More Voynich music crossover stuff...

Many people reading this probably will already have vageuly heard of contemporary Swiss composer Hanspeter Kyburz (b.1960) and his orchestral work "The Voynich Cipher Manuscript", which was inspired by the VMs. Not a lot of people know (or care) that Kyburz also inserted in the work three short poems by maverick Futurist genius Velimir Khlebnikov, I'd guess because of Chlebnikov's "super-tale" Zangezi, which was partly written in an invented language of the birds: but now you know as well.

But now other musicians (though admittedly of the rock ilk) are starting to wake up to the smell of Voynich coffee. I mentioned one Californian band here not so long ago, but here are a few more to add to your Top Trumps collection of crossover Voynichiana.

So first off, a big hello to the FaceBook page of Mechatohm, a Californian band in the Alternative Rock Metal genre to add to your overworked networked music drive. Band member Zyclobonzaron (so Enochian!) is apparently influenced by "The Voynich Manuscript and shit like that...", which is pretty much on the mark, can't really complain. Just so you know, it's VMs page f68v (the "sun-face" solar calendar page) that graces the band's album cover (albeit Photoshopped halfway into next Tuesday).

And a grand welcome to a YouTube clip courtesy of The Phaser [Update: sorry! They've just removed it! Bah!]. I'm not entirely sure what the world has done to deserve a piece of music apparently played out on the Commodore 64's VIC chip played into a reverb unit, but it must have been something good because I quite like it. Having said that, I'm not entirely sure I could listen to it more than a couple of times, but it might be a good thing to put into your iPod if you're going for a 10-minute run. "Maybe you don't appreciate my interpretation [..]. but I really don't give a sheet". Bless.

Finally, a great big ¡hola! goes out to "The Voynich", a Spanish foursome mainly from Granada who formed at the end of 2007, playing rock/pop that is presumably as uncategorisable as the VMs itself. Here's a link to their "Voynich Dossier" blog: I'm sure they're lovely people.