THE OLD BERGEN VAULT EP SERIES

Terrascope Online / by Jeff Penczak
The Old Bergen Vault gathers together assorted uber-stoned sundries (live, rare, and unreleased) from New Jersey’s finest wyrdfolkies. Megaton acid drops like “Clandestine Forest Lore”’s 22-minute ‘Skin of The Temple’ and Kamiellistat Ytevat-styled furniture movers like “Oil From The Hands of The Empire”’s ‘Whispers The Beginning’ jockey for supremacy with more structured concoctions like the mandolin, tin-whistle, and tabla stomp of the fairy dancing ‘Stoking The Fires on Sorrow Mountain’ (“From The Years of Ashes”) or the country mosey of “Gorge Music for Lovers”’ ‘Sweet August.’ A gentle acoustic guitar flutters around tinkling bells on the navelgazing, Donovanesque ‘In Observance of Old Scars’ and there’s a swirling, Eastern vibe to ‘He Came From The Clouds’ that ends “Ashes” back where “He” came from!
‘The Whaler’ opens “Gorge Music for Lovers” with the delicatest of acoustic guitar ruminations, as if someone recorded the sound of honey trickling across the strings, and ‘Descending Deeds’ closes the EP with eerie sci-fi stringbending haunting ten minutes of more acoustic, walk-in-the-forest musings.
‘Racing The Chariots Over Babylon’ (from “Moon Mountains Cast Sun Shadows”) offers a glimpse into  the band’s live program (recorded at New Jersey’s WFMU, it was originally released with Dream Magazine #4); it slowly mounts a daring rescue of your weary mind from the drudgery of everyday “folk music” and is not unlike some of the thousand yard stares that Tanakh elicit with their similarly executed dreamscapes. If you enjoyed PG Six’s set at Terrastock VI in Providence, this is right up the pink side of your drainpipe. I’d also like to hear “Moon…”’s ‘Spelunking with The Devil’ in a Tarentino or Rodriguez film – it’s a mean, slow, dirty slide down a slippery slope to hell with nothing but sticky BBQ sauce and a rack of ribs to break your fall. If you prefer your live jams more open-ended, try “Reaping The Bounty”’s 22-minute statement of purpose, ‘Mission of The Tribes.’ I don’t  think the crowd at NYC’s Pianos has yet recovered from this Jodorowsky-induced nightmare of equal parts sushi Western, New Year’s Eve at Times Square, Chinese fire drill, and The Conet Project. Industrialised souls raised on steady diets of Faust, Nine Inch Nails, and Einsturzende Neubauten will wet their undies, but I think this is the sort of stuff that the Terrastock crowd passes out to on their lunch breaks.
I don’t know why the band weren’t invited to perform ‘Washington Breakdown’ at Pete Seeger’s 90th. Maybe the invitation got lost in the mail, but surely their hoedown take could’ve breathed some life into that  stodgy, reverential backslapping contest. I also dug the ZZ Top-meets Duane Eddy twang of ‘Cypress Voodoo Waltz’ (“Oil From The Hands of The Empire”), the hauntingly gorgeous guitar duet, ‘Ballad of Mary Cecilla Rogers’ and the stark staring, loner/stoner madness of the Julia Vorontsova-assisted ‘Wicked Tribes Will Rise’ (both from “Smoke Signals For Our Nations”). ‘From The Sky Fell Moon Passengers’ (“The Waters of Dead Rivers”) is exactly as engagingly surreal and headswirling as you would expect, the stunning, goosepimpled beauty of ‘Harnessed in The Catacombs’ gets another home, in case you missed the Ptolemaic Terrascope #34 freebie, and there’s even a little bluesy, slide guitar shuffle, ‘Playing Dark River Blues’ if you’re looking for a little variety from the folkier stuff. These last three, along with a sinewy, Neil Young & Crazy Horse-styled ‘Gasoline Dry,’ recorded live at Jersey City’s Waterbug Motel before a very intimate audience – you can practically hear them breathing through the stage mics – give a bit of a tip to “The Waters of Dead Rivers” as my personal favorite (and who could argue with their well-wishing adieu, “Thank you, have a good trip!”) with “Ashes” and “Moon Mountains” close runners up), but there’s bound to be something to satisfy your mind within these nine offerings, be it their more traditional acoustic folk strums, their avant garde, head scratching weirdness, or the just plain skin melting beauty of their shimmering guitar glissandos. (NOTE: The band have announced that they will no longer release material via the CD medium, but you can order all nine of the EPs that make up this archival release directly from them at their special “Pay Your Price” offer).

