Veslemes Apolithoma
Label | Invisible, Inc. |
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Format | Double LP |
Release Date | 14th June 2021 |
Catalogue Number | INVINC30 |
Additional Info | . |
Veslemes (aka Felizol) makes his debut on Invisible Inc with this astonishing new album that comes hot on the heels of last year's ground-shaking "I Know Where You Live Vangelis!".
With "Apolithoma" Yannis Veslemes takes us further into the dark crevices of his psyche.
The album's themes are inspired by the dystopian sci-fi of JG Ballard's "The Drowned World" and "The Crystal World": both novels eerily prophetic in their dystopian visions of an irradiated Earth over which a bloated, blinding sun makes living as we know it bearable only within a few hours around dawn and dusk. Sea levels have risen and cities that are not wholly flooded are overgrown with emergent new flora adapting to this new and hostile environment.
In more remote locations, overgrown jungles and forests are exhibiting signs of a strange crystallisation: entire swathes of jungle petrified, calcified, crystalized, fauna included...and stories of missing explorers rumoured to themselves have crystalized!
An allegory for our times, for sure....but more importantly, the album is as adventurous musically as it is conceptually. Where on the surface we have stories themed around an external dystopian world, the music, like the rising floodwater, presents us with a lens through which to look at the internal world: on one hand a distorted prism into what lurks beneath, yet at the same time a perfect reflection - a mirror into the psyche.
At times dark, at times playful, unreservedly psychedelic, the album's wildly different musical styles all capture an atmosphere that is as profound and mystical as it is unique.
Featuring an assortment of guest musicians on saxophone, clarinet, vibraphones, oboe, guitars and other instruments not often heard in partnership with electronic music, the resulting collection of songs is up there with the best of Invisible Inc.
Disc One
A1 The Carnivorous Bar 08:07
A2 Beatrice Dahl's Jungle Fever 04:32
B1 Diamond Crocodile Tears 03:46
B2 Port Mattare 05:16
Disc Two
C1 Morning Patrol 05:10
C2 Magdalene 08:17
D1 Apolithoma 11:41
D2 Crystalize 03:08
__________________________
"Old J.G. drilled a hole in his forehead
Willy told him to
Now he can stay high for life
Now both the Drowned and the Crystal Worlds can flow from there
Like a river of wisdom
Like a broth of despair
Apolithoma (meaning fossil in Greek) was conceived and recorded during the spring of 2020 under the influence of J.G Ballard’s writings and the perplexity of migraine labyrinthitis vertigo episodes."
Y.V.