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Stakes is Low

by Protovulcan

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  • Limited Edition Compact Disc
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    The latest in obsolete technologies. With the quite stunning artwork of Vivienne Marie and Kelly Brannon.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Stakes is Low via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Making Eyes 03:29
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Rolla Bolla 02:48
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about

Protovulcan... finally, the synth punks are playing acid rock!

On drums, Deric Criss (Aleks and the Drummer, Walking Bicycles, Charlie Deets), plays with the candy crunch thunder of Led Zeppelin, the frenetic wizardry of The Who, and the beats everlasting of Public Enemy.

On keys, Will MacLean (formerly of Mercury Rev offshoot Variety Lights) plays a Wurlitzer with the fried, wah-wah feedback of Jimi Hendrix, a P-Funk wall of Moog bass, and a haunting chorus of Kraftwerkian vocoder.

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Press
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Slug Magazine
www.slugmag.com/national-music-reviews/protovulcan-stakes-is-low/
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Protovulcan = Zombie Zombie + The Orange Alabaster Mushroom

Nancy Reagan and I certainly do not condone drug use: “Just Say No.” But IF you and your friends had a sheet of acid and some time to kill, you might put Protovulcan’s Stakes is Low on repeat, stare at your glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars, and ride that trip hard. Musically, the album is a compilation of mind-frying surf-punk/acid-rock instrumentals consisting of Deric Criss’s powerfully prodding drumming and Will MacLean’s decadently distorted key-work—but ultimately a compilation lacking in any significant (and thoroughly desired) sonic variation. If there are any stand-out tracks, the playful “Making Eyes,” the fuzz-laden Dracula-styled “What’s Your Flavour,” and The Doors reminiscent “Busting Out at the Starry Roadhouse” would have to be them, yet it doesn’t seem a step-too-far to imagine this album as a jam from Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem coming to physical fruition—in all of its suggestive glory. –Z. Smith


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unpeeled
www.unpeeled.net/singles.html
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WOULD SOUND GOOD IN CHURCH

PROTOVULCAN "STAKES IS LOW" (TOY MOON MUSIC)

RELEASED? Soon.

SOUNDS LIKE? Oh look, these people aren't a 'proper band', they've all been other bands you haven't heard of either and they're dead good as well. Well, when I say 'dead good' I mean dead mental and fucking brilliant. That's not an attempt to bemuse you with music industry jargon, just a stab at describing people who have abused more synths than your Priest has had hot children.

They start as they mean to go on, massively over the top, leaking under the bottom and overflowing on every side with keyboard riffs that are still playing on a richter scale near you, dumping feedback into the mix with glee and giant wheel barrows and it is a solid fact that Protovulcan have the fattest drum sound in the world, but, let's face it, they need it and it's probably just as well that the bass is stringed with telegraph wire. So, yeah, album is a high drama, shattter-clatter, fuzz-rumble slab that really puts the bomb into bombastic and we pick "Moon Esquilator" as the track to represent everything that's good, bad and badder about "Stakes Is Low".

IS IT ANY GOOD? If you filled ELP with Iron Butterfly and made it fight a panzer division it wouldn't be half as good as good as listening to Protovulcan, this is beyond good

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In Chicago Reader

www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/protovulcan-velcro-lewis-group-werewheels/Event?oid=19515687
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If you learned that drummer Deric Criss from local doom-pop band Walking Bicycles had started a duo with synth player Will MacLean from spacey Mercury Rev offshoot Variety Lights, what would you figure they’d play? If you guessed “demented instrumental acid-rock with robotic melodies that make it sound like party music from a late-70s episode of Doctor Who,” then dang, you’re really good at this. MacLean, who also has a solo project called Ice Cream Mission to Mars, plays every note in these songs himself, crowning his fat, toothy Moog bass and sizzling blurts of syncopated comping with sky-streaking leads and a wobbly, watery chorus of creepy vocoder that splits the difference between “campy sci-fi” and “pulp horror.” Meanwhile Criss’s unhinged, high-impact bashing feels caught in a three-way tug-of-war between frisky, soulful garage rock, frenetic funk, and swaggering 70s proto-metal. Protovulcan’s riot of kaleidoscopic tone colors makes most guitar bands sound as drab as they are, but the tunes are rooted in tried-and-true rock ’n’ roll conventions: simple, catchy licks, bare-bones chord progressions, and chunky, satisfying verse-chorus structures. The duo’s first and only recording, Stakes Is Low (Toy Moon), came out digitally in late August, and this show is a release party for the CD edition. — Philip Montoro

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In Glacially Musical
glaciallymusical.blogspot.com/2015/09/album-review-stakes-is-low-by.html
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There is a lot you can tell about a band by their name.

