The Legendary Pink Dots’ discography is so expansive that it’s difficult to say something about their music with full authority. The Dots’ founding members—Edward Ka-Spel and Phil Knight—may not even know for themselves how many albums they have released by this point, although it’s safe to say the number of studio records exceeds 40. In 2014 alone, the band released one LP—10 to the Power of 9—two live albums and two compilations. One of those compilations, 12 Steps Off the Path, appeared in my inbox to review. Although there’s no knowing why 12 Steps Off the Path arose as the victor among the Legendary Pink Dots’ 2014 output, it does highlight the things that can be said about the band’s music—namely, it’s dark and filled with esoteric mystique, it’s loud, it’s psychedelic, it’s synthy, it’s gothy, and it’s still more thrilling today than many of the most hotly praised albums of the year.

12 Steps Off the Path was compiled and released in an effort to restore some of the Dots’ back catalogue that has, for one reason or another, disappeared over the years. As with many Legendary Pink Dots compilations, it proves that even the band’s rarities are better than studio releases from a number of bands that acquire similar themes and sounds and run mindlessly with them. Ka-Spel’s lyrics can be hard to grasp for the layman, but the overall feel of the music is forever giving a sense of looking under the carpet of this surface world and uncovering some ancient evil. Even a sing-songy number like “A Moustache on the Mona Lisa and Other Things You May Find in the Trash” has almost the same vaudeville-gone-nightmare feel as the “Singin’ in the Rain” scene in A Clockwork Orange.

Other songs raise the drama in unexpected ways. “Citadel”, originally appearing on 1995’s From Here You’ll Watch the World Go By and one of a number of live songs on this compilation, starts with a meandering synth line and easy brass. It is not long, though, until Ka-Spel’s vocals blast off from his standard pitch and run rampant through the second half of the song, erupting at song’s end in a ferocious “Come to Daddy daddy daddy” while the horns take a similarly chaotic turn.

If you haven’t already guessed, the Legendary Pink Dots’ music certainly doesn’t make for easy listening. Selections like “A Japanese Manual for a Broken Wheel” are customarily noisy. Quieter moments like “Goldilocks” will employ suspenseful pulses and throbs that work to cushion Ka Spel’s terrifying missives. “I confess I’ve never had a hobby / Except you / And me” has never sounded so threatening. Yet, there are also moments on 12 Steps Off the Path that showcase the beauty behind the Dots’ music, such as the almost tranquil Eastern-tinged closer “Out There Part 2”.

Seeing as press on the Legendary Pink Dots, in this day and age, is comparatively minimal to their output, it can be troubling to think of their music—compilation or not—lost among the clutter and clatter of Bandcamp and other online music distribution sites. Even one critic telling one curious music listener that something—anything—in the Legendary Pink Dots’ discography is worth their time is the most minuscule drop in a gigantic, ever-changing pond, but then again, enlightenment isn’t the easiest thing to find. Ultimately, there is actually too much to say about the Legendary Pink Dots, but most of it is still worth hearing out.

source: http://bit.ly/1G8l0MA

With the help of Nurse With Wound mainman Steven Stapleton on “tapes, piano, and inspiration,” Ka-Spel collaborated with multi-instrumentalist Patrick Wright on Chyekk China Doll, a worthy entry in Ka-Spel’s lengthy, involved series of solo works. As with most of his solo work, the artist moves sideways from the collapsing, queasy anarchy of the Legendary Pink Dots for a quieter but no less freaky combination. Wright plays a core role throughout, cowriting nearly all the songs and adding his haunting, heavily echoed violin work to many songs, further rendering the playfully cartoon music-in-hell compositions even more curious. The aura of fragile chamber music and oddly elegant ballroom dancing on the brief “Chyekk 1” and “Chyekk 2” and the downright captivating start to “The Glory, the Glory” are some of his standout moments. “Lisa’s Christening,” meanwhile, really does sound like a religious ceremony of some sort, though not exactly one which might be called a traditional Christian rite. Stapleton’s ear for jarring, sudden cuts and random samples further spikes the brew at points — check the brief “Klazh, Tristurr” or the echoing rumble of “The Power, the Power” for a headspinning listen — all making a just disorienting enough combination for Ka-Spel to play in. Sometimes he submerges his vocals in the mix, but, at points, as on the very appropriately titled “The Infinity Waltz,” it goes front and center, his gently declamatory style suiting the results. Ka-Spel’s wiggy sense of humor helps in some of the arrangements as well — who else would whip up a jazzy, ’20s-style strut like “Beautiful Naked” while still making it sound like an invocation to the beyond? Later versions included two tracks recorded in 1994 by Ka-Spel without Stapleton or Wright; the winner of the two is “Colour Me Vexed, Desiree,” an unnerving, lengthy swirl of keyboards, feedback, and heavily treated vocal snippets.

