Rediscover:
Vicious Hairy Mary
Orchestra Phantasma
1999
Rediscover is a series of reviews highlighting past releases that have flown under the radar and now deserve a second look.
Classical Gypsy Vaudeville Circus Metal. It's not a term often (or ever) heard, but that doesn't mean this absurd unconventional hybrid doesn't exist. The show-tunesy Australian quartet Vicious Hairy Mary is as elusive and mysterious as their music; having parted ways nearly a decade ago, there's barely a pittance of information to be found on the culty, indie Sydney foursome, most of it lurking on nostalgic blogs and message boards.
VHM's final album, Orchestra Phantasma, is a culmination of the band's eclectic tastes and unsung musicianship told in a shell of a macabre theatre act. This spooky vaudeville aesthetic leaps right out of the speakers on the album's first half. On "Spyro," "Wind Up Workers," and others, bassist Michael Lira flips between megaphone-filtered vocals summoning a demented Ringmaster and alien microphone effects adding the presence of a deformed circus creature. Yet in all this carnivàle mayhem, VHM never forget their rock roots. Pete Kostic's driving hardcore beats pummel along with heavy power chords and Samantha Fronti's and Guy Freer's diverse classical instrumentation, including violins, organs, xylophones, vibes, accordions, and horns. To put it bluntly, VMH didn't perform for the faint of heart.
Halfway through Orchestra Phantasma, the band takes more cues from fellow shock-rockers Mr. Bungle and Primus rather than old-world klezmer and circus music - and things turn even more eerie. "No one knows what the Puppet knows / No one goes where the Puppet goes," Lira whispers in the Les Claypool inspired "The Puppet." "Moon Tune" starts with ethereal xylophones and Lira's shrieking opera voice, but abruptly transitions into Metallica-inspired power chords that chug under howling violins. VHM even display their Big Band prowess during the free-horn interplay of "Cuthbert." Yet throughout each track's disparate approach, Orchestra Phantasma remains as cohesive as any straightforward rock or classical work, and such consistency makes Orchestra Phantasma a concept album in its own right, a soundtrack to a terrifying freakshow.
The Down Under's most obscure secret is also their best kept. VHM found a virtuosic middle ground between the bizarre and the traditional, between the terrifying and the whimsical. Even if VHM hadn't split, certainly no mainstream public in any culture would accept and idolize a band so bizarre, creepy and inaccessible; that's often the case with artists ahead of their time. Unfortunately, VHM fans and curious listeners won't be able to walk into Best Buy and grab a copy off the shelf. Even more frustrating, finding a copy of Orchestra Phantasma in your local used record depot or pawnshop will likely yield no results. But half of the joy surrounding such forgotten bands is the treasure hunt for said gems - to complement the brilliant, hair-raising music within this obscure product is the mystery of its whereabouts. The other half of the joy is sharing this lost recorded time with oblivious music fans. Only through word-of-mouth can we show our appreciation for VHM, and our appreciation for eclectic music as a whole.
by Jory Spadea
