Certain things just need to be seen and heard to be believed. One of these things is to experience the English combo Volcano the Bear in the live setting. Nothing I ever say will accurately describe that evening last year when I made the trip down to the unlikely setting of their first Swedish gig, but it goes without saying that it was a night of pure magic and brilliance. Volcano the Bear was formed in 1995 with the constant idea of being a group with uncompromising and boundless ideas. If you're a fan of free-form improvisations, free jazz, weird drones, pagan folk, whimsical acoustic pieces, disjointed percussive riffs, crackling electronics and actually own more than one record by either the Sun City Girls, This Heat, Faust, Residents, The Shadow Ring or Captain Beefheart than you owe it to yourself to check these cats out. If you're not as lucky as me when it comes to attending Volcano the Bear shows I am happy to report that "Catonapotato" is a perfect example of what they are capable of in the live setting. All eight tracks presented here were recorded live by the duo at four different occasions in 2004. These four shows took place in Leicester (England), Paris (France), Norrköping (Sweden) and Sheffield (England) and all reveal different sides of this talented duo. The number of styles explored throughout seems endless, though words like free, folk and jazz keep popping into my head. "Catonapotato" is not necessarily free jazz or free folk, but it does indeed display music that is completely free from any sort of constraint and structure. It just floats along however it wants to, with the aid of squeaking horns, corrosive string massage and hypnotic drums that more than once approaches the tribal. It's mainly an instrumental affair although some vocals come up on a few tracks, and as if all this wasn't enough we're served some incongruous electric guitar rhythms that recalls the Sun City Girls at their very best. All in all, it's just a brilliant sonic excursion down a musical path very few are brave enough to follow these days. If you never have come across this band before I honestly believe that you never have heard anything quite like it. This is meditation music for the drone/noise generation.