Source: http://www.allmusic.com/album/chyekk-china-doll-mw0000884939

Il rumorismo più cupo – insieme a elementi tipici della prima ondata psichedelica – sono i tratti più distintivi del nuovo album dei Legendary Pink Dots, la ‘cult band’ che si muove intorno alla vena creativa di Edward Ka-Spel (the Pink Man) e Phil Knight (the Silver Man) ed è attiva nel Regno Unito fin dall’inizio degli anni Ottanta.
Lontani anni luce da qualsiasi appartenenza ad un genere musicale e conseguente catalogazione, i Leggendari Puntini Rosa portano ad un livello più estremo e quasi farneticante le intuizioni che furono del primo Syd Barrett dei Pink Floyd. Anche in questa occasione non mancano composizioni decisamente eccentriche improntante ad una sorta di dark-punk elettronico, ad un cabaret nero ovattato ed ammaliante, niente affatto di facile ascolto, ma al quale è difficile sottrarsi.
Questo “10 To The Power Of 9” è in realtà un ‘concept album’ che prevede anche un seguito, un volume 2, ed è centrato intorno ad una complicato storia di cospirazioni e complotti che ha origine su una vetta irraggiungibile in cima al monte Himalaya, dove vivono uno accanto all’altro i dieci uomini più importanti del mondo, e trova poi applicazione sul retro di un piccolo ufficio di Londra, dove le loro decisioni trovano una corretta applicazione e scatenano guerre di religione e conflitti mondiali.
Sono loro, tutti uomini, tutti Presidenti di qualcosa, a decidere chi vince e chi perde, chi muore e chi invece resta in vita. Siamo nell’ambito della psichedelìa più pura, più surreale, ma è un posto particolarmente adatto alle vertiginose e debordanti soluzioni armoniche di Phil Knight, ai sintetizzatori, su cui si inserisce di tanto in tanto un canto vellutato ed affascinante.
Tutte da ascoltare le esecuzioni di The Virgin Queen, di Your Humble Servant e di Open Season, impreziosite dalle interpretazioni di Edward Ka-Spel, davvero simile nell’impostazione vocale al compianto Syd Barrett. Quanto mai interessante poi lo ‘spoken word’ di Olympus 2020, mentre è decisamente provocatoria ed intelligente la trovata di inserire l’invocazione “no rain/ no rain” (resa famosa dal festival di Woodstock, nel1969) all’interno di Malice – Freak Flag, una sorta di ideale passaggio delle consegne dall’era hippy all’elettronica dei nostri tempi.
Un album pieno zeppo di riferimenti e di contenuti musicali ed esistenziali, politici e filosofici, un manifesto anarcoide che merita di essere centellinato in ognuna delle sue sfumature. Da ascoltare.

***

The darkest noise – together with typical elements of the first psychedelic wave – are the most distinctive features of the new album by Legendary Pink Dots , the ‘cult band’ that moves around the creative vein of Edward Ka-Spel (the Pink Man) and Phil Knight (the Silver Man) and has been active in the UK since the early 1980s.

Light years away from any belonging to a musical genre and consequent cataloging, the Legendary Pink Points bring to a more extreme and almost raving level the intuitions that were of the first Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. Also on this occasion there is no shortage of decidedly eccentric compositions marked by a sort of electronic dark-punk, a muffled and bewitching black cabaret, not at all easy to listen to, but which is difficult to escape from.

