Kracq
Circumvision (+cd)
The re-release of yet another diamond in Europrog's chamber of obscurities has been brewing for quite some time. 'Circumvision,' the sole progeny of Dutch progsters' Kracq, is a typical case of atypical music genius that emerges at the vanishing point where diverse musical backgrounds coalesce on a shared appreciation for the genre's fetishized father-figures. This is a fine blend of organ-driven prog, with sufficient infusions of electronics and avant-gardisms, just enough to bar them from crossing over to the vast unknown. Overladen with mood swings that will suck your aura into mayhemic magnetism of relentless decadence, as Husting's vocals attempt to impose a manageable range of ups and downs amidst the underlying eccentric dialogue between Vermijs' synths and Van der Heijden's rollingly snappy bass-lines, 'Circumvision' is a gripping experience from start to finish. We can hardly call this a 're-issue'. This is an original release in a different cartographic arrangement of an ever shifting force-field. To make this statement more palpable, 'Circumvision's new release is equipped with a slightly redesigned (and band-approved) lyric sheet, and a bonus CD that is packed with soundboard recordings from one of the very few live shows that were performed by Kracq in 1978, as well as two previously unreleased songs that set the listener on the path for a wholly different sonic adventure into what might be described as kosmische acid folktronica (picture Gylli Smith jamming with Moondog and Bruce Haack at the same time). File up, up and away: Caravan, Silver Apples, Van der Graaf Generator, Henry Cow, Richard Strauss, Ligeti, Pierre Henry, King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Soft Machine, Ravel, Bartol.