"Lizards of Camelot" doesn't explicitly claim to be a concept album yet folds open like a pop up book, each page a vignette in the amphibian kingdom. Multi-layered guitar and drumset (sometimes midi, sometimes real, always real cymbals...) pump and groove as one engine. This piece represents a marked twist of style for GV throughout, no doubt influenced by Peter's fantastic 2013 solo EP "Peter's Window" and Joe's work in Blanche Blanche Blanche / Big French.
( ↑ lots of free music in these links!!! ↑ )
The opening scene starts with climbing major/chutes and ladders to wild tremolo fantasies established in some odd meter or another, prodding flippantly at the notion of pop music. In a midnight gesture, more tremolo blows through a snorkel underwater through wreckage of drums and into a deeper trench. The whole thing somehow achieves buoyancy and floats to the top, up and over a moat of love. Green angels arrive in the bath and there's a party goin' on, inviting all to a hard boogie-ing permanent x-mas.
An all star list of guest musicians makes itself known across the record: Chris Weisman, David Lineal, Christine Brown, Luke Csehak, Francis Carr, Zach Phillips and Ruth Garbus make time in this freaky sect of "The Brattleboro School".
Excellent artwork by John Broadley.
Available on cassette from NNA and LP from Feeding Tube
- -Matt Robidoux
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