Vukovar - The Colossalist
Other Voices Records.
CD/DL
It’s a year since messages started appearing on social media asking as to the whereabouts of Simon Morris. Simon doing a disappearing act wasn’t exactly new but this time it felt different. Having recently arrived home from what was [as far as I can gather] a successful reading trip in Los Angeles he was due to fly back out to New York shortly afterwards for a two night Domink Fernow curated Noise weekender with Smell & Quim. Alarm bells started ringing when he failed to show up for his flight.
The last time I saw him was in the Royal Oak in Halifax one Saturday afternoon [and not at Tusk like I mistakenly wrote earlier this year - my mind was all over the shop at time guvnor, honest] with him was Vukovar Rick, or Rick from Vukovar if you prefer. Vukovar being a band that Simon had recently become involved with and after a reach into the inside pocket of a well worn leather jacket a tape appeared and something said about Rose McDowall, one half of Strawberry Switchblade being on the tape as recorded live somewhere in Scotland that didn’t sound very inviting. After a few more wines I went home and listened to said tape, not knowing that that would be the last time I’d see the man in the flesh. Simon, not Rick. I quite liked the cassette and dashed off a few words one Sunday morning, its leaning towards the Gothic end of things plus a band with no electric guitar and a brooding sound full of simply constructed songs, went well with the stillness and quietness of the day. Discovering something unexpected like that was quite refreshing but with Simon involved I shouldn’t have any doubts. I was thinking that people didn’t create music like this anymore, minimalist post-punk Goth Jesus and the Mary Chain minus feedback meets Nick Cave jamming with Joy Division which is how I probably described it last time around and with nothing better to go on will do so here again too.
The Colossalist is a tribute to Simon, ‘His name means first and last’ and somewhere down the line they’ve mixed his vocals into the proceedings. You can find him on ‘Hearing Voices’ where his distinctive Blackpool baritone talks over proceedings, a track that sounds very much like a late Ceramic Hobs outing with its all over the place synthy washes, shuffling drums and plugging bass line, I swear I could even hear seagulls. This alone makes it worthy of your attention.
But theres more, as some crummy comic once said; Vukovar do catchy tunes and they do moody walking tunes, the kind where the vocals are submerged under masses of reverb and recorded as if sung through a bullhorn from half a mile away, all glued to spacious bass runs and random drum hits. The catchy songs include ‘Vukovar - The Double Cross’ a driving anthemic build of a thing that you could imagine the singer [there’s at least two of them] wrapping themselves around the microphone stand as the synths and the drums get heavier and heavier, a snake hipped androgynous Jim Morrison acolyte slipping to the floor as the sound builds to a climax. Then there’s ‘Silent Envoy’ with its foreboding bass line and heres me grooving along like its 1985 all of a sudden.
As you’d expect, the absence of a six stringed guitar gives Vukovar’s music a sparse feel, two or three drums maybe, simple bass runs, some tracks floating by in a wash of synth, the vocals barely audible mumbles, spoken at times, dreamt even and then sung with miserable gusto. The pounding drums on the last track kick in like Bobbie Gillespie in his Jesus and the Mary Chain days, the opener begins with a single military drum, everywhere is gloomy and morose, piano keys struck randomly in empty rooms. Sometimes less is certainly more.
This is Vukovar’s eighth album but their first for quite some while because seeing one of your bandmates shuffle off this mortal coil isn’t something you just take in your stride. Since then the Vukovar line up has changed somewhat, people have come and gone and I dare say that their sound is now far removed from what it was when they first started out five years ago. They’re still here though and thats a good thing.
https://vukovareeh.bandcamp.com/album/the-colossalist
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