Isolationauts by The Vertigo Swirl
Isolationauts began as a self-contained project separate from The Vertigo Swirl, involving various musicians of our acquaintance collaborating remotely during the ongoing COVID epidemic. While several fine folks submitted contributions, the overall response was disappointing (in quantity, not quality).
In the end, Mike and myself decided we would combine our old friend and collaborator Drew Aldrich's contributions with our ongoing Vertigo Swirl recordings and experiments. Then Dan Stuvland - another long-standing collaborator who had actually inspired the Isolationauts concept to begin with - provided us with some great acoustic and electric drums and percussion for our existing tracks.
The result is a rather epic album demarcated into four parts (or, if we must spell it out, the four sides of a double vinyl album) with plenty of instrumental firepower and sonic adventure, plus a trio of vocal laments for the "interesting times" that we live in. (There is also sociopolitical commentary in the instrumentals, but it's a lot more subtle.)
Enjoy. Or don't. But we recommend that you do.
BaM, 12/18/20
Tracklist
| 1. | Turning, Still Burning | 6:43 |
| 2. | Metropolis Speedway | 6:07 |
| 3. | Nag Champa #3 | 1:16 |
| 4. | Skyscraping | 4:57 |
| 5. | The Imperial Banquet | 1:19 |
| 6. | These Are Lonely Times | 3:51 |
| 7. | Sardonic Voyeurism | 4:19 |
| 8. | Nag Champa #1 | 1:34 |
| 9. | Highway to Hydra | 4:45 |
| 10. | Nervous Requiem | 4:08 |
| 11. | Drifting & Dreaming | 1:12 |
| 12. | Doomscroll | 5:04 |
| 13. | Neonymous | 4:41 |
| 14. | Guernica | 3:27 |
| 15. | Orbitron | 4:49 |
| 16. | Time Balm | 1:15 |
| 17. | Electric Forest | 18:56 |
Credits
all tracks written by The Vertigo Swirl
"Nag Champa #3" and "Sardonic Voyeurism" were cowritten with Drew Aldrich
"These Are Lonely Times" was cowritten with Drew Aldrich & Carlye Lehnen
Dan Stuvland
bongos & conga on "Turning, Still Burning"
drums on "Metropolis Speedway"
electronic drums on "Electric Forest"
Drew Aldrich
bass & treated drums on "Nag Champa #3"
rhythm guitar, bass, & drums on "These Are Lonely Times"
guitar, drum machine, & vocals on "Sardonic Voyeurism"
all other instrumental and vocal performances
by Brian Andrew Marek and Michael Allen Thompson
some drum machine courtesy of Drumbit (drumbit.app)
engineered and produced by The Vertigo Swirl
additional engineering by Carlye Lehnen,
Drew Aldrich, & Michael Thompson
mixed, edited, crossfaded, & split by BaM
recorded 12/22/19-11/1/20 at Wise Guise Studios (RIP),
Mid Century Recorders, Makeshift Recorders, & Return to Zero Studios
photography by Carlye Lehnen
artwork by BaM with apologies to Magritte
THANK YOU Drew, Carlye, Stuvy, John Barry, Beck Boston, Andrea Busch, Quentin Fai, James Hall, Mike Floyd, Mark Forster, Infinite Spin Radio, David Jeffery, Kabuki, KDHX and its stalwart jockeys of disc, Jack Lippold, Jim McKinney (he knows what he did!), Dan Niewoehner, Timothy Salamon (the Rhodes didn't make it on this time, but... dude!!!), Sawyer, John Sebben, Sergey Sokolov, Lyla Turner, Dave Udell, Jessica Zgurski
Rubberstamp Records RSR-063
