Vibracobra

from the 7” single, Rockville Records, 1991



Serpentine guitars, slithering away from the confines of pre-packaged and predictable music, twisting and warping the box---Polvo loved to annihilate preconceptions about tune, form, and sound. Built very much around the consummate and criminally underrated guitarist Ash Bowie, Polvo exacted their revenge on tradition from the hamlet of Chapel Hill, North Carolina; the very idea of Sonic Youth had germinated seeds in college towns across America, few of them as prolifically as Chapel Hill, but Polvo stood out from the crowd, even there. One common attribute of a true music geek is their propensity to experiment with either odd time signatures or alternative tunings, always searching for new sounds or feelings; Polvo is well-known for messing with both, often times within the confines of a single song, only where so many others’ trials with said experimentation wind up sounding like shit, Polvo juiced out a mightily addictive racket. They certainly enjoy a cult following, both of fans and other musicians alike, being persuaded to reunite this past year by the organizers of the All Tomorrows Parties festivals. Although this differs from what I’ve gathered to be the consensus of Polvo fans, I enjoy their earliest efforts the best, starting with their debut 2x7” EP Can I Ride through to their first full-length album, Cor-Crane Secret. Due in part to the peculiar tunings that Bowie employed here, but also the imaginative way the entire band jams out, the melodies are never familiar or predictable and they continue to sound astoundingly fresh 18 years on from the track’s initial release. Not surprisingly, Polvo got signed to a bigger indie label (Chapel Hill’s own Merge Records) right after this release, and fast became one of the more cherished critical darlings of the early-mid ‘90s college rock scene. The fact that this song’s intro is fully instrumental grooving for a full 2 minutes before there is a single word sung should make it very clear to the listener that the music is what comes first here; that’s not to take away from the singing, as their cryptic words and disaffected vocal stylings bed down well with the mystical riffing, “…all curled up inside a basket, I don’t know, should I ask if I can watch it go backwards, and see it shine?...” Although they went on to refine & purify their investigational approach to music, it is these early recordings of theirs which stir the most emotions inside me; at times, the instrumental intro here feels like some sort of surreal, old western movie soundtrack, as if it could have been made for the freak flick El Topo or something. To put it another way, if Salvador Dali’s desert-themed paintings could sing songs, I would think they should sound very much like the noises Ash Bowie strangled and coaxed out of his guitar.