SOUND DEPENDENCE

In 2003 Vyacheslav Potapov (aka VP) released his debut album. The opening is very interesting: "Jungle" starts with birds, voices and noises over a 5/4 bass line. Later it grows with the addition of guitar, heavy distortion, other noises, then the base stops and there's a drums solo, then noises again. If it was for this track only I would have considered VP as Avant/RIO, or at least a psychedelic gui. Yes, Jungle can be considered a psychedelic track also in consideration of the noisy drums lead last minutes and the psychedelic coda in which the initial bass line reappears for few seconds.

In "The Story of Arabian Wise Man" which is mainly a weird blues with some oriental influences, VP has put a sort of wah-wah on the guitar plus some distortion on bass. Because of the sound effects, this track, too, sounds psychedelic.

Birds chirps are the bridge to the following, short, track: The Cascades, in which an untuned acoustic guitar is likely played sliding a pencil on the strings. The same effect used sometimes by SUPERDENSECRUSHLOADFACTOR. This track has a Krautrock feeling.

"Ant Hill" is another curious title. Maybe the high pitched sounds behind want to give the idea of ants quickly coming and going. I hear some blues imprinting also in this track, but the sounds and the crazyness of the effects are a remind to CAN. There's a number of effects behind the "ants", including a double bass solo which is jazzy but sounds weird in this context. Very trippy. very Kraut.

"To Light" remains on this soundscape. Few guitar (pencil played probably) notes and acoustic bass create a weird minimalistic thing. Differently from the previous track, there's some drumming, like the marching of a train whil the guitar is dubbed, so two guitars play the same few notes on different octaves and the track becomes more chaotic then calms down, then chaotic again.

"Hydro": drums with guitar playing in the background at low volume. I'm not expert in Krautrock, but again I think to CAN. This time he seems to have had some fun with his strange guitar. In the most convulse part is like the guitar strings are played using drumsticks.

Finally, "After The Shadows" is more on the psychedelic side of the thing. The sounds are weird as they are throughout he album, but there's some jazz, at least until a disconnected drum solo is helped in making noise by a skilled contrabass playing united with what sounds like a jack put directly on the guitar pick-ups. Some rest, then it's again drums and bass with some strange guitar notes. At a point, there's also a tape played backwards adding noise to the thing. The guitar is heavily distorted and what results is tendent to space rock. I'm sure the artist has had a lot of fun while making it. About 10 minutes of absolute crazyness with a bluesy final.

Very challenging and not for everybody, but who wants to make a trip into a weird realm should give it a try. All the VP albums are available onBandcamp, actually at "Name your price".