This “10 To The Power Of 9”is actually a ‘concept album’ which also includes a sequel, volume 2, and is centered around a complicated story of conspiracies and plots that originates on an unreachable peak atop the Himalayan mountain, where they live next to each other the ten most important men in the world, and then finds its application in the back of a small London office, where their decisions are properly implemented and ignite religious wars and global conflicts.

It is they, all men, all Presidents of something, who decide who wins and who loses, who dies and who remains alive. We are in the realm of the purest, most surreal psychedelia, but it is a particularly suitable place for the dizzying and overflowing harmonic solutions of Phil Knight, for the synthesizers, on which a velvety and fascinating song is inserted from time to time.

The performances of The Virgin Queen , Your Humble Servant and Open Season are all worth listening to , embellished by the interpretations of Edward Ka-Spel , very similar in vocal setting to the late Syd Barrett. How interesting is the ‘spoken word’ of Olympus 2020, while the idea of ​​inserting the invocation “no rain/ no rain” (made famous by the Woodstock festival in 1969) within Malice – Freak Flag is decidedly provocative and intelligent , a sort of ideal handover from the era hippy to the electronics of our times.
An album full of references and musical and existential, political and philosophical contents, an anarchist manifesto that deserves to be sipped in each of its nuances. To listen.

source: http://bit.ly/1yeh2O0
by Giancarlo De Chirico

If Syd Barrett were an 80s Goth he would be Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots. At first the album did not strike me as anything great, but after several spins the album both nods toward the 25 year old Legendary Pink Dots classic LP The Maria Dimension (which is getting a 5LP box treatment from the Soleilmoon label very soon) and 80s Edward Ka-Spel albums like his China Doll series of LPs from the 80s. The vocals are cryptic and dark and gothic, a strange piano, odd finger drums and the intro to the first song called Limburgia has a Indian raga like beat. All the 8 tracks flow like a single sequence of interworked songs, though they are all different and separate tracks. Here we do not have the Noise sculpture and abstract Industrial splatter like on Dream Loops or Ghost Logik from a few years ago, nor the electronic madness of Edward’s Dream Logik trilogy. The third track, The Border Beyond, has ominous police sirens in the distance closing in and leaving again, fading in and out again like a spectre on the “force”. Edward sings very low key. It takes either great concentration to follow his lyrics, or you can do like me, imagine the darkwave ramblings of a 80s Goth Syd Barrett, though as a lyricist Edward and Syd do not share any similarity, just the voice and the beatnik whimsy style. I ordered the double disc Deluxe set and got a second CD with two tracks, one song is etched as vinyl on the CDR and plays perfectly on my turntable while the other song is there next to it as a digital track, and they both share the same side of the disc. Those two tracks are very analogue and Victorian style forms of musics, maybe after a little Opium and Absinthe…

Overall this is a great grower of an album. It will take me a year to fully absorb all its layered and cryptic meaning, but the melody and song and moods are there. Get this CD if you like 80s The Legendary Pink Dots, and the Chyekk / AaAazhyd / Eyes! / Lyvv China Doll Ka-Spel LPs. They have been remastered by BLRR and sound very nice. Let Edward paint your soul Victorian and prepare yourself for a dose of Barretesque Steampunk Darkwave.

source: http://bit.ly/14h2alL

No Star Too Far – My take on Legendary Pink Dots’ Nov. 10, 2010 concert in Austin

Imagine that a group of pagan priests knew all the right spells, got hold of some electronic equipment and assembled a starship powered by dreams and magic. That image came to me Wednesday night as I saw the Legendary Pink Dots in concert for the third time.

I always get the feeling I’m seeing a mystical event rather than a mere concert when I see the Dots play. Obviously the material has something to do with it, with its dreamlike mix of symbols, philosophy and dark humor, accompanied by electronic beats and washes of sound. There’s also something hypnotic about the way singer Edward Ka Spel, dressed in his robe and scarf, moves his hands. I get the feeling I’m watching a shaman perform a ritual.

The Dots played in a club on Red River called Elysium. A good club for a band like the Dots, the Elysium tends to host bands of the darker variety – goth, industrial and the like.

