[von Christin Feldmann]

Die märchenhafte Welt der Amanda Palmer

„Amanda Fucking Palmer“ ist zurück und man könnte den Eindruck gewinnen, die Kreativität der Solokünstler, Feministin, Bloggerin und Lyrikerin kennt einfach keine Grenzen. Im Jahr 2016 brachte die schillernde US-Musikerin immerhin gleich drei Platten auf den Markt, die in vielfältigen Kontexten entstanden. Nach dem Coveralbum „Strung Out In Heaven: A Bowie String Quartet Tribute“ folgten die EP „Sketches For the Musical JIB“, eine Kollaboration mit dem in Seattle beheimateten Musiker Jason Webley, und zuletzt eine Neuauflage ihrer LP „Theatre Is Evil“ aus dem Jahr 2012 als Pianoversion. Wer Amanda Palmer aus Interviews kennt, weiß, dass die quirlige New Yorkerin nicht stillsitzen kann. Vielmehr ist die Bewegung ein Teil ihrer Persönlichkeit, zu der auch das kontinuierliche Bloggen und der stetige Kontakt mit ihren Fans gehört.

Die Sängerin gibt viel Persönliches von sich preis und pflegt so eine einzigartig, emphatische Fannähe. So wundert es nicht, dass sie diverse Projekte als erste Musikerin sehr erfolgreich durch Crowdfunding-Plattformen finanzierte und ihr Grundeinkommen zuletzt über patreon.com sicherte. Bissige Schlagzeilen wie „Wenn Palmer ruft, zahlen die Fans“ sind dann gratis inbegriffen. Nun erscheint mit der neuen Platte „I Can Spin A Rainbow“ wiederum ein Projekt in Zusammenarbeit mit dem englischen Musiker Edward Ka-Spel, vielen besser bekannt durch die Kultband The Legendary Pink Dots. Zwei Musikerkollegen, die sich in ihrem Stil ganz offensichtlich gesucht und gefunden haben. Denn „I Can Spin A Rainbow“ ist von orchestral-psychedelischem Sound geprägt und mutet dem Hörer zum Teil hoch komplexe Stücke zu, die soundtechnisch fast bis zum Kollaps ausgereizt werden.

Die Kompositionen schwanken zwischen Kunst, Musik und LSD-Trip, vereinen aber Amanda Palmers extrovertierte Gangart mit Edward Ka-Spels fast monoton anmutender Stimme. Die Songs scheinen seltsam ver-rückt aus der Welt, fast märchenhaft und würde das Album als Soundtrack eines Disney-Films vermarktet, wäre das sicher nicht ganz abwegig. Dass die Machart des Albums wiederum zu Amanda Palmers Curriculum passt, zeigt sich darin, dass sie selbst immer wieder betont, sie habe bereits mit zehn Jahren ihr erstes Musical geschrieben. Jedes Stück von „I Can Spin A Rainbow“ ist als Dialog zweier ungewöhnlicher Unikate im Musikbusiness arrangiert, die ihre ganz persönliche Ausdrucksweise mit in die Songs einfließen lassen.

Das Album ist dabei anmutig ruhig und gleichzeitig tieftraurig, obwohl Textpassagen oft einfach nur unzusammenhängend aneinander gereiht sind. Der Grund also, warum die Songs eine solche Schwermut implizieren, ist offenkundig nicht durch die Lyrics zu erklären. Diesem Konzept aber verschuldet, ist die LP dann eben auch nicht als massentauglich zu titulieren. Dennoch fällt es schwer, den Neuling mit „gut“ oder „schlecht“ stigmatisieren zu wollen. „I Can Spin A Rainbow“ ist speziell und somit ein Album ganz wie die Protagonisten Amanda Palmer und Edward Ka-Spel selbst: irgendwas zwischen Kunst, Musik, Realität und Traum und am Ende dann eigentlich doch ein sehr einnehmendes Werk.

source: http://www.soundsandbooks.com/2017/05/05/amanda-palmer-edward-ka-spel-i-can-spin-a-rainbow-album-review/

by Nina Keen May 9th, 2017

While their musical styles might not sound superficially similar (or even remotely related to each other), evidence of Amanda Palmer having been a fan of The Legendary Pink Dots since she was a teenager is present throughout her work if you know what to look for.

Her earlier records especially saw her using music to create fiction, myth and metaphor (culminating obviously in 2008’s Who Killed Amanda Palmer), as well as creating hardcore musical chaos, though acoustically rather than electronically (notably on Dresden Dolls tracks like ‘Girl Anachronism’, obvs). Thus it really shouldn’t be a surprise that her and Edward Ka-Spel’s collaboration I Can Spin A Rainbow makes so much sense.

