Search - Vocokesh :: Smile & Point at the Mountain

Vokokesh - 'Smile! And Point At The Mountain' (Drag City)

Mike Reed | USA | 01/20/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"At least as good as their 'Tenth Corner' effort (see my review). Again, well crafted space rock / Avant Garde from this Wisconsin band. Eight tunes, each of the songs are title-less. Best cuts are the almost Hawkwind-like (at times) nineteen-minute track no. 3, sixteen-minute track number 5 and cut no. 6. Personnel-Richard Franecki-guitar, noise & electronics, Greg S.-digital transfers, John Helwing-bass, guitar & digital tranfers and Jan Schober-bass, drums & electronic devices. If you like bands like F/i, Architectural Metaphor, Farflung and say....Melting Euphoria then you should get as much out of this CD as I did. Highly recommended."

For lovers of the esoteric

Dave Lang | Coburg, VIC Australia | 08/30/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I think that admittedly cheezy title is pretty apt. Vocokesh may hardly be a household name in the world of rock'n'roll, but for lovers of the strange, adventurous and the downright obscure, the artist known as Vocokesh, or should I say, Richard Franecki, is one spoken of in hushed tones. Franecki, hailing from Milwaukee, started out in the '80s psych/space/industrial rock band, F/i, who released a good half-dozen superb LPs on the infamous Boston noise label, RRR. All their records with his name on it should be hunted down (the vinyl is insanely rare, though are to be reissued on CD... soon). Anyway, by 1990 he parted ways to start his new project, Vocokesh (that's named after Abe "Voco" Kesh, the producer of Blue Cheer's debut LP), and this is where we begin discussing this very disc. After some more material on the RRR label, Drag City signed him up to record for their label, his first "mass-distributed" release. Released in 1995, Stop! And Look at the Mountain? is a great collection of all the different elements that make up the sonic universe of Franecki and his strange group of Milwaukee cohorts. There's strong elements of Krautrock, a long-time love of his, as well as Hawkwind-ish space-rock, Blue Cheer-style psych thud, dark, thunderous electronics, and even patches of Indian/ethnic trance, sitar, tabla 'n' all. The musical field Franecki's been mining since the early '80s is somewhat fashionable now, with everyone and their dog "jamming it out" with their very own "space/kraut/improv/psych" band, but Franecki's been doing it longer and better than pretty much the rest of 'em. Also check out "Paradise Revisited" on Drag City."

You betta move

space_antelope | Baltimore Maryland | 03/21/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"shuffle your duffel and listen to this in the background because it's kinda boring."