Our second Salamander spin-off project is by the Vortex Navigation Company, Salamander singer-guitarist Sean Connaughty's other band. In VNC, Sean teams up with guitarist Wes Morden and a rotating group of instrumentalists on percussion, bass and keys. VNC create expansive improvisations and dark folk, not a million miles away from Salamander, but pushing further into the swirling cloud formations of sky-trance improvised drone rock on one axis, and deeper into dark backwoods folk on the other. Psych-folk pieces ""Way Down in the Holler", "The Willow Garden" and "The Welcoming River" are counterbalanced by the extended drone/psych improvisations "Green Pyramid", "Europa" and "Flying Low Over Green Hills". Sean describes their working methods thusly: "we started playing every Monday in my space and we never prepared or planned a damn thing musically until much later when we delved into some of my "folkish" material, and made some actual songs. It was mostly psych improv. Some of it extremely ambient, some of it pretty heavy. We had all kinds of instruments laying around so that we could pick up whatever, whenever we wanted. I have always been an obsessive documenter, so everything got recorded…the space was a virtual "spaghetti junction" of cables and microphones, all leading to the old four track." 

We hope you like our selection of some of the best of the VNC's output, both "planned" and "unplanned".

CAM008CD - Salamander - Red Ampersand

CAM017CD - Salamander - Red Mantra

CAM037CD - Salamander - Birds of Appetite

CAM070CD - Salamander - Bent Hemlock