I wondered what they would be like with the new lineup. Short answer: They’ve still got it. Erik Drost, LPD guitarist from 2003 to 2006 is back in the band, coaxing pleasant screams out of his instrument. I definitely missed woodwind specialist Niels Van Hoorn’s zany presence, but without him you could really see how closely Ka Spel and Phil “The Sillverman” Knight work together. Silverman with his massive table of electronics, queuing up notes, rhythms and textures; Ka Spel with his smaller table, producing melodies and sound effects as he sings. All finely coordinated. Ka Spel pilots the starship, while Silverman operates its powerful engine, or maybe it’s the other way around?

I started out jotting down the setlist on my cellphone, but gave up pretty quickly and just let the music wash over me. The band has such an extensive back catalog that even if you’ve been a fan for years they can play a song you’d swear was new that turns out to be something old you just haven’t heard yet. I can tell you they had a satisfying mix of old favorites and songs off their latest, Seconds Late for the Brighton Line.

They opened with “The Unlikely Event” from All the King’s Horses, followed by “Third Secret” from The Maria Dimension, “Rainbows Too” from Plutonium Blonde, a really cool spoken word that might’ve been “God and Machines” from the new album, then “Russian Roulette,” the first song on the new album. Followed by lots and lots of great music, including many of my favorites. The encore featured a kickass version of “Birdie” from All the King’s Horses. About two hours of music altogether.

Just one sour note. A guy with long blond hair and a tank top who was either crazy or on drugs or both had to be escorted out by the bouncer. He kept shouting out nonsense at the band. Funny at first, then annoying. Then waving his arms in people’s faces. Finally a guy on the front row slipped out through the crowd, and pretty soon a big biker looking dude went over and dealt with crazy dude. After that no more distractions, which was awesome. I feel like I owe front row guy a beer for fetching the bouncer. The show certainly did get better after that.

The music was enhanced by the trippy film and slide collage from Lori “Surfer” Varga and her trusty assistant Eric. I’ve met her before – used to watch her film presentations at the Cathedral of Junk. I got her number and plan to interview her in the near future.

Note: Always take at least $20 or $40 to any LPD concert so you can take advantage of their amazingly well-stocked merch table. You’ll be kicking yourself later on if you don’t. You’re liable to find out that rare live album you were eying is impossible to find, or impossible to find without paying a premium to somebody on eBay.

I got the T-shirt with the Roulette design from the tour. Black of course. Almost got Ka Spel’s latest solo effort, The Minus Touch, but wound up getting the tour-only release by Ka Spel and The Silverman, The Thirty Year Itch. I’ve given that a few spins already and it’s quite good. Two long tracks. The first is a triptych on the subject of loneliness — a one night stand that didn’t happen, adrift at sea; and a monologue by an astronaut adrift in outer space followed by a “creation story” about the Big Bang; the second is a long experimental soundscape. Nice addition to my growing Dots-and-related collection.

I’ve been a huge Legendary Pink Dots fan for many years. I posted a sort of Dots 101 about the group a while back. There are several YouTube videos in case you haven’t heard their music. I also posted a list of tour dates here. The North American tour is winding down, but you’re in luck if you live on the West Coast. Quite a few California dates left, plus one in Oregon.

And send a little love their way if you can. They create their wonderful, thoughtful music and tour the world on a shoestring budget. LPD music and apparel can be found on the ROIR website.

source: http://bit.ly/1DAKq4g

Edward Ka-Spel‘s brilliance with The Legendary Pink Dots is to introduce us to isolated characters and then immerse us in their world-view through expansive and mysterious soundscapes. He begins with the most restricted, infinitesimal point of consciousness and then slowly expands it outward towards a state of ‘cosmic consciousness’ (to use the phrase of 1960s psychonauts). Musically, he often follows this template of expansion, with simple melody lines repeating and layering in increased complexity of texture. Much of the LPD’s music is an undertaking to help the listener (and perhaps composer) escape his/her own head. Lyrical phrases, musical motifs, album titles and themes recur across decades, but tonal shifts between albums are slow and subtle.  Hopefully, The Legendary Dots Project, like the Residents andSparks projects before, will provide the keen reader and listener with a giddy entry-point into the Legendary Pink Dots’ musical world. Fulfil the prophecy!

