From Quagmire - Tropic of Barren
(VHF)
From Quagmire, from the DC area, boasts Rake guitar madman Vincent Van Go-Gogh, yet they stray far from Rake's crazed ensemble sound, instead focusing around the delicate songwriting of Dorothy Geller. Think of Movietone or Dadamah, but with was less rock structure--it's avant-chamber music, or art-rock deconstructed a step further, or something. Geller's acoustic guitar is sparse, barely constructing the songs while Van Go-Gogh screeches over them with harsh, searing screeches and light percussion. Add James Wolf's beautiful but stark violin into the mix and you have a quite unique sound. Geller's beautiful textures and Van Go-Gogh's metallic scraping sounds work constructively, instead of in opposition. The title track mixes a rhythmic guitar progression with Van Go-Gogh's strange electronics, creating a weird acoustic space rock sound. From Quagmire's best bits are when the momentum stops and the strange searing noises lift the listener off to a different planet, before setting back down into the song as it left off. It's a trick they do a lot, but I gotta say I like it. Geller's watercolor paintings adorn the CD and complement the music well--and it's a nice change of pace from all those Pelt and Richard Youngs CDs that VHF usually puts out.
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