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Album Review

Vic Mars
Curriculum for Schools and Colleges Volume 2 No label

Article written by Michael H - Jun 18, 2013

Vic Mars returns with this great follow up to Volume 1 of ‘Curriculum for Schools and Colleges’. Volume 1 laced 70s synth-led electronic educational theme music and library atmospheres with an off kilter sense of hidden occultism. The previous lesson plan included Clairsentience and Psychometry; these weird teachings are joined this time by references to Robophobia and a class on the Idiomotor phenomenon, where a person moves reflexively without choosing to. My unconscious response to Vic Marr’s music is an instant immersion in its lush textures and absorbing tunes.

The music often mirrors the lesson titles perfectly: ‘Horticulture’ expands and winds around itself like stretching branches; ‘House Captain and Prefects’ struts around in an authoritative manner, ‘Computer Studies’ has rapidly processing melodic fragments, flickering in a proto-rave fashion; ‘Biology’ has a two note heartbeat; ‘Sports Day’ is one of the album’s highlights, full of sunlit cheer. Finally, ‘Business Studies’ has a breezy “can-do” optimism, but who knows what these pupils are selling: sky maps of impossible constellations, forbidden runes, architectural plans for buildings likely to host a summoning of Gozer the Gozerian.

As good as Volume 1 was, Volume 2 has a thicker more confident production and stronger tunes without diluting that slight sense of wrongness that made the first entry in this series such a joy to listen to.

Links:
http://awalkthroughthetrees.blogspot.co.uk/
http://vicmars.bandcamp.com/