Volvox were one of the most extraordinary bands
ever to emerge from Melbourne, or infact anywhere else. Unfortunately
for the rest of the world, during their short existence (1991 to 1996)
they never played outside of said city. Luckily for you dualpLOVER and SPILL have taken it apon themselves to re-issue their back catalog in an effort to preserve the recorded history of one of Australia’s true outsider outfits and to help its legacy grow outside of the few who saw them play or brought the original cassettes.
Describing the unsettling nature
of the Volvox sound is somewhat difficult without pointing out one unmistakable
feature, the vocals style of Anthoney Riddell (aka 'Lester Vat'), their
all-stumbling neurologically damaged front-man, whose infamous fall
at the Redfern squats in the late 80s left him in a coma for months,
and then with a significant movement disorder. However unlike other
bands that have had physically or mentally-impaired members, his involvement
was in no way token. Anthony was actively involved in the Sydney noise
scene long before his accident, most natobly with his project The Good
Chamber who some Sydneysiders may remember through the Cosmic Conspiracy
tape label. The bands line up also included Dave Taskas (GRONG GRONG) , Glenn Norman, Christine Thirkell + various guests.
LINKS:
EXCEPRT OF INTERVIEW WITH LESTER, GLENN AND CHRISTINE BY GREG WADLEY FROM BANANAFISH #15.
VOLVOX: EGG, PLUTO PUP AND YOU: CD (2004) : AUD$15
2005 CD reissue of their second cassette Egg, Pluto Pup and You, marks
the final installment of Spill and Dual Plover's reissue trilogy following
our earlier (and now sold out) reissues of 'bad earth' (first cassette)
and 'the damage begins at the mouth' (previously unreleased material). This
series is an effort to preserve for all time one of Australia's true outsider
outfits.
|
VOLVOX : BAD EARTH : CD : SOLD OUT: DOWNLOADABLE VERSION OF BAD EARTH
CD reissue of their 1991 cassette release that was initially available
as an edition of 100.
REVIEWS:
“The second in an set of archival re-issues
of Melbourne-based entity Volvox, Target Earth is truly one of the oddest
things one could ever ask to hear. A vocalist who has a speech difficulty
due a fall through a plate glass window (or so legend has it) combines
with sinister electronic sound and the odd depressing sample to produce
something for which there is no reference point. Song structure as we
might know it is not simply abandoned, it was never part of this universe
of pained squalling, deep rumbling power electronics and sonic manipulation.
It's ugly to be sure, but ugly in the way fungus can be - so fascinating
it may as well be beautiful. It goes beyond mere spectacle - which this
undoubtedly is - to a voyage into genuine abstraction and unhinged moments
of terror that may reveal genuine secrets in a psychic/subliminal manner.
I could describe this as a hard listen, but something about it draws
me back to this; it could be it's sheer outsider-ness, but there is
a point of view being expressed here that challenges many conceptions
I have about music and more especially, free noise. What's more, there
is a strand of the familiar somehow - this reminds me of kitchens and
having cups of tea while a cat rolls about on the floor, yet it's an
alien version of these things, the recognition making the strange all
the stranger. I hesitate to even call it experimental - it sounds too
intuitive for that. It's an essential listen for explorers of the outer
perimeters of underground music, and sits with out companion at the
point where dimensional walls crumble before the force of entropy. I
can't recommend this enough, but be ready for an unsettling experience
that defies all description.”
Andrew harper
"Volvox's
Bad Earth seems like a slow motion, low-key car wreck. The songs present
themselves as if a AMC Gremlin that the driver forgot to pull the parking
break on, the automobile rolling back to collide into the front-end
of a Dodge Dart. The crunch of metal is barely audible above the sounds
of passing traffic and happy strip mall patrons drinking their chai-tea
smoothies. Seconds later, the Dart driver appears, exiting a video rental
dive where he rented a collection of industrial film shorts produced
by the American Egg Council. His head swiveling about to spot the Gremlin's
owner, but he sees noboy. Groaning and grumbling about his terrible
luck, he wonders if he should go into every store into the strip mall
to find the Gremlin's owner or if he should just sit here and wait.