Adam:  This is a strange and engaging album. It was finished just as the Dots’ original line-up disintegrated and this is reflected in the music, which sometimes sounds as though it’s barely holding itself together. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, since some of the Dots’ early albums have been marred by lack of tonal variation, whereas Apparition is all over the musical junkyard. It starts with what sounds like marbles and coins being dropped down a drain, intercepted by the echoing of conversation, perhaps from an abandoned arcade or bingo hall (there is the garish bleeping of what I imagine to be a slot machine, but has the potential to be a ZX Spectrum, with the console released in 1982, the year of the album’s production). Then a drum machine kicks in alongside the squelch of a synthesizer. The music bristles like an ant colony. It sounds weirdly modern too, almost like an album track by Lady Gaga or Ke$ha, if you ignore Ka-Spel’s cryptic lyrics, that are obscured in the mix here. The whole thing feels busy and jittery and a little frightening. The Dots’ Bandcamp page testifies that during the recordings, the band’s headquarters were haunted – an experience that involved “a ouija session, a black dog and out of body experiences”. As ever, the Dots tend to undercut the sinister atmospherics with droll humour. That’s not to say that some of the material isn’t genuinely upsetting, though. ‘The Blessing’ is one of the most troubling songs of the Dots early 80s output, with lyrics from the point-of-view of some sinister presence, lulling an anonymous victim into submitting to an act of sexual predator wrapped up in the guise of spiritual healing. It may simply be that the song feels uncomfortable close to the reality of the Catholic Church sex abuse cases covered in the news in recent years, but it’s not an easy listen, nor is it meant to be. ‘I’m in the Drill’ is ace and rocks a mean bassline. Patrick Wright’s violin does a lot of the work here and lends proceedings a distinctly Eastern European ambience. It’s a song you can immediately imagine dancing to, which is unusual for the Dots. It will be interest moving onto to an album like Asylum (1985) which features tracks which are almost sing-alongs, such is the strength of their melodies.

On the Dots’ official Bandcamp page, the 2013 remaster of Apparition is divided into two parts. The second part of the album starts with what sounds like nothing less than a cheesy 80s gameshow hosted by Dracula, or some other coiffured ghoul. The song is ‘Powder Crowd’ and it’s an absolute blast! It’s also the first point on the album in which it sounds like the band are having fun playing together as a band. The seriousness of the album doesn’t necessarily mitigate its quality – it’s certainly a decent album! – but the detour into silliness provides a nice breathing space before we are subjected to what is surely the sound of the mice from Bagpuss being massacred whilst still alive! The shrill vocals of ‘Alive!’ are entertaining and even disturbing, but they do make Ka-Spel’s consistently interesting lyrics almost completely incomprehensible. Without the Internet on hand, I don’t think I would have been able to work out even a third of the lyrics on Apparition and that does feel like a loss. At one point I couldn’t tell if Ka-Spel was singing about a “clockwork tangerine” or instructing the listener to “light your popcorn carefully”. Things get funkier for ‘Believe!” with Ka-Spel imploring some unseen other to “believe my promises”. He goes into properly manic massiah mode for ‘The Plague’, cackling and preaching and having all sorts of fun. It’s the kind of vocal performance you sometimes get out of the Singing Resident / Randy of The Residents and is it an electrifying, albeit somewhat campy, presence here. Proceedings finish in a low-key vein with ‘Premonition 3′, drifting off like the end of an incantation.
Generally, Apparition is an album that befits its title, there-and-gone in a moment, but leaving a definite impression. I can’t say that it’s an essential album composed of classic tracks, but there’s something intriguing to it, as though there were some hidden mystery beneath all its murk and strangeness. I believe the stories of a haunting during production are true and that if you play the album 8 times in a row then you will be cursed with the high pitched mouse voice from ‘Alive!’ for all eternity.

Tom:   It is remarkable to consider just how much music we have assessed and absorbed so far and yet we still remain just a year into the LPD oeuvre! 111 songs under the LPD moniker on my iTunes and we’re still only up to 1982. The year of my birth saw yet another release: the refreshingly retread-and-old-track-free Apparition.

