BLACK VATICAN - ProfilesArchive

About Me

.."Baltimore-by-way-of Iowa duo Black Vatican make some wonderful racket, its fried AM radio trashed pop jams recalling recent outings from Ariel Pink's aggressive bottom-of-the-well lo-fi, Panda Bear's Brian Wilson-toting crooning vocal serenades, and, certainly, not-so-recent Pere Ubu. You can hear things frying and being abused--what sounds like kitchenware percussion; big, echoed electronic "zonnngggs;" a rupturing, or close to it, speaker diaphragm. During "I Don't Want to Fight" the drums, vocals, and tortured surf guitar distort into each other, almost becoming indistinguishable, before clearing like a summer drive-by thunderstorm.As a whole, it's quite fun and bop-able. The album's closer, "Now You've Been Told," just makes us smile--vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Andy Roche, recorded like he's singing from down the hall, is barely intelligible as he makes a sort of pre-lingual babble of "ah"s and "oh"s--in a mix of floating winds, bells, and snare-drum punctuation that enters and exits at will. "Touch Teacher" is some kind of anarchic junkyard dub, and "Doggerel" incites a cosmic-scale aesthetic war in four-minute miniature--circuit-bending fuckery aided by big industrial gobs of dark clatter that duel with tinny, insectile percussion, while Roche intones, in a voice that suggests peaceful transcendence, "doggy doesn't recognize his master/ doggy's just a dog, hereafter." Like the above-mentioned artists, Black Vatican's side of this split LP--Brooklyn, N.Y.'s True Primes' flip side being pissy with breakbeats--pulls itself successfully out of the avant-music time line, fashioning instead a clever feedback loop well worth picking up." MICHAEL BYRNE, CITYPAPER, BALTIMORE, MD

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 02/06/2006
Band Website: LOCUSTMUSIC.COM
Band Members: Andy Roche, Owen Gardner
Influences:

ANNOUNCING THE MYSTERIES from A Roche on Vimeo .

TETEDEMORT from A Roche on Vimeo .

BLACK IRON VATICAN II from A Roche on Vimeo .

BORN TO LIVE LIFE from A Roche on Vimeo .

Sounds Like: "This new batch made me envision a post apocolyptic New Wave Art film Soundtrack--Like, versus the standardized post apocolyptic Future images you see in the graphic novels/motion pictures where everyone is fighting in a barren wasteland, the visions ellicted by the sounds portray quirky artisians that have salvaged their lives from the wreckage of nuclear fallout, combat potential depression from their and the worlds great loss by making new sounds using various found technologies/both analong and digital----Don't knock it! it's just an honest reaction !!!! ( wanna fight agout it? )"Victor Cayro, cultural eminence
Record Label: locustmusic.com, night-people.org

My Blog

ANDY ROCHE SOLO SCREENINGS AND SHOWS IN FRANCE 09

Andy did some solo screenings and shows this June to coincide with a DVD comp called Andy Roche: Radical Witness of Iowa released via Atelier Ciseaux in Paris. The shows were with Pocahaunted and Sun...
Posted by on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:55:00 GMT

We've got a track on a new web comp

OK...So the song "Night Is Come" is probably familiar to most of you as it has been available as a free MP3 for some time now. Well, it's included with a bunch of cool stuff you may not have heard on...
Posted by on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:15:00 GMT

LIve @ Permanent Records via ACID MARSHMALLOW

black vatican at permanent records (chicago) march 20th, 2009 from acid marshmallow on Vimeo.and Evan Miller played too! evan miller at permanent records (chicago) march 20t...
Posted by on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:59:00 GMT

WHEN WE WERE SECRET MONKS II

GOOD FRIENDS ARE FOR C.R.E.E.P.S. >>> SECRET MONKS from A Roche on Vimeo. BABYLAND >>> SECRET MONKS from A Roche on Vimeo. FINAL DAY &...
Posted by on Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:48:00 GMT

WHEN WE WERE SECRET MONKS

VICTOR CAYRO (BORN TO LIVE LIFE) >>> SECRET MONKS from A Roche on Vimeo. HEY DO IT >>> SECRET MONKS from A Roche on Vimeo.
Posted by on Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:50:00 GMT

ATTN: NEED SOME HELP WITH LAST MINUTE BOOKING!

HI everybody,We're trying to book some last minute dates for a short East Coast tour, and we need some help. Since our tour plans with another group fell through, we've been scrambling to organize so...
Posted by on Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:33:00 GMT

AT LONG LAST: LP OUT NOW!

HI Everyone,Just to let you know, our new split LP with the True Primes is out now. Meaning, you order it now, it'll be there ASAP. We're really thrilled about it over here. The mastering is sweet ...
Posted by on Wed, 21 May 2008 18:17:00 GMT

stolenbabies.blogspot.com interview

Here's an interview I recently did with Cody from stolenbabies.blogspot.com. It was really nice of him to ask us to do this, and I've reposted it here as a sort FAQ about Black Vatican. Check out th...
Posted by on Fri, 02 May 2008 09:43:00 GMT

NEW LP PREORDER!

Hi everybody! Exciting news here. Our first release on Locust Music, a split LP with the excellent True Primes, will come out on March 27th. However, in the meantime, it is possible to preorder the...
Posted by on Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:32:00 GMT

REVIEW FROM satanrulez.blogspot.com

A review from satanrulez.blogspot.comBlack Vatican "Zed Omega" (Night People, 2007): Once in a while, a band drops a slab of plastic heaven into my tape deck and the sound generating from the speakers...
Posted by on Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:40:00 GMT