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Chain D.L.K.- The Legendary Pink Dots

The Legendary Pink Dots in concert is a memorably unique experience. I had the chance and the pleasure to see them for the first time in Basel, Switzerland, recently (on December 1st 2004) and really enjoyed the performance.

read the full concert review here

Before their show, the Legendary Pink Dots’ front-man Edward Ka-Spel was nice enough to sit and answer a few questions for Chain D.L.K..

Chain D.L.K.: It’s very nice to sit and talk with you. You seem in good spirits…
the Legendary Pink Dots: aaaahhhh… (laughs) here and there… (the candle on the table goes out) The candle went out as soon as I said that…

Chain D.L.K.: Hmmm, hope that’s not a curse…
the Legendary Pink Dots: I hope not… (both laugh, re-light candle)

Chain D.L.K.: I would like to talk a little bit about the tour. You have been touring an awful lot…
the Legendary Pink Dots: That’s for sure…

Chain D.L.K.: A different city every night: how do you keep up the energy?
the Legendary Pink Dots: Well, it’s a strange thing – mostly you really lose the energy in the days off. We were touring absolutely, indeed rigorously, a show every day for quite a while. And then we went to Greece. We had to get there first and we had to drive the entire length of Italy and take a ferry and so on. And then on the way back it was similar and we had a few days when we did not have shows, and that was when we tended to somehow lose energy, because you get into a rhythm and it’s hard when the rhythm is broken in a way. Even if you are doing nice things like visiting Pompei, which we all did in fact, walked around old ruins and so on. We needed more shows, we needed to get back into the whole… wheel going around again… because it’s like: what do you do when you’re not playing? We all went a little crazy in that time period.

Chain D.L.K.: So you need to go with the momentum?
the Legendary Pink Dots: Ya, we need that momentum. I think it is quite possible that we could easily play 20 or 30 shows in a row, if the drives weren’t too long. Because it becomes like this purpose, this goal, it is relentlessly a strive to achieve day after day.

Chain D.L.K.: It sounds like you really enjoy touring and playing live shows then.
the Legendary Pink Dots: Ya I do, I would say that. No matter what’s going on in your life, after a show I always, well normally, feel this kind of… sense of exhilaration that makes you feel that there is a point. And you need to feel there is a point.

Chain D.L.K.: Do you receive a lot of positive reaction from the audience? And do you feed off the audience energy when you’re playing?
the Legendary Pink Dots: Sure. It varies greatly from country to country, especially in Europe. You do not know how people will react from show to show… makes it a challenge. It goes from the sublime to the ridiculous. Like last night, we played to 30 quite drunk Austrians… not a pretty sight (laughs)… No, actually they’re very sweet in a way, I shouldn’t say that. But then literally just a week before there were like 600 Greek people who reacted in their own very peculiar, very Greek way…

Chain D.L.K.: What way is that?
the Legendary Pink Dots: Well, some of them want to hear the old stuff… and by old stuff I mean 16 year old stuff – it’s like woaaaa, that’s a long time ago, these songs you want to hear! (laughs) And some of them reacted to what we are doing now. We are not an 80’s band, we are not a 90’s band… the band has been going on unbroken. So obviously we are very much focused on what we are doing now.

Chain D.L.K.: Since you have been around for so long and have so many songs, how do you decide what to play and do you play the same set every night or do you change it?
the Legendary Pink Dots: It’s changed a bit here and there on this tour, but mostly in just shuffling songs around and we’ve pulled a few songs into the encores. We do need something to really settle with I find, like a set of songs, in order to develop it. Because if you change the songs too quickly then you feel that you haven’t given that song a fair chance. I think it’s good to give a song a chance to change or to grow. So to have a solid set is not a bad thing. I mean it really has changed since the beginning of the tour. Some songs have just taken on a new life, grown wings… it’s a nice feeling. Even the old ones, because we are playing old songs too, but mostly new interpretations of them.

Chain D.L.K.: What song is requested the most from an audience?
the Legendary Pink Dots: Usually “Belladonna”. But, we haven’t played that one for years (laughs).