SECRETS OF THE PALISADES

Terrascope Online / by Jeff Penczak
The third album from this Jersey City (New Jersey) folk rock quartet opens with the haunting stalker, ‘Bow Down,’ an ominously creepy crawl across the frozen tundras of your mind that’s eerily reminiscent of our favourite Minneapolis psychedelic wyrdfolkers, Salamander and Skye Klad. Tablas, sitar-like acoustic guitars and buzzing drones trickle through the appropriately spine tingling “The Séance of Old Bergen,” as the band, like all great folk artists, once again incorporates local legends into their work, “Old Bergen” being the original name for Jersey City when it was first settled over 375 years ago – indeed, the 325-year old, Old Bergen Church is the longest continuous congregation in New Jersey. [Anyone interested in further research should consult Daniel Van Winkle’s incredibly thorough ‘Old Bergen: History and Reminiscences,’ published over a century ago and available online. – JP] Culminating in a whirling maelstrom of ghostly sonics and…bagpipes(!?), the song is simultaneously relaxing and unsettling, as a good séance should be!

‘A Rose for Agnes’ soft-shoe shuffles into the room, pirouettes to cascading and Hawaiian-styled guitars and abruptly and gracefully makes way for the smooth instrumental, ‘Atlantic Winds’ to float dreamily across the horizon, with a weeping slide guitar adding to its misty-eyed aura. Fellow Jersey artist, Marianne Nowottny, poster child for all things wyrd and wylde, fits right into that Old Bergen séance by channeling ghostly apparitions and contributing spoken-word moans throughout the epic frightfest, ‘Gentle Ghosts on the Limbs,’ which will confound the more straight-laced folkies like myself, but will probably make the short list of “must-hear” avant, free-folk performance pieces cherished by fans of lovable Finnish loony, Jan Anderzén, master of ceremonies of Avarus, Kemialliset Ystävät, et. al. However, 11+ minutes of this is a bit more than my head can bear, but I can certainly see fans of Spires That In The Sunset Rise, Fursaxa, and the more experimental outings of Charalambides digging the hell out of this.

‘Roivas’ suggests more than a few Neil Young & Crazy Horse albums have visited the Skinny boys’ stereos, and the banjo adds a nice, backwoods, loner/stoner vibe to the proceedings. Elsewhere, Tasha Rifkin’s flute solos on ‘Awaken Tribes Will Rise’ is at once soothing, nostalgic and heartbreaking, a fitting elegy to the titular band of outsiders. I only wish the band hadn’t elected to recite the lyrics out of the ass end of a rubber hose, thus defeating any sympathy one might have for the sleeping tribesmen, but white-hot guitar solos and tribal percussive pounding are almost enough to forgive their vocal indiscretion. The band acknowledge the century anniversary of ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’ with a wind chime and slide guitar rendition that features a faint air of ‘Amazing Grace’ peeking in and wraps this wonderful album up on a cheerful vibe of love and togetherness.

TIME SHAPES THE FOREST LAKE

The Ptolemaic Terrascope / by Tony Dale:
Pothole Skinny was founded by multi-instrumentalist Stephen Connolly in the late 90s as vehicle for what could best be described as pastorally-inclined acid folk explorations. After a recommendation from friend Pat Gubler (Tower Recordings/P.G Six), Pat’s Tower Recordings’ band-mate Scott Freyer was added to the line-up on percussion. The current incarnation of the band was completed by the addition of Frank Murphy on guitar. Back-porch Kosmishe-leaning folk collectives seem to be sprouting up all over the place in a manner pleasing to mycologists everywhere, but this one has impeccable bloodlines and the result can definitely be heard in the grooves. Acoustic textures are mixed organically with field recordings on the opening track ‘Krogh’s Whisper’, which leads into the relaxed vibe of the ‘Sussex Railroad Song’ and the parallels with the Tower Recordings/P.G Six axis are apparent but not programmatic. The track soon evolves in a skyward-dreaming direction that will be familiar to those lucky enough to have encountered the past few Fit & Limo records – a far more apt reference point. The creaking woodshed ambience of ‘Dream of Labia Lament’ reminds one a little of the Iditarod and the great but virtually unknown Verdure (see feature this issue!) but is merely a bridge to greater things. The record carves it’s own place in legend with the extraordinary eight minute centrepiece track ‘Antique Gasoline’. The vocals, though not strong, lilt in the most compelling way imaginable through this acoustic odyssey; core instruments supplemented by spectral sounds made on harmonium, psaltery, gopichand, cello and flute, and the ubiquitous Mr. Gubler contributes immeasurably on harp. I hesitate to conjure the spirit of the Incredible String Band, but the track really is that good. That vibe is maintained in the excellent ‘Scroll of Westport Quay’ before jagged shards of electric guitar erupt from speakers in the murderously key instrumental/chant ‘The Ernest Equinox’ which is all pagan darkness and druidic sacrifice. By contrast, ‘May-Gun Explosive Flower’ is a rural rumination that doesn’t sound anything like you imagine it might from the title. ‘Beneath the Frozen Pond’ is as close as the record gets to conventional rock albeit in a primitive VU mould and is one of those tracks that changes character depending on what volume it is played at. As loud as you can stand is a good way to experience it. The haunted-porchlight elegance of ‘Morpheus Calls For Slumber’ brings the record down nicely in a nearly corn-field, spinning up a few puzzling geometries as it comes to rest.

