***The Tropic of Barren is the debut release from Virginia's FROM QUAGMIRE. A trio of Dorothy Geller, James Wolf, and Rake guitarist Vincent Van Go-Gogh, FQ's beautiful, mysterious and just plain weird art-song drift is a look into a rather under-explored corner of the underground universe. The slowly unfolding songs are based on Dorothy's nylon-string guitar and hushed-but-pointed vocals, punctuated by Wolf's expertly sawed violin and Van Go-Gogh's unpredictable percussion, electronics and guitar interjections. The music is highly detailed and performed with significant individual personality, rather than the predictable loud-soft-repeat bombast of other contemporary post-whatever ensembles. Geller and Wolf have done time in Camera Obscura recording artists Laconic Chamber and the Library of Congress (the federal institution, not the band). Van Go-Gogh is straight out of DC's long-running freakazoid ensemble Rake (as we stated). The Quag plans to tour both coasts during 2001.