Readers of the news page may have already spotted the two recent Italian reviews of Vicar Songbook#1 - Album of the month ("album del mese") in Rockerilla magazine, no less. Such nuggets are to be treasured both because they help to spread the word (something that is all but impossible for a small company like DGM), but also because they suggest that we may not mad in our ongoing belief and support for all things Vicar. A little external validation goes a long way.
Not speaking Italian, I asked Indeg to copy the text into Google translate, or some similar program. The result is wondrous. To get the full impact it must be read aloud :
The first manual of the mysterious artist: excellent Chamber pop of the loop by the band King Crimson, Fripp, Levin, Tippett, Jakszyk and others
If we the unexpected if we are free not to be slaves of rhythm, if we dare to believe that dreams can be realized, our ears become modest songs in music beyond our wildest imagination.
Words like that, a real and their programmatic manifesto that promoted to creative freedom, may have been quietly spoken by Robert Fripp: not by chance that, in front of the vexed question who The Vicar?, one of the most frequent answers conduct at dominus crimsoniano. But The Vicar, author of esergo, and something else. Who hangs out the DGM knows who/what we're talking about, although his identity has never been revealed officially: someone and convinced totally fictitious character of the operation, other claims it's Punk Sanderson or even of Trevor Horn, some philologist prog dating Vicar appointed in some former Genesis lp Anthony Philips. The most credited theory is the frippiano man David Singleton, author of pieces by declared Songbook. a collection presented on the site, digitally released last November, now landed on cd. And the final act of The Vicar Chronicles, a media saga sarcastic to say against the recording industry, hosted on DGM and composed stories, video, graphic novels and songs, much appreciated by Brian Eno, Andy Partridge, Nick Cave and Bill Bruford. Respecting the playful spirit of this little mystery, it would be foolhardy not to imagine The Vicar as a collective, an Association of authors, musicians and producers coordinated by Singleton, all struggling with a great teasing, as happened with the Residents or with the alter ego of Peter Hammill as Rikki Nadir.
It looks bizarre but the result of an approach so anitconformista and an album that makes the measure, of balance, of class and discipline its characteristic features: Songbook #1 and a sequence of brilliant songs, fourteen private pop song bass and drums, indeed designed in-house by less canonical's rock rhythm section and developed on line of acoustic guitars, piano, strings and woodwinds with different vocalists. With "Eleanor Rigby" and "She's Leaving Home as a spirit guide, The Vicar is inspired by the jazz and the music hall, recalling the elegance of the Penguin Café Orchestra in an opera that more English it is impossible. Andy Yorke, Tony Levin, Chaz Dickie, Keith Tippett, Jakko Jaksyk, Lewis Taylor, Theo Travis, the ever-present Fripp and others make this Girl With The Sunshine, Childhood Days, The Moony Song, Twenty Two, Man With a Woman and Inside My Head of tasty examples of spirited/lively, chamber pop, sometimes melancholic and dreamy, with fast melodies and light but substantial arrangements. In addition a dvd with the complete material of the Chronicles, who by an additional light on the complexity of the operation. Delicious.
It is indeed, quite simply "delicious"!
"Listening is how we eat music.
Hearing is how we digest it."
