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Volcano the Bear, "My Favourite Lungs / Massive Furniture Invasion"

Volcano the Bear continue their esoteric but quickly comprehendible sounds and structure via this lathe-cut 8" single, the debut release on the Alt.Vinyl label. This is the second piece of seven inch VTB vinyl in a many months to come out of the North East of England, and shows the band investing solid musical experiments with new labels, outside of their regular album schedule.

Alt.Vinyl

The hybrid sound of the plucked strings on the verge of retirement and moaning wind instrument that begins "My Favourite Lungs" has a spindly spidery European / British sound. Skipping the needle from the start to the end of this track, while not advisable, shows a song utterly removed from its original sounds. A building gnawed-at line of plucked strings and (what could be) an electronic Rhodes take the song in the direction of a huge exploding kick-up-the-arse finale. Ever the non-conformists "My Favourite Lungs" never reaches this point, stopped dead in its tracks by the band.

"Massive Furniture Invasion" is ripe for soundtrack picking by some bearded Hollywood mogul. The band’s ability to match a tune that can stand up by itself with odd instrumentation is ideally constructed for thematic purposes. These short melodic themes are then deconstructed, nightmarish strands pulled over the original piece. The treble calls and squalls are like a mass of moving parts, the song settling into a loose limbed whistling march through their local graveyard.

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