The Great Valley

"Vinylization of an extremely blopsy concept album originally released by NNA Tapes. Great Valley are (or were? not sure) a Brattleboro duo - Jo Miller-Gamble and Peter Nichols - who could be joined at times by any of various Southern Vermont locals. On Lizards, the local club includes Chris Weisman, Luke Csehak, Ruth Garbus, Zach Phillips, and others. More recently, however, Jo and Peter have decided to form a new trio with Danny Bissette (who's been playing live with them), and that's called Grape Room. Whether or not this supplants (or merely supplements) Great Valley's existence is not immediately obvious, but we look forward to Grape Room's purple spew. In the meantime, there's Lizards of Camelot to think about. The album is a song cycle that seems to be about reptiles (perhaps with outer space connections) strolling about Arthur Pendragon's keep in the days of the 5th century, eating grapes, thinking about kicking Mordred's ass, and whatever else knights did back in those days. The music is a blend of experimental sound treatments and willfully off-center pop spinnery and even if you can follow the story you'll find the pressure inside your head building to a dangerous degree as you take it all in. Are there hits? Yes. Are there videos? Yes, again. Tune in to 'Outerspace Garden' or 'Lakey Lady' and begin to deal with the repressed memories you have of your days with scales and armor. And if you want to purchase the highly therapeutic LP, act fast. Of them, there are but few." - Byron Coley; Edition of 200.