Vlor originally started way back in 1992 consisting of best friends Brian John Mitchell
(Remora) & Russell Halasz with acoustic guitars doing Cure & Bauhaus covers. A lack of
money for delay & reverb & looping units led to experimentation with natural reverbs in
odd rooms & repetitive guitar drones, arpeggios, & riffs. In 1997 Vlor recorded the
Lavished EP in a racquetball court & in 1998 Vlor recorded the Luxate EP on a four
track. Unfortunately 1998 seemingly marked the end of Vlor with Russell deciding to
move to Florida for flight school.
The plans to do another release tentatively titled sacred places in the city seemed to be
impossible as holidays, over-time work, & family time made demands on Brian &
Russell’s time.
In January of 1999 a few days before Russell moved they had a final recording session in
Brian’s bedroom mixed through a four-track & straight into a mini-disc recorder. While
the sound quality suffers at times from too hot of sound levels going in to the recorder,
we like to think this lo-fi embrace translates to heart & honesty instead of sloppiness. The
songs have a bit of variety with songs like “Pleas” being a clear clone of the Vlor song
“Guilt Jersey” from Luxate, while tracks like “post” & “an ending” experiment with reverb
units, & the tracks “paper plane” & “automatic” showcase the repitive guitar riff building
that was always the signature to Vlor’s songwriting giving the songs a feeling of immediate
familiarity.
While this collection was never really meant for release & has in fact sat on the shelf for
seven years, with the re-birth of Vlor with the album a fire is meant for burning we
thought it was important to let people hear the last recording of the original incarnation of
Vlor.
