Found on the cover flap of their first full-length vinyl “Night Sun” from 2011, alongside quotes by Henry Rollins/KCRW and Amoeba Records Hollywood, are some words from Dirty Hippie Radio hailing VUM as “One of the best psychedelic bands of our age.” That’s a bold statement; find out why we still stand behind it right here in this month’s installment of The Dirty Dose!
The Magic Mixture
From Michigan to Oregon to California, Jennifer Pearl had been involved with the band Lost Kids before stretching out her guitar in Lion Fever while Chris Badger had come from and was still holding onto a lingering vestige of the Long Beach/Los Angeles underground cult antiheroes The Grand Elegance (who some consider a big influence on their more successful friends The Growlers)… When Pearl and Badger connected in LA, a beautiful thing was born: not only had they found each other and eventually started a family together, but they’d birthed a new sound and named it VUM.
“It’s the sound of a vibration, a hum,” says Pearl. “VUM VUUUUUUM VUMVUMVUMVUMVUM VUM.”
For us, beginning with their initial release “Strange Attractor” in 2010, it was immediately different and irresistible, with a terribly hypnotic quality founded in its minimalist nature: basically, Badger generating luscious textures upon cinematic tapestries with his keys and percussive loops while Pearl massages, scratches, and stabs at the backdrop with her guitar and chanted vocals. Even when it’s uplifting, the music becomes essentially infused with a deeply penetrating, dire seriousness. And, of undeniable note, a wicked if not fatal sexiness. Some scary, yet enchanting vision (kind of like in “300” the movie) of an oracle’s ceremony atop the Delphian temple in ancient Greece comes to mind, but perhaps set within a dense jungle… VUM’s sound has often been referred to as noir-pop. At any rate, it’s intelligent, patient, serious and fantastic, at times even difficult, all at once. And we dig it.
Minimally Fascinating
While the band attributes art, science, government conspiracies, warfare, and a list too long of bands and musicians as influences, there’s still that minimalist approach which attracted us from the go. When observing some of the classic experimental innovators of minimalism —such as Terry Riley, or any number of German Krautrock outfits like Neu!, Can, Faust, Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel— we’ve always been immensely fascinated and entertained by how grand an adventure can be induced by relatively little use of instruments; and for that matter, just how much damn noise can still be made! It’s less about how much they’re used, and more about how they’re used. This type of music is structured on sustained tempos, subtle shifts, repetition, nuance, building, layering, unfolding, and the occasional abrupt interjection which can hammer down like a shattering reset button on the whole system. It may at first seem that little is going into it, but the right mindset will reveal a heck of a lot going on.
VUM is no exception here, and they attribute their rather particular sound to unique instrumentation. Pearl states, “This was one of the founding principles of the band: use an unconventional combination of conventional tools and methods to achieve unconventional results.”
With Pearl on guitar, drum machines, percussion, and vocals, Badger on synthesizers, organ, bass Rhodes, drum machines, loops, and percussion, they’ve since expanded their depth with the addition of Scott Spaulding on drums and percussion. We saw the single “Laura Palmer/Are You Animal?” in 2012 followed by the LP “Psychotropic Jukebox” in 2013, and they’ve currently a new single out titled “Katrine,” lifted from the finished and forthcoming LP “Cryptocrystalline.” We’ll be curious as ever to hear what they’ve cooked up, but in the meantime grab their new single and some extremely limited past vinyls off their Bandcamp, or on Amazon and iTunes. Get your dose daily on DirtyHippieRadio.com, where you can begin exploring VUM’s entire catalog at http://dirtyhippieradio.com/?playAlbum=836. Be sure to also check out The Grand Elegance, Lost Kids, and Lion Fever while you’re there. DHR smartphone apps coming soon! DZ
