vonFrickle - Discography
Sounds from Inside The Mind of vonFrickle (2000)
Feeding the Organic Computer (2001, reissued 2005 by OIE Records)
Frank Works In A Factory: Beyond Weird Vol. 1 (2002)
Vibrate Transmit Receive (2002)
The Live Show (2003)
Mission 4.9 (2003, reissued 2005 by OIE Records)
Frank's Great Escape: Beyond Weird Vol. 2 (2005)
Arrhythmia (2006, OIE Records)
The 40 Fingers of Doctor V (2008, OIE Records)
ALERT!
The new live album, The 40 Fingers of Doctor V, has been released for download at various music web sites, but we have been informed that some of the music files were not distributed properly and that some tracks are listed with incorrect titles. Technicians in white lab coats are working to correct the problems, and we recommend that you wait to purchase Doctor V until we get the "all clear" from o.i.e. Records. We will let you know here when things have been sorted. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Check out YouTube to see live video of vonFrickle!
vonFrickle is currently recording their next batch of songs composed over the past 2 years.
HUB review of latest studio album.
Von Frickle
Arrhythmia
Hearing a Von Frickle album will never be the same as seeing a Von Frickle show. The white suits, the expressionless masks, the video projections, signaling the audience from the balcony - it's a theatrical experience. However, the show does not compensate for their music, it complements it, and Von Frickle's eighth full length release, Arrhythmia, showcases the powerful music that warrants such a presentation.
Von Frickle is a progressive rock band in the oldest tradition of prog. Like their clear influence, King Crimson, they seek to incorporate classical structures into rock music, and they succeed admirably. As in classical, there are no words, and the songs are meant to create definite mental images. Lead-off track "Pyramidium" contains lots of speedy riffing, but never with metal's hard, angry edge. It's a statelier, heavy sound that, together with a faint Middle Eastern tinge, suggests great stone blocks and the mighty power of ancient Egypt. "Scatterbrain," like Rush's "YYZ," opens and concludes with a main theme but jumps around in tone and time signature in between, including a weird, playful sequence - Pictures At An Exhibition in five minutes. Closing two-part space epic "Wreck of the Hallucinato" suggests the creepy possibilities of starship lost in space and time, and the martial cadence and insectile buzz of "March of the Centipede Army" combine for a short but evocative piece of aural science fiction.
Of course, playing music like this takes serious chops, and Von Frickle has them in spades. Dan Meyer's six-string bass gives the band plenty of depth in the low end, while his rhythm section partner John Ganser has a seemingly endless supply of fills and small variations that keep the repeating themes and lines sounding fresh. The guitars of Lee Fehr and Ken Thornton add a powerful top half, mixing seamlessly with the rhythm section to provide the dense but not airless sound that is Von Frickle's calling card.
Don't let that fool you, though; the bruising power of songs like "Freak Parade" isn't all that the band has to offer. Arrhythmia is well sequenced and offers interludes in the form of the music box collage "Relax" and "Triptyque d'Etrange," a guitarless, three-theme ambient piece built from keyboard and theremin. And smack in the middle is the album's rock 'n' roll heart, "Antiparticle Assassin," which rides a funky, bouncing bass line reminiscent of 1980s Crimson and which, despite being about as complicated as you can get with just four instruments, is warm and organic, with Thornton's lead guitar running wild throughout, and a feedback meltdown to cap it off.
With Arrhythmia, Von Frickle has created a masterful work of progressive rock. Powerful, weird, evocative - in a word, awesome.
- Jeremy Berg
The HUB, August 10, 2006
Other notes and interesting tidbits.
John Ganser was a member of (recorded and toured with) The Something Brothers, House of Large Sizes and The Spelunkers and has recorded with Tripping Daisy.
Ken Thornton appeared with Neil Innes [Bonzo Dog Band, Monty Python, The Rutles, Innes Book of Records] on radio and stage for various events from 2001 - 2009, including several UK tours with The Rutles. He plays guitar on two songs from Neil's "Works In Progress" CD. Ken organized a band and mini-tour of the Midwestern US for Neil back in 2004, which also included John Ganser on drums.
