Vibravoid – ‘Delirio Dei Sensi’ (2013)
New upcoming album by German psychedelic rockers Vibravoid is their ninth career album and studio release in three years. Released in good old traditions on vinyl, “Delirio dei sensi” opens the door to new sound by Vibravoid provided with great songs. Although album has band’s well-known retro-vintage atmosphere, the song selection and production approach make it sound fresh and new.
As usual, their music sounds unique. They are the keepers of good psychedelic and acid rock tradition, that after 12 years since their debut, don’t ramble with sound but keep it typically “vibravoided”.
Album opens with cover of Serge Gainsbourg’s song “Poupée De Cire” that was introduced to the wide audience on Eurovision song contest in 1965 by French singer France Gall. Ten minutes of groovy “Listen can’t you hear” is a great trip through this erotic-inspired song, with rocking instruments in the best manners of the genre. “Color Your Mind” is a great cover of 1986 song by Australian band Tyrnaround.
B1 track “The empty sky” is atmospherically closest to their earlier work like “Politics of Ecstasy” but with some sort of progressive touch in it. “Magic Mirror” continues the psychedelic vibes and introduces the master-piece instrumental “The Golden Escalator” that concludes the vinyl version.
Album comes with bonus CD with five bonus tracks, two of which have been previously released on Fruits De Mer Records, UK. The CD offers longer playing time, so the band stuffs it with songs! The rest of the tracks are leftovers from various sessions.
In order to introduce the album to the readers of “It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine”, Vibravoid’s guitarist and singer Christian Koch agreed to answer a couple of questions…
First of all, is it true that you recorded the entire album in just two days, while you toured Italy? Has the recording been planned or has it happened spontaneously?
We had 2 days off and needed a place to sleep, so Go Down Record offered to stay at their studio and record some tracks for an album indented to contain some studio and some live tracks from the show… well, it turned out to be a full studio album, yes, it was very spontaneously as we made half of the songs at that time.
What inspired you to make such an album?
The need to fill it! You know, there was some blank space that we had to fill with music, so we picked 2 of the most recent cover songs we played live on shows and started recording the album.
Here you experimented with your own stuff and with some covers. How the choice came to “Colour Your Mind” by Tyrnaround and French chanson “Poupée De Cire”?
“Colour Your Mind” is an all-time favorite track and one of the best psychedelic tracks ever to emerge from the 80s – it was at the time that we started to play it live, now we even got it on an album, I think that’s cool! Well, the same with “Poupée De Cire”. Serge Gainsbourg was one of the best composers and an extremely cool guy, so it was at the time to pick up something from him!
What is “Listen Can´t You Hear” about? What inspired you to write and record this song?
It is a love song about a boy and girl and basically – can I say it? …about a blow job!
Do songs like “The Golden Escalator” came as a result of directly recorded jams?
Yes, the track is recorded as we played it – it actually is an improvised music that follows some basic layouts and structures. We had the idea to make a song like this and put it together in a very short time, so a lot of it is first take recordings and some little overdubs.
This album sounds less aggressive and yet more sophisticated and progressive than the previous ones. It’s been twelve years since your debut “2001”, do you think that you grew up as band and started to upgrade your music by each new album?
I think we did the biggest achievements in production, Gravity Zero led us to a good way that probably prospered on the re-master of the Politics album to full bloom… and Delirio benefits from that a lot, apart I must say, that the equipment at Go Down Studio is very good and Epi is a very good engineer to work with and also records a very good sound. I guess a lot of things come together and surely the Italian atmosphere and climate, the studio is near Rimini and you feel a bit blessed that you can record under such good circumstances.
What were the major things that happened to the band since last year’s “Gravity Zero” album?
Probably that we started Stoned Karma Records, our own label. At the moment we spend most attention on it and I am working on the next releases. Yes, it really is a lot of work and I am absolutely not able to say where it all will lead to, but it is a good feeling to do it and maybe the most exciting phase of our band career.
You are among the most popular European psychedelic bands, but what are the plans for Vibravoid to tour other continents and make a breakthrough there?
Oh, yes, why not – at the moment it is difficult enough to get the shows going at places around Germany. We stage a big event with our lightshow and sound equipment, so we have to ask for a lot of money to play shows. I know that it is very difficult to get that money when you are unknown at the place you play – so I think the first step is to increase our popularity outside of Europe.
How would you describe modern psychedelic rock scene in Europe?
There is really not a lot what I can consider as a psychedelic scene – especially most of the new music sucks and has got nothing to do with psychedelia. I think that through the exploitive use of the term “psychedelic” and of the optical style. I mean how ridiculous is it to mix “dead-metal-skulls-and-skeletons” with hippie imagery – this is absolute rubbish and only shows that these people do not understand what psychedelia is about and are best forgotten!!! …but there is something growing: I am really happy that there are some new bands around that play really great music, the last ones I discovered are Giobia from Italy and Fogbound from Spain. I think the UK is doing great at the moment as they re-discover that psychedelic is not stoner rock… and with pop groups like Temples they really got something to offer!
What music inspires you lately?
At the moment my power rotation contains Group 1850 (as always,sorry), Os Mutantes and the Music Machine! Lately I got again into some good old Seeds tracks and really liked the bonus tracks from the new Yellow Sunshine Explosion CD – unfortunately not on vinyl!!!!
Tracklist (vinyl):
A1 Poupée De Cire
A2 Listen Can´t Your Hear
A3 Colour Your Mind
B1 The Empty Sky
B2 Magic Mirror
B3 The Golden Escalator
CD bonus tracks: All Stars Have Gone To Sleep, Optical Sounds, Neaby Shiras, La Poupée Qui Fait Non, Black And White (Live)
Album “Delirio dei sensi” will be officially out 30th March 2013 on Go Down Records, Italy.
