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Vhu1vha, HVUlhva, Vhu1hva, Hvulvha… however you write it! Never mind the spelling, mind the sounds… The sounds of Vhulvha sounded like no vulvha I’ve ever paid a visit to. Their music (like the spelling) was also rather confusing. Haunting, creepy, eerie, out of bounds, and the idea that three youngsters in my nearby town made music that hit my center like hardly any had ever done before was beyond imagination.
I’ll never forget the look on Tomas’ face bringing over the latest Vhulvha-tape with the hand-drawn, cut-up, collage covers, so fond of the result. So fond of his Vhulvha. I saw hundreds of Cthul.bergs’ drawings in school (as we were in the same class for a couple of years), and I knew he put quite some effort into making his lines really neat, although the motives were seldom neat. Homemade black/white covers, so stylish! Tomas, Tomas, and Tomas always did their things with extravaganza. Frugally and meticulously. DIY alright, but no shortcuts please! Hours and hours drawing, writing, listening, collecting sounds, programming, manipulating sounds, finding samples that were so off-limit, and totally living for their music. They spent days together making music, drinking mugs of coffee with T. Jensen’s mom, laughing at their own obscure ideas. Like when they took a 20 kilo tuba into a toilet so tiny it only had room for the main person and a roll of toilet paper. They strapped mics to the Kaisertuba and blew the thing smoking hot. The tones were so sour and everything peaked on the recording equipment, but the three Tomas’ es were so very pleased with the result! It can be heard on “The Evaginated Rectum”. That’s how they worked and produced their 7 (or 8?) releases.
These guys were involved in several other projects, but Vhu1vha had such uniqueness. So unconventional, so wrecked, such total lack of respect, so nihilistic, somehow humorous (?) – yet again confusing, like a heavily sedated mania in full flowering. Not to mention the titles. How did they come up with them? – probably hours of pondering. You’d need a degree in anatomy, psychology, and pathology to really understand them. Or at least have an encyclopedia at hand… “Scathophallus Necrosa”, “Aesophagus Pump”, “Lhulli Meiaena”, “That Pelvic Visitation”. Nothing seemed to be prohibited and nothing too repulsive for them to lay hands on. Quite a thrill to dive into that Vhu1vha!
The Vhu1vha in the birth canal. In the mid-90s, T. Jensen made a tape of homemade sounds and samples that didn’t fit into their other projects being more industry, metal percussion, electro, ebm-ish. Hearing this tape, T. Kulberg (later Cthulberg) fell rock bottom into a new territory of music-making. Soon T. Hoel was involved in the world of Vhu1vha, bringing his odd samples and sounds to their texture. Apparently, T. Hoel was a true wizard in finding the weirdest sounds that fit right into the Vhu1vha universe. T. Kulberg sat at home with a tapedeck connected to the TV at all times, full-on vow from one tapedeck to another made the sounds distort like hell and crumble like a cookie. Commercials, MTV, kids shows, porn, and animal sounds were all filtered through heated tapedecks and cut-up to match the patterns of Vhu1vha, and a highly disturbing, lo-fi sound mosaic slowly occurred. When asking Cthulberg about the mixing part he explains: “Vhu1hva was made in a kind of dual mono. Four mono channels with the opportunity of two stereo channels with lousy sound definition on an old Amiga. We never cared shit about the sound quality and the lack of quality actually made the assembly of the sounds a fair bit easier. We never wanted a clean sound, plus it was made for a tape release anyway.”
After a few years, T. Jensen got a new PC (with MS-DOS) and keeping up the lousy sound quality was impossible. Apparently, that was the death of Vhu1vha… and the birth of Mauled by Sloths. MBS has in a way the same idiocrasy humor but not the same total lack of musical expression as Vhu1vha.
The fetid Vhu1vha is now again made available for a broad audience. It’s been years since I last listened to Vhu1vha, but I must say it was a sweet reunion. I guess the original tapes were a limited affair, but here it is for the world to see: hvu1vha! To quote Cthulberg again: “Every kid should have Vhu1vha in his room”. A true slogan!
Respectful regards! Continental Fruit (Jon Øyvind Lærum)
A Strange Encounter
by Andreas Brandal
I first heard of this mythical incarnation in the early 90’s.
I was visiting my friend Jon in Oslo, and he played me some
incredibly strange (both visually and sound-wise) tapes that
has since refused to leave my head. According to Jon, these
tapes were assembled by a group of weird creatures hailing from
the depths of Norways answer to R’lyeh; Drammen. Years would pass,
and from time to time I’d hear the name” … vulvah” whispered in
shadowy corners at obscure experimental gigs, like some tormented
ghost stuck in the walls of an abandoned insane asylum.
One guy would claim that he owned other recordings by the persons
behind this abomination, another that he indeed knew the brother
of someone who had seen them perform live, yet no proof existed to
convince me that they had ever actually been real. As chance would
have it, and with the aid of modern communication methods (even
weird creatures can access the internet), I eventually got in touch
with people in the know; people who could assure me that the
recordings where real, that they still existed, and who were even
authorized to pass along this fabled material.
I am beyond pleased to say that Twilight Luggage has been given the
opportunity to bring you these treasures. A sadly overlooked, and
immensely impressive document on 90’s Norwegian experimental music.
– Andreas Brandal (Twilight Luggage)