Volvox was Reg Egg, Reg Egg and Reg Egg, performing and recording between
1991 and 1996. with Regina Egg sometimes sitting at the mixing console,
they tugged and pulled at their instruments over manipulated cassettes
and gurgling machines. Volvox used whatever sound producing devices
they could find, slapping together buzzes, detuned guitar moans, cheap
keyboard twitches over which Reg Egg described unbearable beef drinks
and strange eggs in stranger containers, his voice always about to implode
into a grumble. Bad Earth is being trapped in a car wreck. Semi-conscious
with broken glass covering you, you strain to hear the muffled crackles
and voice trying to share something important with you. You forget that
you are even pinned behind the steering wheel as you try to make sense
of it. All you can decipher is, "I was given anti-depressants pills
by a doctor. All they did was depress me more."
jack
cole.
"An
absolute gem "Bad Earth" by Volvox This cd is just a hell of a lot of
fun. Where would this genre of music be if weren't for vacuum cleaner
hoses and other household devices? Actually, there's a bit of everything.
Chunky, noisy bass and some weird, screwy bleeps and voice samples.
I think, perhaps, this release should come with a health warning. "not
to be consumed with dinner". Hmmm, maybe Naturopaths could recommend
it as a natural laxative..? Listen to track 1 "Beetle Paste Dinner"
and you get the picture. It just gets better from there onÉ I don't
know, perhaps you could try turning down the sound to The Cook, The
Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, and listen to this. But make sure you
have a clearway to the bathroom"
Fiona
Bennet
|
VOLVOX: THE DAMAGE BEGINS AT THE MOUTH: CDR (packaged in original surplus covers). AUD$10
The first of the spill / dualpLOVER reissue trilogy features a collection of previously unleased material.
REVIEWS:
“No such tent-to-tomb implausibility
for sundered, two-strophe constrictors Volvox, who, with their Dual
Plover/Spill CD retrospective The Damage Begins at the Mouth, prove
themselves to have been the dusky, full-lipped pinpoints of smothered
libido we'd all been waiting to piss upon. No fool party members, no
youthful prattle in pink letters, no hoarse whispers or long drags.
As "The Horrible Holes of Venus" forms its restricted, brilliant
palette (a great battle of machete-wielding peasant Salic Franks, a
stagnant, weathered gray; low, throaty poised pencils), it becomes quite
clear that the nipple always fell too quickly from their mouths. Volvox
were a never-failing brawl, perhaps the best band of their time. Certainly,
"Huhnenblut" is worth the lives of ten thousand Cobains. With
"Interferon (Matty)," Volvox paint four rolls: vendettas,
manuscripts and galley-proofs, Parisian prig of gross belly and bad
air, "76 photos of the period, unaltered or specially posed,"
and imperceptible flights, pajama jackets. Their colds, coughs and sore
throats are emblematic, an ancient blade; their feet, slithering through
Melbourne streets suffused with yellow, kindling drifts, shoot struts
and spikes into Balla's unprejudiced eye. What a goddamned great error."
Tom
Smith, Bananafish.
