Moving backwards to progress
Here are a few songs by The Van Pelt. Some of you may recognize the first, ‘The Speeding Train,’ from the second The Lapse full-length, Heaven Ain’t Happening, which featured a re-recorded version of the song. That should not come as a surprise, since the two bands shared their core members – Chris Leo (ex-Native Nod) on guitar and vocals and Toko Yasuda (ex-Blonde Redhead) on bass and vocals. As The Van Pelt, they released two full-length records, Stealing From Our Favorite Thieves and Sultans of Sentiment, both out on Gern Blandsten, the label run by former Rorschach singer Charles Maggio.The most obvious constant between The Van Pelt and The Lapse were Leo’s half-spoken vocals, along with his insightful lyrics. But with The Lapse’s Betrayal!, also on Gern Blandsten, Yasuda's timidly rich voice began to make more frequent appearances, leaving her on equal footing with Leo by the time they recorded the aforementioned Heaven Ain’t Happening (Southern). This was also their last record together. Leo recorded one more record under the name The Lapse, In Truth Loved, which I could never really get into, while Yasuda went on to play with Enon.
Go here for an interview with The Van Pelt. You’ll also find a few more mp3s on the Southern site. If you want to check out The Lapse, listen to a song from Betrayal! on Epitonic. The songs below were released as a 7" on Art Monk Construction. If anyone of you knows about other EP releases by The Van Pelt, please let me know about them.
The Van Pelt – The Speeding Train
The Van Pelt – Evil High
The Van Pelt – The Democratic Teacher’s Union
posted by sabeth at 8:38 PM
4 Comments:
I used to love van pelt! apart from this ep, which features their best track ever, they also did splits with radio to saturn, chisel and (young)pioneers, none of which I'd call essential...and in fact I traded them a loooong time ago and still have no regrets at all
This EP is the most useless piece of music I have ever bought in my life, especially once "Speeding Train" came out later, but that's okay since everything else by the Van Pelt or the Lapse is fantastic. Chris Leo's current project Vague Angels is also very good, at least on record. I haven't seen them live yet.
To each his own, they say...
gerhardj calls this "useless", I would just call "The Speeding Train" one of the most fantastic tracks in the history of History itself. (And of course much better in the Van Pelt version.) To me, it´s just the sound of joy on record.
Is "HEAVEN AIN'T HAPPENING" available on vinyl ?
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