Chain D.L.K.: I’ve read the lyrics in some of your CD booklets, they are absolutely beautiful…
the Legendary Pink Dots: Thank you.

Chain D.L.K.: Have you published a book of your lyrics?
the Legendary Pink Dots: There is a book. A friend of mine in San Francisco, she actually had the idea of putting the book together many years ago, but it was very slow to be realized, simply because I was so flaky basically (laughs). But ultimately I had a rush of energy and together we finished the book. Actually she made a lovely job of it, it’s a lovely looking thing.

Chain D.L.K.: Earlier, we were talking about the ring you wear on a chain around your neck. You said that a fan gave it to you. Do fans often give you little mementos and souvenirs when you meet?
the Legendary Pink Dots: Yes quite often…

Chain D.L.K.: What kinds of things have you received?
the Legendary Pink Dots: Well, the last thing I received was a blue rose in Athens. That was really nice, I really liked that. In America, it is quite a lot of things… you get to the end of the tour and you open the drawer and you are overwhelmed with what drops out of it (laughs).

Chain D.L.K.: It was nice to arrive at the show here and see you casually walking around and talking with people. You seem like an out-going, friendly person and you seem to really like your fans.
the Legendary Pink Dots: I like the fans, but I am actually a very shy person, to be completely honest. Off-stage I am actually very nervous.

Chain D.L.K.: Do you feel like you become a different persona on stage then?
the Legendary Pink Dots: It’s still me… but it’s other sides of me that come up that shouldn’t really be revealed in day-to-day normal life.

Chain D.L.K.: No where other than the stage…
the Legendary Pink Dots: It belongs there, truly.

Chain D.L.K.: And, what will you do after the tour?
the Legendary Pink Dots: Oh God… who knows? (laughs). Actually we’ll probably record again… probably it’s the 53rd album, I think… (laughs) I don’t know, I don’t count…

Chain D.L.K.: Another album? That’s certainly good news. Do you feel like you could go on doing this forever and ever?
the Legendary Pink Dots: I hope so! I mean I’ll keep doing it as long as there is something to say and somewhere to go. Because as soon as there is nowhere to go then really you should stop. But I don’t feel that I’m even close to what I want to do yet.

The Poppy Variations (Compulsion Online)

Poppy Variations is one of several new releases from the ever so prolific Legendary Pink Dots. It’s familiar but brings new elements to the Dots sound. One of the more interesting things about Poppy Variations is the way in which each track starts one way and then goes on some muscial tangent. ‘Krussoe’ for instance starts with eastern percussion and ends in a Beatlesque brass arrangement taking in a piano reprise and a loose free form soundscape along the way. Each Dots track takes unexpected turns. There’s great use of flute and brass accompaniment to the guitar and occassional keyboard driven moments. Several of the tracks adopt a far more experimental approach but the Dots psyched-up sounds are skewed enough to frame Ka-Spel’s frequently surreal lyrics. A Spanish influence hangs over ‘L’Oiseau Rare’ where Ka-Spel’s delivers playful childlike rhyming over piano and flamenco styled guitar. A tender moment is provided on one variation on the title track where Ka-Spel reflects over a a stark piano score and solitary guitar strum. I tend to opt for the Dots’ more conventional song based approach, where Ka-Spel’s wordy explorations are ably wrapped in electronic beats and reverberating guitars, experimental touches and brass / flute arrangements.

The Dots have such an extensive body of work it’s sometimes difficult to determine an entry point but this is a good one that ought to appeal to experienced Dots listener and novices alike. Poppy Variations is released on Beta-Lactam Ring Records. A double vinyl set in an edition of 450 copies in a full colour sleeve, including a bonus side of material is also available. The songs feature a slightly different mix to the CD edition. For more information go to www.blrrecords.com

(The date of this review is unknown.)