"Someone call me an ambulance... 'VOLVOX
- The Damage Begins At The Mouth' You've gotta get up on a pretty odd
side of the bird cage to out-weird my music collection. I'd never be
so cocky as to say I've heard it all, but let's just say there's enough
aesthetic dents in my cerebrum to scare off even the Maaco people. Hearing
"Uncle Meat" at age 12, "The Residents' Commercial Album" at 17 and
"The Wigmaker In Eighteenth Century Williamsburg" last year has forever
warped me to the idea of "normal" or "bugged out." I can never tell
anymoreSõwitness my decision to "get the party started" amongst
a group of visiting friends by breaking out Miles Davis'"On The Corner"
(hint: they came to Chicago to see Weezer). It's a funny thing when
you live your life under the banner "Great art should be constantly
punching me in the face," but after a while, you¶re just not that easily
fazed. It's not that I'm jaded, but pots n' pans and funny voices just
don't freak me out like they once did. Like a roller coaster junkie,
looking for faster n' higher, it's that temporary sensory derangement
that keeps me on the search. And like my first ride on the Magnum XL,
my first time hearing Volvox, I realized that this one might tide me
for a while. Lester Vat of Australia was a pretty weird guy to start
with, but then he fell through a glass ceiling (there's a lesson in
there somewhere, women of big business!) and suffered a neurological
impairment of some sort that sends his body into a variety of spasms,
I assume comparable to full-body Tourette¶s Syndrome. His singing resembles
nothing so much as a member of Parliament (the policy-making body, not
the funk band) taking the stand after six too many sherries and a handful
of pills, mumbling and slurring in a most regal fashion. Age William
Bennett forty years, conk him in the head a few times, stick a mic in
his hand, and voila! He wouldn¶t be half as astute as Lester Vat, nor
would he have Lester's skill at hyping food products (check this lyric
out: "Have you tried Lemon Fritz? It's lemon, and it's fritzSõLEMON
FRITZ!"). The band (one of whom was in an Alternative Tentacles band
called Grong Grong at one time) do a bit of everythingSõabuse
turntables, abuse upright basses, abuse cheap synths, abuse children
(sorry, couldn't resist), and in general, punk the fuck out of the "Indeterminacy
1 and 2" blueprint. "The Damage Begins At the Mouth" is an odds-and-ends
collection, the tossaways of a short-lived band that only put out two
records in its existence ("Bad Earth" has been rescued from edition-of-50
tape obscurity, also by dual pLOVER. At this time, the other Volvox
release, "Pluto Pup and You" may not be so lucky). Naturally, questions
like "does it hold together as an album" don't really apply here, since
these songs spring into being as a reaction against coherence. Actually,
it¶s almost more like a collection of would-be singles, in the sense
that it's a set of 26 concise and unrelated thrills. And yes, I DO think
"Bastardised Air Conditioner" could be a hit single. Who wouldn't find
themselves singing along with a catchy chorus like this: "There's an
air conditioner/in my throat/there's an air conditioner/in my boat/there's
an air conditioner/in my brain." The "American Idol" of my dreams sees
the competition narrowed down to these finalists: * Lester Vat, Australia
* Tom Smith, USA * Dave Phillips, Switzerland * Nate Young, USA * Adris
Hoyos, USA Sõjust to see the look on Paula Abdul's face. My Î80s-related
traumas would vanish in one must-see two hour special presentation.
"Damage" is full of many such warped delights. If you've ever desired
to play Fernando Grillo and Van Halen¶s "Hot For Teacher" simultaneously,
tough luck you've been beaten to the punch by "Bulbous Thing." In "Chock-o-Socks,"
an angry mob fuck up a tavern on a recording from 50 years ago. This
mutates into a "Blubberknife"-era Severed Heads loop-panic before going
completely bug shit (the way of all beautiful things in life). I could
go on and on, but my point is made. This album (and "Bad Earth," which
will be reviewed next month) are odd records even by odd records standards,
a big booger on the flaming rutabaga of modern avant-goofery. Don¶t
sing along unless you're really feeling it."