Metallica is metal. Rifftera likes to riff. Deicide is decidedly anti-religious. KISS is...well I don't know about that one.

So, let's try a new tact here at Glacially Musical.

I'm going to interpret the name of the band and the cover photo and see how accurate I am with just guessing at things.

Protovulcan.

Proto, we all know this well known prefix. It's the first one. Sometimes used to refer the one that came before the one you use now. OK.

Vulcan...now...wait. Vulcan like Mr. Spock or Vulcan like Hephaestus?! Thinking a little more, it couldn't be like Mr. Spock, as he was not a prototypical vulcan, but half human, and proto could be something else too... OK I got nothin'.

Well, it's quite clear that my first idea of changing the game really backfired on me.

So, let's go with this:

I will interpret the lyrics on this album.

It's an instrumental...shoot.

Hmm.

What we do have here is a instrumental album by a synth punk duo playing acid rock...well that's what they say anyway.

This album swirls around your head as you listen to it. The screaming, brittle tones of the keyboards cry out in pain while the snappy, jazzy, crispy drums move the songs along.

In simpler words, this is a free form jazz album as played by two guys based on a Moog Synthesizer that oozes more emotion than a cadre of shamed politicians after being caught in their extramarital affairs even though they campaigned on traditional marriage...

It's spacey. It's melodic. It's fuzzy.

I can guarantee you've never heard anything like this before.
(Nik Cameron)

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In Vital Weekly
www.vitalweekly.net/999.html
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PROTOVULCAN - STAKES IS LOW (CDR by Toy Moon)
A duo of drums and keyboards, that's what Protovulcan is. Nothing new of course, going back Silver Apples, but also Sogar & Swing, Zzz and Zombi, with my personal hero Steve Moore on synthesizers (and hey why not: Yellow Magic Orchestra, even when not really a duo that is). No doubt there are lots more, each with their own starting point. Deric Criss plays drums here (related to the drummer of Kiss I wondered? Probably not) and Will MacLean plays moog, wurlitzer and vocoder. Their entry point seems to be loud music, with a slight symphonic edge to it. The drums pound away, loud and unrelentness and the synthesizers play thick chords in the lower regions of the keyboard, and the oscillations bend towards the bass end too. Protovulcan recorded this in a very direct environment, so it bursts with energy. It has the aggression of a fine punk record, but it has the musicianship of well-honed rock band. The vocoder is just something that makes Protovulcan sound a bit different, I guess, but I must admit it doesn't always work. It is very abstract, so lyrics are rendered beyond actual words, and becomes another sound. That is of course nice, but after a few of these songs the gimmick wears out a bit. Nine pieces in about thirty minutes: that's almost like 'pop' length for you, and which made play it on repeat while cleaning up the house. Such was the drug-like capacity of the music. Maybe I am a sucker for keyboard music? Maybe I am a sucker for these high-energy bursts? I'd love to see Protovulcan do this in concert! Excellent release. (FdW)

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In The Deli
la.thedelimagazine.com/category/bands/protovulcan
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Protovulcan is the new project from Drummer Deric Criss (Aleks and the Drummer, Walking Bicycles, Charlie Deets) and Keyboard player Will MacLean (Variety Lights, Ice Cream Mission to Mars, Blue Moth). Together they create a manic blend of electronic and organic that pounds and howls and screeches in to place. The duo is preparing to release their debut album Stakes is Low via Toy Moon Music.

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In Live Eye TV
www.liveeyetv.org/2015/07/16/listen-protovulcan-moon-esquilator-you-fantasy/
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Protovulcan is back with their brand new track “Moon Esquilator (You Can Be The Fantasy)“, which the Chicago duo has also made available for download via their Soundcloud page. Drummer Deric Criss (Aleks and the Drummer, Walking Bicycles, Charlie Deets) and keys player Will MacLean (Variety Lights, Ice Cream Mission to Mars, Blue Moth) take their synth punk meets acid rock to new heights of Moog fried bliss on this most recent offering. While “Making Eyes“, the duo’s first salvo from this past May, distinguished itself with syncopated rhythms and a heavily processed Wurlitzer organ that sounded more like a melting guitar, this new cut gets right down to business with a tight interplay between Criss’s off-kilter rhythms and MacLean’s speaker shredding blasts of bass funk. Like the soundtrack to a video game for destroying zombies, Protovulcan navigate this track thru varying levels of difficulty before the pair graduate on to total zombie annihilation!



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credits

released August 30, 2015

Drums: Deric Criss
Moog, Wurlitzer, Vocoder: Will MacLean

Recording, mixing: Andrew Slater at Frogg Mountain Studio
Mastering: Adam Stilson at Decade Music Studio
Artwork: Vivienne Marie and Kelly Brannon

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Protovulcan Chicago, Illinois

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