 

The Poppy Variations (Premonition Magazine)

The Legendary Pink Dots’ records now come out in sets, and this is the companion album to “The Whispering Wall” that these now Holland-based imagined to counterbalance the sadness of a claustrophobic album. In deep, though, “Poppy Variations” is as sad as his fake twin is, because it’s all constructed around the memory of the feelings Edward Ka-Spel had when he learnt the death of princess Diana. Lighter than they’re used to be, these compositions fortunately have nothing in common with the not very commendable hymn by Sir Elton John. The band even dares to get the head out of the studio on L’Oiseau rare, to have a look at the outside world, and then prefer to end the song in its own with blurred shapes and where sound waves don’t look like the ones we know. This record would compare to their 2002 “Synesthesia”, as it seems to be recorded with very few equipment, without any unnecessary track (The Equaliser, The Hot Breath on Your Neck, Personal Monster). Edward Ka-Spel’s voice has never been so close to your ears, and despite some peculiar bagpipes ambiances (The Poppy Variations), once again, he manages to associate intimate melodies with very long tracks, born from the fusion of three or four other ones, solidified haphazardly. With its very nice and sober sleeve, this digipack maybe is the passport to their origins for this English band, as they ran away from England in the 80s, and today they surprisingly deliver an homage to one disappeared figure of “their” monarchy.

Bertrand Hamonou
(The date of this review is unknown.)

 

The Whispering Wall (Premonition Magazine)

In more than twenty years and almost three times as many records, the Legendary Pink Dots flirted with the sublime and sometimes the abyss, as now each of their new productions comes with a little fright: what side of their talent will they choose to express this time? It’s a sad album they deliver here with “The Whispering Wall”, on which Soft Toy plays a trick with a bass, an organ and some guitars. At the beginning of the second track, A Distant Summer, we find ourselves back where “All the King’s Horses” ended in 2002, with even some more fragility. Fragile and sad, Edward Ka-Spel really is on the touching In Sickness and in Health which reminds of the melancholy of Cheating the Shadow that figured on their 1998 “Nemesis Online” album. He, who told us with confidence, that he recently realized that his band would never change the world as much as he’s liked it to, would he only comfort himself to know how much his band has changed his fans’ lives? Of course, Peek a Boo sounds like a bad joke, but The Divide follows the tradition of the long psyche-rock hallucinated-everyday-story, like the ones the singer improvises during concerts. The best of this album surely is the long and last track, made of the three songs Sunken Pleasure / Rising Pleasure / No Walls, No Strings where Edward affords himself a beautiful cold a capella moment, before being snatched by a wall of bagpipes from where whispers of new age sequences get out, close to the Silverman’s solo efforts.

Bertrand Hamonou
(The date of this review is unknown.)

 

The Whispering Wall (All Music Guide)

The Legendary Pink Dots can get toppled by their own ambition, and often their albums are murky messes hung up on some obscure concept. With two albums on the same heavy concept (All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men) behind them, Whispering Wall is a casual return to the old ways and a decent entry point for anyone attempting to take the unwieldy band on. Opening numbers on Dots albums are often good indicators of what’s in store, and the driven “Soft Toy” is a good sign. Chugging guitar isn’t what you normally hear on their records, but it’s the basis of “Soft Toy” and the first of many surprises. Radiohead would be proud to call the fairly-straightforward-for-the-Dots “A Distant Summer” their own and “King of a Small World” is faux-jazz that Queen of Siam-era Lydia Lunch would have killed for. Believe it or not, “Peek-A-Boo” sounds like the Dots at Studio One with lead singer Edward Ka-Spel out-jestering Lee “Scratch” Perry. The highlight of the album, “For Sale,” is evidence that Ka-Spel has been listening to both Casino Versus Japan and Michael Nyman, one of the most polished Dots tunes ever, and a great way to introduce the band to whomever you’re trying to drag to one of their shows. There’s plenty of the usual wandering and the ending opus is over 12 minutes, so don’t think they’ve lost it and gone all pop. The Dots still make everyone else look succinct but if you’ve ever wanted to dabble in their world, do it now.

by David Jeffries
(The date of this review is unknown)