Vril (Chris Cutler, Bob Drake, Lukas Simonis) - Effigies In Cork (2004)

Artista: Vril

Álbum: Effigies In Cork
Año: 2004
Género: Surf experimental / Avant-Prog
Duración: 39:59
Nacionalidad: Inglaterra

Lista de Temas:
1. Supersonic Canteen
2. Impossible Canal
3. Wistful Cormorant
4. Inexplicable Jar
5. Gruesome Pillow
6. Freakish Tarpaulin
7. Spangled Farmyard
8. Preening Docent
9. Implacable Swordfish
10. Bloated Janitor
11. Wrinkled Lantern
12. Clairvoyant Pig
13. Despicable Cadet
14. Crumpled Armada
15. Uncanny Haversack
16. Groovy Vitamin

Alineación:
- Lukas Simonis / Guitar, Mandolin
- Chris Cutler / Drums & Electrified Kit
- Bob Drake / Bass, Guitar

Otra vez Alberto nos hace un tremendo aporte. Un disco dificilísimo de catalogar, una especie de R.I.O. mezclado con Surf... pero vamos mejor al comentario de Alberto que es quien nos trae este disco:

Antes de que comiencen las clases vamos con una materia nueva, de repaso para estas vacaciones, denominada Chris Cutler, baterista de grupos fundamentales como Henry Cow, Art Bears, Pere Ubu, Gong, colaborando en algunos trabajos con su excompañero Fred Frith y también con The Residents, un multinstrumentista con una capacidad increible de adaptación a diversas formas interpretativas.
Para tener una referencia de esta obra podemos decir que la misma tiene algo de musica surf, y las guitarras suenan como la de Leoni de Los Iracundos, Bingo Reyna ,o la de Robert Fripp en The League of Gentlemen (me fui al carajo con las comparaciones), pero con un tinte super moderno, con estructuras y frases dislocadas, con punteos casi matemáticos.
La historia de este trabajo es más o menos la siguiente: Bob Drake, bajista y multinstrumentista e ingeniero de sonido, le propone al guitarrista holandés Lukas Simonis grabar un disco en su propio estudio al sur de Francia, de estilo gangoso (?) en la tradición de The Ventures, no como una réplica fiel de ese estilo surf, sino poner esas canciones en una dimensión moderna. Los dos coinciden en convocar a Chris Cutler como el baterista ideal para completar el line up. Como resultado tenemos a "Efigies en Cork", un disco totalmente original que gira en torno a la guitarra de Simonis.
Un proyecto que parece extractado de alguna discoteca de los años 60s pero con una producción tan moderna que te sorprende desde el primer acorde. Los detalles de producción musical son exquisitos y los cambios y las complejidades rítmicas son admirables.
Un verdadero laberinto de técnicas musicales son puestas al servicio de nuestros oídos, considero que si la musica moderna pudo mutar en tantos años en estilos y mixturas, este disco es una referencia precisa de esa mutación.
Si, una obra mutante, algo así como un Frankenstein moderno, porque dentro de las complejidades antes mencionadas hay algo de New Wave, de Surf, de Rock, de Progresivo, un disco que de primera escucha te hace cuestionar "que mierda es esto", basta con escuchar Freakish Tarpaulin para que entiendas de que estoy hablando (perdón... escribiendo).
El disco es muy agradable de principio a fin, y es bueno enteranse que en el mundillo del R.I.O y el Avant Garde surgen cosas como éstas, creo que Moe va a tener que sortear un escollo muy dificil cuando tenga que definir el genero de este disco. Algo parecido a la tapa original de Artaud del Flaco que por su forma no habia batea, mostrador o pared donde exhibirlo.
Muchachos y muchachas del Reino Cabezón, esta es tarea para el hogar en estas vacaciones, ideal para cargar en tu reproductor personal, y caminar por la playa como un ajedrez, con tus anteojos negros de carey, seguro... te va a llevar a cualquier planeta.

Alberto

Resulta ser que la "crème de la crème" del Avant Rock y del R.I.O. están más allá de todo que hacen Surf rock. Proveedores de una experiencia experimental innigualable, experiencia que combinada se extiende por más de un siglo, lanzan aquí un disco crudo, intenso y refrescante. Fragmentos pegadizos con cadencias impares y caprichos melódicos inexplorados. "Efigies en Cork" parece un disco con canciones simples (aunque algo raras) al escucharlo fugazmente, pero es una ilusión ya que los tracks son profundidamente divertidos: sonidos trabajados, arreglos ingeniosos, trucos que parecen rayar lo ridículo, súbitas y rimbombantes rupturas y en definitiva un gran trabajo en conjunto. Alegre y complejo, una cualidad encantadora que no estamos acostumbrados a escuchar, algo similar a lo que pasa con el disco "Crysis" de los Modest Midget. Piezas enigmáticas que no son una parodia sino que parece como fotogramas de una película estupendamente bizarra y curiosa, y con una historia que raya lo ridículo y lo humorístico, porque este es un disco realizado con muy buen humor... así suena este raro surf psicodélico... no está mal esa definición aunque no creo que sea del todo correcta.
Pero al disco todavía lo estoy digieriendo, así que no escribo nada más, vamos ahora a los comentarios que han plasmado escuchas de todo el mundo:

Bob Drake proposed this project: to make a CD of Guitar Instrumentals, but now, in the C21- and not to copy the Shadows and Surf bands but to recover the form: tune, arrangement, rhythm, bass, drums, all the essentials: flexibility with focus. Songs pushed them aside in the '60s, and then solos replaced tunes for guitar players. Hendrix remembered, Third Stone from the Sun is a guitar instrumental. We also wanted to return to the old work method, rarer today, where the band sits around with instruments, plays the pieces and works out arrangements together and then records them while they are still fresh. That's what we did, so all the basic tracks were played together, straight to tape. Of course, after recording the pieces we - especially Bob - did a lot more work on them in studio world - but playing and spontaneity remain its underpinning. These pieces cover a lot of ground, fast, and move right along; the sounds continually change and performance is firmly back at the centre of the music. What's not to like?

Rer Label

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

Lukas Simonis, Bob Drake, and Chris Cutler knew each other very well before embarking on the Effigies in Cork project, so finding them playing together as a trio is not much of a surprise. What is surprising about Effigies in Cork is that the project originated from a desire to record a "twangy guitar" album -- don't be fooled by the Deutsch Gramofon cover knockoff! Of course, you cannot count on these three to play surf music and leave the genre unaffected. Most tracks are in straight 4/4 (although, as he had proved when he was backing up singer/songwriter Peter Blegvad, Cutler can turn a 4/4 beat into many different signatures) and the guitar, understandably, leads throughout. If surf music is at the core of the project, progressive rock and avant-garde elements abound, such as sudden free-form breaks, bombastic build-ups, and processed guitar and drum textures. The result is strange and more complex than what you'd expect from twangy guitar tunes, but most of all it is funny, entertaining...and not very striking in the end. Effigies in Cork is a good album, full of intelligent playing and humor (a trait Frank Key -- who titled the tunes and wrote the mock liner notes -- readily picked up on). Taken as it is, it enjoyably fills up 40 minutes of your time and will put a smile on your face. But it clearly lacks bite when compared to A.A. Kismet's two albums (with Simonis and Drake), Drake's solo albums, or Cutler's various projects. Effigies in Cork makes a nice album, but there are definitely more essential items in the discographies of all three musicians.

François Couture

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..."

Phil Zampino

Spiked with elements of humor to complement the artists’ superb musicianship, the CD cover art conspicuously reminds this writer of the classical, "Angel Records" label. Moreover, this outing is based upon a gent nicknamed VRIL who sported an eye patch, and was known to frequent roughhouse taverns in Marseille, France. Ultimately, drummer Chris Cutler of Henry Cow fame handles the intricate rhythms in support of bassist/guitarist Bob Drake and guitarist Lukas Simonis delightfully contorted view of rock music. Here, pop-rock familiarities are veiled under a modernist type outlook, amid avant tendencies and cosmic meltdowns. With this effort, you’ll hear C&W style twang guitar morphed with surf music and fuzz bass. They navigate through various metrics and themes, awash with progressive rock complexities and off-kilter escapades. More importantly, the music should be taken seriously; especially since most mortals wouldn’t be able to pull it off in such fashion. Then again, these folks are known for such devious escapades. (Recommended.... )

Glenn Astarita

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.

Michael R. Mosher

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

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.

Amazon

surf rock & math rock, but not either of them. nice drumming, marching and layered in some places (the latter part of Spangled Farmyard, Gruesome Pillow). but i dont like much the happy and light surf rock approach, or maybe it's not enough happy/dynamic. this is more like background music, even post-rock. but still, there's some very nice original attacking occasions here. With to songs mentioned Wrinkled Lantern and Crumpled Armada are maybe the only tracks i like...

Fastro

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...

Marco Carcasi

Música surf con abundantes elementos de rock vanguardista y progresivo, sin duda los músicos han querido patear el tablero una vez más y así es que nos encontramos con esta rareza estética y estilísitica. Cabezones, los invito a aventurarse en el camino que tratan de abrir estos valiente exploradores musicales... yo estoy en eso...
Y como dice por ahí uno de los comentarios, aunque éste sea un disco que roza lo humorísitico, su música debe ser tomada muy en serio; sobre todo porque la mayoría de los mortales no serían capaces de plasmarlo de manera tan brillante y compleja.
No encontré videos para mostrarles, no importa, conozcan esto igual...