19 August 2024

VIBRAVOID – We Cannot Awake (2024, LP Tonzonen Records)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Tonzonen Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Label Edition, Neon Gelb Vinyl, plus 2 Posters, 150 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Standard Edition, Neon Orange Vinyl, plus 1 Poster, 350 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited 2nd Edition, Blue Red Ink Spot Vinyl, Gatefold, plus 1 New (different) Poster, 300 copies

Release Date: 23 Aug 2024

A lot has happened since May 2023, the release date of the previous Vibravoid album “Edge Of Tomorrow”, the last album – so far – released through Vibravoid’s own label Stoned Karma Records. Vibravoid found a new label home at Tonzonen Records (they’re distributing their back catalog also). So, Vibravoid – the Dusseldorf unstoppable PSYCHEDELIC ACID-ROCK machine – has a new album out through Tonzonen Records and since the first edition (total of 500 copies) was sold within 10 minutes, there’s a second one (300 copies) out, and I’m guessing sooner or later there would be a third one… Anyhow, let’s take a look at Tonzonen’s press release:

“VIBRAVOID

The perfect soundtrack to THC legalization. Vibravoid is the essence of Düsseldorf genetics. Vibravoid creates musical fever dreamscapes that are more powerful than LSD. 

WE CANNOT AWAKE is the “In A Gadda Da Vida” of Generation X. Vibravoid haven’t released a real long track for a few records, but the band is now making up for this and adding more hits. Five strong psychedelic rock songs on side A are the precursors to the highlight and title track on side B. The long track, with a playing time of over 20 minutes, is a journey into the depths of human existence and other depths of the outer cosmos. Sound carpets made of strychnine and psylocibine. Magic mushrooms. Time is running out. We can’t wake up!

At the highest level, Vibravoid fuses their Düsseldorf sound with the year 2024”…

Dr. Koch, Christian – Mastermind and the absolute PSYCHEDELIC string puppeteer of the Vibravoid sound – states about being in the “scene” for 35 years, or may I say about starting the “scene” 35 years ago:

“We were incredibly lucky that we were able to do all this as teenagers. It was this “teen anti-attitude” that no longer exists today. Kraut rock, fuzz effects, light shows, ’67 psychedelic rock, and therefore real hippie culture were completely out or dead – so we thought it was “cool”. Here in Düsseldorf, kraut rock and psychedelic records, including record players, were lying around in the bulky waste, nobody wanted them anymore. That was underground. Even vinyl records were only really “cool” when nobody wanted them anymore – today it’s lame mainstream.

Those were all unique moments back then and we were somehow always in tune with the times and were able to help shape them. Back then, we wanted to be pioneers of a new “beat and psychedelic movement”, just as a naive teenager would imagine. We really lived it all, for us there was no world after 1970… I really didn’t think it would be such a crazy trip back then. It’s all really crazy!”

You all – out there – have noticed that in the last 2-3 years there’s been a significant “turn” on Vibravoid’s musical creations. Dr. Koch gives more emphasis to the structure of the songs (yes there’s a band that still makes ACTUAL songs), he emphasizes the melody, the lyrics, and the stylized/polished production. Of course, the ACID is still here, the FUZZ is still here, and the 60s PSYCHEDELIA is definitely still here! These “things” are running through Christian’s blood arteries, so it’s inevitable for a band like Vibravoid, NOT to play PSYCHEDELIA… But let’s go to the songs of the album now…

First of all, there are NO covers by the Byrds on this album, all 6 songs are Vibravoid original compositions… “We Cannot Awake” has 5 songs on the first side of the LP album while the whole second side is “occupied” by a single sidetrack. The album kicks off with “Get To You”, instantly the track showers your brain with its powerful addictive Beat, a beat dressed with numerous amounts of modern-aged Psychedelia, a Beat that is also wrapped by Christian’s mature voice, Ok you may find comparisons with the dark gothic voice of Andrew Eldritch (Sisters Of Mercy) in the style of singing or whatever, BUT the comparisons STOP there! Organic keys add something “futuristic’ in the sound and a “spacey tint” to the whole track, needless to say, the song is Ultra Danceable while the Production (in the entire album) reaches real High Levels! “Nothing Is Wrong” is a cool ‘Popsike’ tune, full of nostalgia, nostalgia for the Future as one old friend of mine used to say, the track is dressed with a dynamic melody and a kind of melon collie late 80s veil… The rhythmic and also danceable “The End Of Game” follows, pretty close to the opening track but with a more acidly drenched fuzzy reverbed guitar sound and a “feast” of psychedelic spacey effects in the background! Lowering a bit the decibels and the beat with the next one that is called “A Comment On The Current Times”, a strangely “orchestrated” track blending “mellow acid” and “futuristic popsike” (sic!)… Side ‘A’ comes to an end with “On Empty Streets”, a back-to-the-Beat track, back to danceable themes, though Christian’s voice (as on most of the tracks is kind of melancholic) and I’m guessing this is an ‘aftermath’ of the social-political lyrics… Side ‘B’ is occupied by the long sidetrack “We Cannot Awake” (20:16min) and I’m trying to think when was the last time that Vibravoid “fed” us with a long original composition (like this one here)… If I’m not mistaken we have to go back to 2018 and the 22:52min track “Look What The Bombs Have Done” from the ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE album “A Psychedelic Testament”, the album that Vibravoid did with Sky Sunlight Saxon… Anyhow… All the “psychedelic ingredients” for the track to become an “instant” Live-Vibravoid-classic favorite, are here, acidly drenched guitars, the fuzz, the rhythm, Can, Sky, caustic lyrics, Popsike complexions, numerous psychedelic effected sounds, voice samples, backward guitars, resulting another ‘standard’ song of some marvelous Modern Age Psychedelia of the 21st century!

So, lyrically “We Cannot Awake” is a “Cry” for the strange fucked-up times we are living in, musically is a jewel, a psychedelicized gem for the body, for the soul, for the mind… Both, lyrically and musically, “We Cannot Awake” is an album full of musicality, and believe me, musicality is not taken for granted during these weird times that we all are experiencing… and, yes, of course, “We Cannot Awake” is ONE of the BEST albums of 2024! TimeLord Michalis

(PS I hope and pray the next Vibravoid album to make me/us Wake Up!)