cmsienkofoundation
"BEGINS IN AN EERIE WAY, VOCAL MUTTERINGS
& MOANS REVERB OVER THE BACKDROP OF BASSY VIBRATIONS, TAPPING, STABS
ON AN OUT-OF-TUNE ACOUSTIC GUITAR, TAPE-SNIPPETS & A HINT OF WHAT SOUNDS
LIKE A VIOLIN, SHREIKING & SCRAPING. DISLOINTED RHYHTMS & SCREACHING
MACHINES LAY UNDERNEATH A SLURRED YET PASSIONATELY DELIVERD SPOKEN TRACK,
SOUNDS LIKE RANDOM THINGS BEING DROPPED IN THE BACKGROUND OF A LARGE
EMPTY HALL. LISTENABLE WHILST STILL BEING COMPLETELY SCATTERED. APPARANTLY
HOME-MADE INSTRUMENTS ARE USED ON THIS RECORDING & WHATEVER THEY ARE,
THEY SOUND GREAT. THERE’S QUITE A FEW SOUNDS HERE THAT DEFY DESCRIPTION
, YOU’D HAVE TO HEAR THIS TO UNDERSTAND. THERE’S A TRACK THAT SOUNDS
LIKE SLOWED DOWN BASS NOTES PLAYED SPARSELY, JOINED BY AN EQUALLY SLOWED
DOWN VOICE , DRONING, LOATHING & WASHED OUT. AN AWESOME C.D TO SHUT
YOUR EYES TO, VISUAL- INDUCING DARK SOUNDSCAPES. JUST WHEN IT’S SAFE
TO SHUT YOUR EYES, YOU’LL BE JOLTED OUT OF IT BY ONE OF THE HARSHER
BURSTS OF NOIZE/FREQUENCIES & SPEWED OUT ALIEN-VOCAL INSANITY! DOOMY
& SPARSE IN PARTS, THEN CLAUSTRAPHOBICLLY CHAOTIC IN OTHERS, IT SEEMS
TO MOVE EASILY FROM TORMENTED MENTAL HORROR TO CHILDISH SILLYBUGGERS.
IT’S THE RANDOM HUMAN ELEMENT THAT GIVES THIS SALAD OF SONIC VIBRATIONS
IT’S CHARM. THE DRUMMING SOUNDS LIKE IT’S DONE ON VARIOUS OBJECTS THROUGHOUT
, EG: DRUMS, BINS, BOXES & UM, OTHER STUFF!! ALSO HAS SOME TWISTED PASSAGES
OF ANALOG KEYBOARD SQUELCHES JAMMING WITH WHAT SOUNDS LIKE AN ACCORDIAN
BEING PLATED UNDER WATER! FURTHER INTO THE DISC SEE’S SOME CHOKING GOING
ON , VIOLENT CHOKING WHILST SOMEONE CASUALLY FARTS OUT BOTTOM –END THROBS
OVER HI-HAT BRUSHES. CONSTANT FUCKED UP POETICS BY VOCALIST LESTER VAT
(WHO HAS PERFORMED AT WHAT IS MUSIC? ) GIVES THIS ALBUM IT’S DEMENTED
EDGE. LOTS OF DELAY , ECHOES, RADIO STATIC & ALMOST ANIMAL SOUNDING
HORNS SPRINKLED THROUGHOUT MAKES THIS A VERY BIZARE LISTENING EXPERIENCE.
RECORDED ENTIRELY ON 4-TRACK, THE 26 TRACKS HERE WERE CREATED BETWEEN
1993-1995 & IT CAPTURES A GREAT SOUND DESPITE IT’S LIMITATIONS. ALTHOUGH
MAYBE NOT SO EASY LISTENING FOR SOME, DEFINATELY WORTH CHECKING IF YOU
THINK YOU’D LIKE TO HEAR SOMETHING “DIFFERENT” & “CHALLENGING”. THIS
IS A DOCUMENT OF AUSTRALIAN MUSIC GOING ON UNNOTICED BY THE MAINSTREAM
, ONCE AGAIN BROUGHT TO US BY SYDNEY’S BEST ORIGINAL LABEL, DUAL PLOVER,
ALONG WITH MELBOURNE’S SPILL RECORDS. AT 63 MINUTES LONG & COMING IN
A CARDBOARD/VELCRO POCKET WITH CLASSY SUEDE-LIKE INNER, THE $15 PRICE
TAG IS A BARGAIN!"
BUMSCUZZ
|
|