Dream Magazine / by George Parsons:
Built around the creative core of ex member of The Gwens Stephen Connolly, friends Scott Freyer, and Frank Murphy playing an assortment of electric and acoustic instruments. In just under 40 minutes these sneaky bent folkies make some lovely and slightly twisted music over the course of the nine songs here. With assistance from past and present members of PG Six, Tower Recodings, Rex, Timesbold, Elf Power and others, this album is richly illuminated by it’s instrumentation. Hallucinatory and lovely, with ghostly details and haunted moody atmospherics. Songs like slightly sinister lullabies that emerge from the ground as vapor, or reel around the ears like surreal dry land sea shanties. Spirits circle the house all night moaning, while random scree and possom caught in a garden of wire shifts to slurping soft nose cones out of a hookah made of phosphorescent yellow crystal that pulses a soft rhythm into the warm night air and soothes all the tired ghosts to sleep.

MAGNET Magazine / Joe S. Harrington:
Call them porch minstrels-collectives like PG Six, Campfire Songs, Cerberus Shoal and even Japan’s Acid Mothers Temple during their more subdued moments: These folk-influenced enclaves camp out in a “natural” environment while letting their music evolve organically and be fed by its surroundings. On Time Shapes The Forest Lake, field recordings join vocals, acoustic and electric guitars and a host of other eclectic instrumentation, from cello to banjo to gong to bowed psaltery, all expertly played by this roving horde of maypole-dancing troubadours. The group revolves around the nucleus of Stephen Connolly, Scott Freyer and Frank Murphy, three guitarists whose own interplay can at times evoke everything from the Velvet Underground during its primordial Ludlow Street days (“The Ernest Equinox”) to the somber, hypnotic prisms of ‘60S folkies like the Incredible String Band (“Antique Gasoline”). Like all latter-day wayward folk offerings, there’s no shortage of pastoral Fairport-esque plinking and ethereal vocal harmonies (“Beneath The Frozen Pond”). Good-timey organ invades “Beneath The Frozen Pond” a la the Grateful Dead, and parts of this LP possess the same psychedelic sense of cryptic envelopment as early Dead opuses like Anthem Of The Sun. As an exploratory venture, Time Shapes The Forest Lake is like a stroll through the thickets with only a stethoscope to guide ye. Just don’t eat the mushrooms.

Psyche Van Het Folk / Gerald Van Waes:
A beautifully designed cover, for a group with a beautiful name, “Pothole Skinny”, a name that reminds me both at potheads like Gong as it gives me the impression this must be a name for a psych folk pop band. It is in fact even more directed to acid psych folk through very moody instrumentation, with a feel for both pop song structure as with an openness to create various colourful moods, with harmonium, bowed psaltery, gopichand, harp, acoustic guitars, and cello, especially on “Antique Gasoline”. It listens as a perfect soundtrack, not as accompanying music, but as WITH the movie and story and everything on it, with beautiful landscapes included, and with enough peace in within to enjoy each moment. What kind of movie, would you say ? Something with harmony with nature for sure, where “time shapes the forest lake”. The songs itself are the humanly impressions, directing, and acting, communicating, where the instrumental passages are the colours of the environment bewelding human’s comfort. The 6th track, “The Ernest Equinox with a distorted electric guitar and underground rock experiments (like early Sonic Youth) with additional layers of “stoned” ethereal vocals and experimental guitar coloured sounds is somewhat different, even more urban like. It is another creative “painting” of sound ideas for another similar mood, still creating an effect of colourful comfort. All ideas of Pothole Skinny are well balanced, and with clear expressions, always flowing gently as noon breeze and ever moving shadows of leaves with bright sunlight. A perfect listen. Highly recommended.