever really simple when Chris Cutler, Bob Drake and Lukas Simonis are involved.
Simonis is the instigator of the group, developing a series of melodic fragments
over which the group worked. His involvement with the excellent and twisted
pop group A.A. Kismet may give an indication of what to expect, and to prepare
the way for the listener who may be familiar with Drake's involvement with that
band. The long standing connection between Drake and Cutler via Recommended
Records completes the triangle, and makes this an effortless and powerful group
with a built-in history, a great starting point for an instrumental song of
short "poppy" tunes.
Of course "poppy" doesn't quite cut it. The 16 pieces are all brief
and to the point, the longest clocking in just under four minutes. They tend
to the joyous and upbeat, despite titles like "Gruesome Pillow" or
"Bloated Janitor," though each manages to wander into unusual territory
along the way. Some of that is due to unusual studio effect from Drake's experienced
hand, and most of the songs have overdubs from the original studio recordings,
done in ways that hide that fact from the listener. Generally though it's just
the nature of the musicians involved that makes these compositions catchy yet
quirky. Simonis in the melodic lead is the most obvious player of the lot, as
one would expect from a guitar instrumental record, and his playing bridges
the modern and the familiar through riffs and pop references. Cutler is in excellent
form propelling the group with a wealth of ideas that show why he's one of rock's
more skilled and inventive drummers. Drake churns out great ideas and provides
a rock solid basis for the pieces, his work as a bass player as strong as his
more typical guitar work. The songs have a spontaneity and lightness that belies
the amount of work and experience that went into making these tracks sound as
such, but attentive listening brings a diversity of instrumental detail and
unusual melodic direction.
Much can also be said of the CD package as a whole. The cover looks very much
like a release from Deutsche Gramophone, while the booklet and liner notes are
a twisted adventure unto themselves, involving a canoe trip in the rapids, sackbuts,
ectoplasm, theremins and cormorants. As much as the song titles look like the
work of Bob Drake's weird imagination (reference The Skull Mailbox) they and
the booklet, liner notes and even the band title are the work of Frank Key.
He develops a pop mythos for a band consisting of "Bim, Badger and Fishken
Terror" playing tunes developed by Lothar Preen "who somehow managed
to compose this 16 part work between the 7 hour 'surgical opera' Stalin Cured
My Palsy..." Just to set the record straight, VRIL is not named after the
Nazi occult society, but rather from a word coined by the Victorian author Edward
Bulwer-Lytton to describe "a mysterious life force" used by his characters.
Or perhaps it really was, as the liner notes assert, "the nickname given
to Lothar Preen by his tough matelot pals in the violent taverns of the Marseilles
dockyards..
Vril
Effigies In Cork
(ReR)
The origins of this record are more or less like this: US bass player and multi-instrumentalist
Bob Drake (a former member of Thinking Plague, Hail and 5UUs, now a much-appreciated
producer and sound engineer in the studio he owns in the south of France) proposed
to Dutch guitar player Lukas Simonis to record a "twangy guitar album"
in the tradition of the Ventures, the Shadows and surf music, not as a faithful
replica but as brought into a modern dimension. They would rehearse, play and
record as a whole, then they would overdub and do some more work on the tapes.
The two agreed on Chris Cutler as the ideal drummer to complete the line-up;
Simonis would write the tunes, Drake would do the studio work. As the result,
we have Effigies In Cork. (Or at least this is the way it went as I understood
it. The CD booklet talks about something else entirely - but why? And there's
not even a single picture of any of the guitars that were used!)
In cases like this - assuming the initial impulse produces good results, as
is certainly the case here - things are frighteningly simple, our appreciation
of the finished work depending only on how much we care for the initial concept
(which in Effigies In Cork is quite respected, though there are a few interesting
detours). And I'm quite certain that this is an album which could get some serious
commercial success - if only potential buyers knew it exists.
The work as a whole is rich in brio and - given the general coordinates - timbral
fantasy. I mostly liked Simonis's guitar work (it was the first time I heard
him). After a few moments of shock - with the exception of some fast snare rolls,
it was difficult for me at first to tell it was him playing - it was easy to
appreciate Chris Cutler's versatility. I couldn't really get Bob Drake's instrumental
work, while his contribution in terms of recording and post-production is obviously
big - sometimes quite apparent, other times more subtle.
The album works like a charm - no particular peaks and valleys, but some curious
moments (such as Crumpled Armata, where I almost thought I was about to hear
the voice of Otis Redding) and tracks like Clairvoyant Pig and Uncanny Heversack,
which I think show more than a casual resemblance to atmospheres by Les Quatre
Guitaristes De L'Apocalypso-Bar (does anybody remember them?), another group
a propos of which "irony" was a word one could use.
The only strange issue for me (but maybe it's not a really pertinent observation,
given the album's general coordinates) was a sort of lack of personality in
most tracks - at the end of the record what I was left with was more a "flavour"
than a distinctive melodic identity. Which is something I could never had said
about a group whose recordings come to my mind while listening to Effigies In
Cork: Robert Fripp's The League Of Gentlemen. As always, the reader is invited
to listen and to draw his (her?) own conclusion.
Beppe Colli
© Beppe Colli 2004
CloudsandClocks.net | Jan. 18, 2004