“The Made Man’s Manifesto” sums up the Dots rather well, not necessarily lyrically but in its ability to combine pulsing electronics, half sung poetry, a touch of droning jazz with a rising blues influenced guitar bit that implodes into a psychedelic whirlpool. That might sound a bit off, but the Dots have always been a bit off. A Dots’ album is an organic, exotic, esoteric rollercoaster of clankity clonk and opium induced holidays. You can describe one song (“No Matter What You Do”) as a free form jazz flavored dub and follow it up with whisper of piano as Ka-Spel tosses carefully sharpened words around like pillows (“Stigmata Pt. 4”) while turning jazz and gypsy tinged folk into lovers (“Feathers of a Down” into “Please Don’t Get Me Wrong”). Thee point being this: the Dots are 25 years old and they still don’t stick to a formula. Like vagabonds they dismantle genres and steal the bits that fit. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but in the case of Your Children… you’ll find the most approachable, still decidedly non-commercial, collection of songs the group has put out in the past decade. Take a listen to “Peace of Mind” and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Legendary Pink Dots
Alchemical Playschool
Caciocavallo
**** 1/2
Posted: Wednesday, May 31, 2006
By: Matthew Johnson, Assistant Editor

East Indian soundscapes meet noisy experimentalism, but the extravagant packaging ensures only diehard fans will hear this.

The most obvious aspect of the latest Legendary Pink Dots release is the package it comes in: a hinged box of imported soapstone with the band’s logo hand-carved on the front. It’s exquisite, but its fragile and expensive nature pushes it right out of the price range of all but the most fervent Dots fans. This is too bad, because Alchemical Playschool is easily one of the most distinguished of the band’s more noise-oriented recordings. Crafted in part from the Indian Soundscapes collection of field recordings issued by Soleilmoon, it’s reminiscent of Nurse With Wound’s Shipwreck Radio project, with the sweaty bustling streets of central Asia standing in for the cold tranquility of the northern European fishing village. Divided into four parts, it incorporates such city sounds as ringing telephones and rain on dirt roads, as well as a number of snippets of street music, ranging from the cacophonous squeal of bagpipes on Part One to the more soothing ragas and chants of Parts Three and Four, respectively. Part Two is most recognizable as a Dots recording, with vocalist Edward Ka-Spel delivering spoken word over nervewracking electronic buzzing, but still evokes India: the spoken word comes from the Kama Sutra (it’s less salacious than it sounds; the passage in question concerns the qualities a man should avoid in a prospective bride). The Dots aesthetic pervades the rest of the album in a subtler ways, but it’s still apparent in the playful but somehow disquieting use of manipulated speech, samples, and vintage analog synthesizers. The Indian atmosphere is what makes this unique though, and even more casual Dots fans who might feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the band’s output are encouraged to seek this out. Soleilmoon has indicated plans to issue a less extravagant edition in the future; hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later, as this is one of the most interesting forays into sound manipulation the Dots have recorded.

THE LEGENDARY PINK DOTS
ROIR

These post-punk art-pop veterans formed in 1980 and have been releasing albums sporadically for the last 25 years. Theirs is a brand name I had spotted during that course of a quarter of a century, mentioned in the UK music press, usually in positive terms, but never crystallized the commitment to actually to seek them out, one way or another. Until now, of course. Looks like I’ve missed absolutely nothing. Cloyingly pretentious, self-indulgent and terminally anti-pop, the music of the Legendary Pink Dots is made by too clever people who consider themselves somewhat too good for rock music and proceed to produce musical statements and commentaries about rock music that, unfortunately, is inherently un-listenable music to begin with. Nuff said.

-Kevin Mathews
Release date: May 30, 2006

CD Review: Legendary Pink Dots, Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves
May 26th, 2006 at 16:00 by Stuart Heritage

There comes a point at every single house party where, after the casuals have trundled off home, someone will say “Put Dark Side Of The Moon on,” and everyone will sit around talking about how Digby, The Biggest Dog In The World is, like, a metaphor for life while The Great Gig In The Sky plays in the background.

And this part of the house party is always rubbish. But we’re digressing. Legendary Pink Dots have been peddling this ‘3am talking shit’ shtick for 25 years now, and the latest Legendary Pink Dots album Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves is another yet example of this. Which would be annoying, if only Legendary Pink Dots didn’t do it so bloody well.

At first, listening to Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves by Legendary Pink Dots is slightly akin to drowning in treacle; the album comes with a quote from Legendary Pink Dots singer Edward Ka-Spel saying:

“This is an album about mortality and immortality… Your victims are lining up on both sides of the corridor, unborn yet forgiving. We are all pitifully human and we all want to take everything with us at the end, but there is no end…”

And then, with a newly heavy heart, you listen to opening track Count On Me is a listless piano doodle with a man saying “Are you able to tell us what it is you have nightmares about?”. It’s like listening to an episode of Blue Jam without the funny doctor bits, and it takes some getting used to.

Once you’ve altered your brainspace to accommodate Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves by Legendary Pink Dots, though, it’s a surprisingly rewarding listen. There’s nothing remotely catchy here – only the lankest-haired, most red-eyed milkman will be caught whistling these tunes – and, with an average track time of almost six minutes, nothing remotely immediate, either.

Slowly, though, the skewed intricacies of Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves start to show themselves off, and you can’t help but be impressed. Imagine a big Syd Barrett comeback album produced by Boards Of Canada – that’s the space that Legendary Pink Dots are inhabiting with Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves. Feathers At Dawn couldn’t be any more like Effervescing Elephant if it tried, while A Silver Thread is so ambient it hardly exists – a heartbeat of a drum pattern, few snatches of creepy saxophone and Ka-Spel mumbling about something incomprehensible and menacing, like a version of Pzizz designed expressly to give you giant shrieking nightmares.

Elsewhere, moments of Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves could almost come from a proposed soundtrack of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me that was rejected for being too unsettling. But that isn’t to say that Legendary Pink Dots are incapable of incredible prettiness; The Island Of Our Dreams is a slice of pastoral loveliness, and any song that features the word “ostensibly” – like Please Don’t Get Me Wrong – is worthy of repeated listens.

Touchingly, Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves ends with one of the Legendary Pink Dots half whispering the words “Thank you.” The pleasure is all ours.

[review by Stuart Heritage] 

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 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.)