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The Vacuum Boys, "Songs From The Sea Of Love"
The hilarious packaging for this release would have us believe they're a clean-cut, fun-loving rock'n'roll band getting into scrapes and solving mysteries Scooby Doo-style. They're actually experimental improvisers who've made a successful crack at differentiating their record from the hundreds of others which opt for a dour, minimalist presentation.
Consisting of Icelandic superstar Heimir Bjorgulfsson, of Stillupsteypa ("He's usually got the best girlfriends"), sound artist Guy Amitai ("a great addition to the club because he's a master of disguises and costumes"), MIMEO member Gert-Jan Prins ("goes to a special science camp every summer"), and guitar improviser Dan Armstrong ("I suppose that I am the one that usually gets us into trouble"), The Vacuum Boys are surely the team to clear Amsterdam's Staalplaat shop of the hauntings caused by the Carl Michael Von Hausswolff spirit communication LPs in the racks. The Vacuum Boys sound isn't exactly rock'n'roll, but it might just be on the edge of post-rock. They're perhaps a more improv, and less serious, version of Austria's superb Radian, arranging glitch, earth-hum and white noise sounds, as well as guitar, keyboards and drums, into tracks that are abstract, but warm and friendly too. The sense of humour in the booklet is reflected so well in the music that it'd be mean to call the Vacuum Boys concept gimmicky. It's definitely a lot of fun, at least for fans of hair-raising musical experiments; maybe the girls in Amsterdam cafes will be slightly harder to impress.
 
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