Volcano The Bear — Volfurten

Volfurten is the new trip in to the odd and the strange from UK musically freaks Volcano the bear, its ltd to 300 copies each in a different hand painted cover. Which is a nice bonus,but what about the music- well this is as odd as anything they’ve done before, feeling like a very strange magic carpet ride- touch down musically in (their own) world music, jazz, odd metallic moments, dada sound tomfoolery, oh and no  real vocals one this one either.

The feeling, vibe or theme that starts the album and reappears later is very desert based in my mind. Though a very strange desert, one with muilt coloured sands and camels walking along the sky and strange arabic men with huge beards trailing behind them as they give audio swimming lesson backwards. Yes this is very odd stuff indeed, Track one drags us into this strange ethnic world with wonky snake dance guitar and ethnic percussion. Track two takes us deeper into the desert where we really seem to start to loose are mind as we meet all manner of manic chanting and strange audio shenanigans, before dropping into a very odd nightmare world of bent Bernard Herrmann string work, via strange building drone tones. Next it goes into a little surreal ballet dance practice, with clunky piano and all manner of bizarre calls and sounds over the top. It all ends off with a strange ritual air via distorted instrumentation and what almost  sounds like typewriter key hits .Track three seems to ushers us into a black and white scene maybe something from a odd early Jess Franco film, where strange macabre female dances out a jerky and  plainly disturbing death dance. As ragged violin hover and swirl in horrific air ,female voices chant like spirits calling you over the other side and goosepimply organ weaves on like the reaper seeking out victims. So as you can see you  have to expected anything and  everything to happen with in these audio confines. I wont detail any more as Volcano the Bear stuff is best tripped into solo and with out set vision.

If you’ve still to taste their strange audio fruits or a seasoned volcano freak- this really is a must buy item. Both for it’s musically merits and its wonderful one off artist cover. Lets hope in the future they decide to give this a larger audience, as I think it’s as good as there other work, and another interesting turn of musically events from one of the most interesting and captivating bands operating at their artistic hight. To get a copy your self shuffle along to the bears home here,where it will be available  very soon.