Local Reviews: Virgin Sophia/VCR5

Virgin Sophia/VCR5

V

Street: 4.04

Exumbrella Records

VCR5 = Danger + Dan Deacon

Virgin Sophia = Boards of Canada + Air + Prefuse 73

I couldn’t find much press on either of these guys, and when I did, others were just as baffled as I was. It might just be that the local scene for these two electro-beat art-noise makers is so underground it makes them seem more enigmatic than they are.  Unfortunately, their mystery isn’t enough to make this a solid release.  It’s not that either of them suck, it’s that they are just mediocre enough to slip through the cracks. Under the moniker VCR5, Joe Greathouse makes noisy, Tron-inspired, dark, techno-heavy, chaos IDM.  Stand-out track “Onit” was a weirdly melodic mash-up player, and “Mud” was a nice, lyrical wrap-up to the end of the set.  Patrick Munger, as Virgin Sophia, takes a mellow, Valium-soundscape approach, which makes sense when you look at his video pairings on his blog, but doesn’t really stand on its own.