But not only does it make sense – fuck me, it sounds great. The sound for most of the album feels overwhelmingly Dots-ish, yet even on the most electronic tracks like opener ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘The Changing Room’ her presence is not only felt but seems to complete the sound perfectly, framing the explosion of colour and tingeing the edges in crimson. As a result, the stripped-back less-is-more tracks like ‘Shahla’s Missing Page’ and ‘The Clock At The End Of The Cage’ feel anything but out of place.

Each song tells its own story so intensely and so completely, like 11 musical horror novellas, that listening to any of them individually produces an experience more like that of listening to a shortish, intense, masterpiece-like album, especially as the songs often have a few different musical sections and ideas. The chord sequences are longer too than we’re used to from either artist, most notably in ‘The Shock Of Kontakt’, where the harmonic ascension takes almost impossibly long to resolve. Listening the whole album in one go can be quite an exhausting experience for that reason. However, seeing it as a collection of stories also means you can get just as much out of it listening to each musical horror novella as rhizomatic (treating all entry points as equal, as opposed to preferring the beginning. It’s a real thing.)

Neither before nor since Who Killed… has Palmer embraced horror-tragedy so completely in her music, and she certainly hasn’t fictionalised her work to this degree. Working collaboratively with Ka-Spel will of course have brought this to the foreground, for characters and stories playful (‘Prithee Liquidation Day’s whimsical Good Queen Regina), tragic (‘The Shock Of Kontakt’s Astrid, hopeless and consenting to her partner taking her for granted as they rob her of her life), and horrific (the eponymous Jack of Hands). The fictionalisation of ‘The Jack Of Hands’ makes for perhaps the most effective ‘horror story’ here, climaxing as its middle eight wrenches it from the realm of fiction into reality (TW: paedophilia) – this reveal is more than the face of the monster under the bed, but the face of a real, monstrous human beside it.

The horror as well as the sound itself of the whole album feels very…goth. But as Palmer herself has pointed out, that shouldn’t be as unexpected as we seem to think. And so, after a body of work quietly influenced by goth, Palmer’s tendency towards fiction, drama and indeed melodrama (not an insult, it’s what we’ve always loved about her) feel completely at home in this music. Goth becomes Amanda Palmer. And this collaboration, not at all random but in fact 25 years in the making, lives up to every terrifying, dark, colourful, excellent thing it could possibly be.

source: http://drownedinsound.com/releases/19924/reviews/4151010

Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe– Amanda Palmer performing at the Middle East Wednesday night.

Legendary Pink Dots – Waiting For The Cloud

if there’s any musical act whose existence in this plane can only be explained as being interdimensional, it’s the legendary pink dots. sounding almost like a contemporary of mid-60s psychedelic groups, the pink dots didn’t actually materialize until a couple decades later, going mostly unrecognized. but their extremely prolific output proved highly influential, making them a worthy entry here. there’s something really off about the pink dots. it’s not comparable to much else, but there’s familiar sounds everywhere, pulled from various pockets of ever expanding universes. “waiting for the cloud” is the perfect example of this nostalgic and expansive sound; completely surreal and otherworldly, like a boat ride through cosmic oceans raining soft rubies and emeralds, utilizing chiming and nocturnal sounding keyboards, bombastic percussion, neoclassical strings, druggy horns, oddly progressive riffs, and ka-spel’s uniquely posh vocals. any day now, released in 1988, is one of their most captivating releases; full of melodramatic strings and goth/industrial leanings (of which the latter is commonplace in many of their recordings), but it’s structured more theatrically than other releases. “The river was rainbow stew, the fishes choked and cursed. The thirsty dogs spat fire, rolled in glue, then they burst. The fur balls flying, trees were dying–dandelions were crippled, bald… We saw it all in colour–now we’re waiting for the cloud.”

Source: North Pole Radio Station

Matt Condon
October 11, 2016

The Legendary Pink Dots are one of the most prolific bands that you may never have heard. In 2016 alone they’ve released a new studio album, Pages of Aquarius, a double-disc release in their long-running Chemical Playschool series of soundscapes (this one numbered 19 & 20), and several live recordings. And that’s a fairly typical (somewhat slow, even) year in Pink Dots-land. Existing somewhere in a hard-to-categorize space between psychedelic rock, post-punk, avant-garde experimentalism, and industrial noise, the band has built a small but faithful following over the three and a half decades of their existence.

With an ever-changing lineup, the band’s sound has changed significantly over the years, though the core throughout has been singer Edward Ka-Spel and electronics wizard The Silverman (Phil Knight). Dutch guitarist Erik Drost joined the band in 2003, and they began performing in their latest incarnation as a trio after the departure of saxophonist Niels van Hoorn in 2010. It was this electronics-heavy version of the band that returned to the US for their first tour here since 2013.

(photo by Matt Condon / @arcane93)

The Legendary Pink Dots performing at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, NY on September 30th, 2016 Continue reading The Legendary Pink Dots at the Knitting Factory (chunky glasses) →