(Black/Ambient) Velvet Cacoon - P Aa Opal Poere Pr. 33 - 2009, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Let’s dance. Velvet Cacoon has nothing going for it. Haircuts call ‘em “Black Metal.” Public photos allegedly showcasing Velvet Cacoon band members show them to be more haircut than Black Metal. Some of them appear straight outta Human League. Maybe less eye shadow. Less lipstick. They’ve allegedly been hooked on cough syrup. They’ve been called out for feigning addiction. They’ve been called out for feigning a band, a Black Metal band, comprised of members that look like New Wave tarts, the sort to ride fancy eye-talian tour bikes in heels, to smoke Nat Sherman’s, to understand the phrase, “discourse networks.” I’ve dated women like this. I even married one. She hates Velvet Cacoon. But she does so because, “they sound like a parody of all that shit you listen to. But not Rush. I’ll always love Rush.”
Sure, Velvet Cacoon does little talking so people must talk for them. They are your friend who has no cell phone and has his friends call your phone to get in touch with ‘im. He takes the bus. Collects leaves. Reads Erasmus. Different strokes, bro. Some times ain’t kind to certain kinds. Same for the ‘coon. They aren’t thrilled to admit the dieselharp is/was the fabric of fable. They aren’t stoked to tell you none of those girls in the photos that’ve surfaced have anything to do with the music of Dextronaut, of Genevieve, of the other soupy shit you’ve downloaded off someone’s fucking blogspot. Velvet Cacoon is thrilled it’s upset folks. Velvet Cacoon is stoked messageboard drones have called ‘em “frauds” or “poseurs,” or a “joke band.” Maybe even all three… Yippee.
Unlike the underwhelmin’ vat o’ scat available that apes this Johnny-Two-Notes shtick with emphysemic vox and Cocteau Twin’d drums, Velvet Cacoon has never come off as counterfeit. Never, motherfucker. An indefinable band participating in an undefined genre consisting of who-knows-how-many members, which may or may not be eco-fascist, or a joke, or a fraud, or poseurs, or even Black Metal, is certainly not the quickest avenue to the target audience’s fucking PayPal account. Contact Fauna, or Wolves in The Throne Room for the up ‘n’ up on that bit – not without coincidence two bands that share environs with Velvet Cacoon. Ah, suddenly dissent, middle-fuckin’-finger opposition is more discussed than cover art or inserts or cryptic one-sheets of words that could or could not have anything to do with the music therein. How’s that for reshuffling the deck? And here the wee apes can do nothing so much but gawk at all the purty cover-art colors these days.
Music on P aa Opal Poere Pr. 33 is a more reductive version of a band already far too adept at reductive takes on fringe genres and sub-genres of fringe genres. Velvet Cacoon persists with the nautical imagery. Velvet Cacoon appropriates a brand of “Poverty Sucks” type poesy, the stiltedly serious schlock scribbled out in purple ink by Vassar girls with Brian Ferry fixations and a collection of ball gags. The dieselharp sits in the corner on empty. Cocteau Twin’d drums are lubricated and in flux with the creaks and shrieks that double as music. Drama is well deep, boarded up and abandoned. It may not get you into the pages of Vice or invited to one of those overblown Brit fests larded with has-beens and flav-of-the-months, but it’ll make you feel like Bobby Peru on Laudanum at a Bowie show. So put on them red shoes and dance the blues.
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