Original deadstock
Courtesy of the ever-enquiring minds over at RVNG, we've a handful of deadstock copies of Myles Davis and Ray Hermann's privately pressed Hybrid Vigor LP, originally released back in 1984. Though recorded over a number of years after the pair met at a shoe manufacturers in the early 70s and slowly assembled as they acquired the equipment that enabled them to build their own studio, its 1984 year of release probably offers the biggest clues as to what's going on with the 40 odd minutes that make up Hybrid Vigor. Recorded in Connecticut it might have been, but this is the sound of 80s downtown NYC if i've ever heard it, showcasing debts to the mechanistic funk of fourth album Talking Heads and Byrne's solo work with Eno, Bill Laswell's mutant dance, and Mark Freedman's Battery Sound Studio and its avant disco pop transgressions - whether they'd heard the latter, it's uncertain, but they were certainly breathing the same air. That Myles was an affiliate of the great Charles O'Meara, another adventuring musician based in Conneticut at the same time, also speaks volumes. It's a timestamped oddity for sure, and like most privately pressed records, is marked by an eccentric creative whim, a genre exercise gone rogue, too dreamy to dance to, too unpredictable to singalong to, too rhythmical to just sit there and ignore it. Sort of scratching my head wondering how this hasn't turned up on Music From Memory already - it's pretty much the halfway point between Gaussian Curve and Geoffrey Landers. Should you be inclined towards such things, buy it now before the OG prices hit the ceiling...
