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Psykor

by Avola

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1.
Beast Belly 07:26
2.
Cave Rave 05:52
3.
Daddy Loves E.T. 04:17
4.
Entry Level Bog (Saikor Remix) 05:24
5.
R.I.P. Boar (I Hit With My Ford Fiesta) 02:36
6.
Psycho Dream 04:07
7.
Brain Worm 05:11
8.
Aural Spackling Compound 03:04
9.
In The Mourning 06:45

about

PURCHASE CASSETTE HERE:
sigerecords.bandcamp.com/album/psykor

PSYKOR made it to Wire Magazine's top 50 albums of 2023!!!


Psykor is AVOLA’s most ambitious project to date: a collection of recordings created in the ongoing aftermath of a lingering global pandemic. The cavernous void at its center is a two-month trip Veronica Avola took to her birthplace of Rapallo, Italy in the spring of 2021 in order to help her mother sort through the belongings of her grandmother, who passed away from COVID the previous fall. Field recordings made at her grandmother’s delayed funeral and of the eerie sounds of the furniture in her empty apartment are mixed with the richly expressive voices of modular synthesizers and the sentient stirrings of samplers to trace a psychedelic journey through an emotionally fraught underworld. This heaviness is evident throughout, from the howling resonance of opener “Beast Belly” to the elegiac ambience of “In the Mourning.”

As with all of Avola’s work, there is also a playful side to this album, which bursts through in the prismatic potency of beat-driven bangers like “Daddy Loves E.T.” and “R.I.P. BOAR (Hit By Ford Fiesta)”. The harsh catharsis of these tracks maps onto an experience of re-entry of being back in the US, back to being able to play live shows along with a heightened awareness of the paramount importance of friendship. Whether forged in the bonds of biology or through the connections of chosen community, the theme of family shines through here in all its glorious complexity, as does Avola’s mastery of finding humor in darkness.
-Emily Pothast


I love so many things about Psykor, but I want to start with the sequencing. It’s next-level great. AVOLA welcomes us into this burnt husk of a world gently, with parched, expansive drones echoing through the last remnants of daylight. Plunging down through the abyss, feedback seeps into the hollows, flaring out like a debris cloud. At this point, take a breath and prepare to get blown to bits. Tension rises. Acid boils. Lightning is in the air, sparking through heavy bass rumbles and blast-furnace rhythms. The intensity grows, breaking apart before amassing into something heavier and more furious. Synths growl at the moon, and electronics spit sparks into the darkness before we wake up and realize it was all just one hell of a dream. This rips.
Brad Rose | Foxy Digitalis, The Capsule Garden Vol 2.14: April 19, 2023,


Veronica Avola, da Portland, nel 2021 rientra per due mesi in Liguria, a Rapallo. Con la madre si immerge nel mondo lasciato poco tempo prima dalla nonna, vittima del COVID. Questo lutto, la sua elaborazione e i suoni dei passi scomodi e pratici da effettuare in questa contingenza, sono il polo attorno al quale questo nastro si muove. Il suono è granuloso, lento e maestoso, caldo. A tratti si potrebbe quasi ipotizzare una comunione con il dub. “Cave Rave”, ad esempio, tra rimbombi e cigolii. Altrove l’ambientazione si fa più nervosa e glitch, permanendo comunque un’elasticità che sembra la cifra stilistica di Avola (nel suo passato tra le altre cose ha collaborato con Thrones, Oxbow e Daniel Menche). È un’elasticità fisica, quasi giocasse con tendini, muscoli e scorie noise, trasmettendo l’idea di una commistione quasi cyborg. Il pensiero va ovviamente a Kevin Martin, sia come The Bug che come Techno Animal. Veronica ha comunque una personalità sua ben definita e di sicuro la contestualizzazione del lavoro aiuta a definirne i confini. Quando i toni si fanno più acuti, anche solo per qualche secondo, come in “Psycho Dream”, ci si ritrova tra flash e fuochi fatui che si aggrappano a trapani sulle medie frequenze che sembrano opera di Brian Yuzna e del suo “The Dentist”. Poi arriva un organo e dunque il suono dell’orrore più classico, da Vincent Price a Dario Argento, si fa avanti: è “Brain Worm”, vera e propria summa emozionale del lavoro, dove la luce salta e ci si ritrova assediati dal terrore. Il sistema sembra impazzito ma, in qualche modo, Avola riesce a portare a termine il proprio percorso: l’ultima traccia, infatti, “In The Mourning”, è quella che, in un mondo distrutto, si potrebbe chiamare pace. Quel che sembra essere una sirena, o forse un flauto, il soffio del vento, un circuito bloccato che continua fino allo sfinimento, il nulla intorno. Mare, colline, una Liguria buia, catatonica ed incantata.
VASCO VIVIANI | The New Noise, February 2023,


L’album de Veronica « Vern » AVOLA nous accueille avec Beast Belly, souffle abrasif survolant les restes calcinés d’une planète laissée à l’abandon. Mais surtout n’allez pas penser que Psykor est un énième album d’ambient, car les choses changent dès le titre suivant, Cave Rave, où des amas de débris se déplacent sur des contrées poussiéreuses, comme poussés par une forme invisible, s’éparpillant dans un espace sans fin aux horizons effacés. AVOLA offre un trip brûlant dans les profondeurs sans fond d’un monde hurlant de douleur dans le prisme muet de l’univers. Les couches se superposent accumulant l’ADN d’existences à jamais emprisonnées dans un vernis de noise virevoltante et de déchirures expérimentales. Psykor surprend d’un titre à l’autre, sautant de surfaces mobiles en espaces volatiles, nous perdant dans son chaos de sensations sombres aux mouvements fauchés par les aiguilles de montres décédées, diluant le temps dans une encre noire aux reflets irisés. Très fortement recommandé.
Roland Torres | Focus Musique, February 2023,

credits

released February 3, 2023

Written, performed, recorded and mixed by Vern Avola.
Mastered by Collin Gorman Weiland

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Avola Oregon

Veronica “Vern” Avola is a composer, multimedia artist, instructor and community organizer born in Rapallo, Italy and based in Portland, Oregon. She founded EMS Records.
Avola has released several albums on Sige Recordings, An Out Recordings, Accident Prone Records, Gravity Records and Nadine Records. Avola has other collaborative works with Daniel Menche (Bear Spray), Elrond, Vo Vo and Dead. ... more

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