From The Vaults – Photos: Melvin Van Peebles Records For Heliocentrics

This post was first put up in July of 2012.

It’s a bit embarrassing for us to admit that it’s been nearly four years since we announced the collaborative Heliocentrics/Melvin Van Peebles collaboration that was supposed to appear on the band’s Sirius B EP.

And, now, the band has just completed their latest album – which we’ll release later this fall (more on that later). And nary a Van Peebles gasp, growl or grunt in sight.

Well, good news – last week, in the middle of one of the worst heat waves that New York has seen in recent memory, a pajama-clad (and still ripped) Van Peebles entered ex-Sun Ra bandmember Spaceman’s Harlem-based studio and recorded his last takes on the rambling poem he’s entitled “Methane Momma.” Those files are on the way to Malcolm Catto and co. at the moment – and we promise (seriously this time) that they will figure in to the Heliocentrics next album, for which we’re projecting an early 2013 release.