Your Head Shone Like a Stone

...Wherein the UK drone-improv collective spits out its hazy ya-yas in brisk, German-sized pellets. One might think that because the VCO are playing with a beat here that they've gone all communal drum circle on us; not quite, though the mood is perilously near that of the original Amon Düül. As the band's pieces go, this is actually a very short blast of ohm, and rather than summon the spirits of the stone age, I wonder if its heart isn't closer to 17 minutes into a live version of "The End"-- which is to say it might have been rock in another time. This is only psychedelic in so far as people with drums, reed-instruments and holding a single organ note for a few minutes are inherently so, and I definitely get the feeling this is merely a snippet of a much longer, unpredictable jaunt. Wave goodbye, welcome home. "