While there may be a slightly detectable GeAr flavor in Q///Q’s “Vanguard Youth”, you’re far more likely to taste a parallel timeline where, back in 1990, it wasn’t England but rather Portugal, and it wasn’t electric lutes, keys, & drums but rather synthesizers & drum machines plugged into those delay(s) and reverb pedals that a certain possible Spaceperson 33 decided to take up with their hypnogogic barrage of self-battling mid-tempo arpeggios and lulling mantric riffs against our earholes. If this isn’t a what-could-have-been homage, I don’t know what is. Same fugue-like fog and serene tangle of lolling grooves, but maybe slightly looser, hazier, and would-be-nappier, were the vocals* not so ceremonially executed and interest-piquing.
The GeAr diaspora ventures further and further, far out and farther outer!
https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/vanguard-youth
and/or
https://germanarmymusic.bandcamp.com/album/q-q-gear-side-project
—Jacob An Kittenplan
*Chanted half in Engrish, half in Portuguese