3 out of 5

Label: VHF Records

Produced by: ?

A lo-fi set of three tracks that gives, mostly, a very general sense of the Vibracathedral sound.

Title track The Secret Base opens the set midstream, intra-clatter, hitting on the kitchen-sink noise approach more akin to Sunroof! But it’s a bit misleading – a lot of the music’s nuance is smooshed into the lo-fi background and the track isn’t really noisy or immersive enough for drone, so it comes across as a warm-up, with an unceremonious fadeout.

On the other side, the 20-minute Eyes Of Wood is a better case for this approaching: chanting vocals and a loping rhythm suggest we might be in for something ragga, but VO again peels this back, letting much of the noise settle into a midrange. However, the mix / composition of this is much louder and more layered, making it effective for getting lost in. Some subtle changes along the way make one wish that was brought out a bit more, as its otherwise rather stagnant, but the general loop it settles in to does the trick.

Between these tunes lies excellence: If You Can’t Smoke ‘Em, Sell ‘Em features more notes of VO’s janked folksiness than the surrounding tunes, and squeezes out legit melodies and cycles amidst its psych. A noisy bit of guitar / drums interplay gives way to a subdued middle, and builds back into some volume. An energizing stop between two otherwise general tunes.