I played this album for the first time two weeks ago on Tuesday, as I gearing up for a long day ahead in London – attending a standardisation meeting regarding coursework for one of the A Level courses I teach. The meeting started at 10am in Portland Place, near the BBC’s Broadcasting House so this required me to somehow haul myself aboard a train from Newcastle Central Station that departed at a horrendous 5:56am. For the majority of the journey I tried to catch up on sleep; in the usual half-waking state, I played Mike Westbrook’s Metropolis, Andy MacKay’s Rock Follies soundtrack and Eno & Fripp’s hypnotic No Pussyfooting on the iPod. While I probably only got a fraction of actual sleep, this was a restful way of spending time in a gentle doze. With thirty minutes or so to go until King’s Cross I put this album on…

Emerging from its opening games arcade sounds, ‘God Speed’ is a direct, beguiling piece of synth psychedelia: an accessible pop tune, all syncopation and references to Hellzapoppin’ and US idiom like “Give ‘em Hell!” It’s perhaps an indirect Harry Truman allusion, but who can say for sure? ‘Pay to be Alone’ evokes February 2014 Blighty with its words about retreat and staying in from the cold. ‘Spontaneous Combustion’ sounds like gliding over the Lake District in a battered space ship. ‘The Blessing’ is cavernous and restrained. ‘I’m in the Drill’ has tremendously spry use of stringed instruments and subtle use of effects on EKS’ vocals. While there follows a lull – ‘Alive’ has an archetypal wistful LPD tune but somewhat grating chipmunk vocals – the album has a strong sense of dynamics. ‘The Plague’ could be described as pointillist skiffle – all this skittering, chaotic song needs is that excellent instrument, the washboard!

Apparition’s brisk freshness was the ideal accompaniment as I became to near London and the day ahead. There isn’t much of the LPD trope of backwards-played samples. None of these songs appear on earlier releases, so this was an intriguing yet oddly comforting listen. The song craft is similar – ‘Powder Crowd’ sounds familiar – but we get thirty minutes of music that engaged me, and didn’t seem as wilfully awkward as a few previous releases.

Is there any other band who would make mention of a ‘clockwork tangerine’? What insect references are to Robyn Hitchcock, punning music and film citations are to Edward Ka-Spel.

There is also a momentous occasion on the horizon! The Legendary Pink Dots are playing in Newcastle upon Tyne at the Cluny on Friday 11^th April; a mere fifteen minutes’ walk from my flat. Unsurprisingly enough, I have bought tickets – and a friend very much into German electronic music is coming to see them too. Get in!

Matt: One thing I do find odd about some of the early Dots stuff, is how some of them have been reissued in side-suites — where each side of the original cassette is treated as one long medley of songs — rather than as individual songs.  I tend to wish that wasn’t the case, but I think that’s just my desire to mentally file things more easily.  Even if the songs flow into each other (as these all do), I still like to know, I guess, the “official” time something becomes something else.  Does this matter even remotely in the long run?  No, of course not.  But I do like to vent sometimes.

I have to admit, the murky vocals is a little bit of a turn-off for me.  I tend to prefer the vocals a bit more front and center.  I do wonder if some of the murkiness of these early cassette-only releases is a play on the medium, though — considering that normal cassettes can get kind of that way through overplay, age and if you’re naughty, generation loss.  That said, the remaster cuts through the murk somewhat — when I initially put this record on for the first time, I went with the version of the two side-suites onTraumstadt 1 — but then upon finding out that it had been remastered from the official Bandcamp site, I bought it there, and, well, it cleans up real nice.  This is definitely the version to check out.  It’s still interesting to hear the murk is crystal clear digital definition, though — it takes me back to my youth when I was mainly listening to tapes.

This album seems to me like it’d be a bit of a grower, too.  Upon my early listens, only a few tracks really stick out, “Powder Crowd” especially, but also “God Speed” and “I’m In The Drill”.  I love the violin on “I’m In The Drill”, and the organ on “Powder Crowd” hits the sweet spot in my brain for this sort of thing.  I also quite like the pop-sounding guitar riff on “Believe!”, combined with the strange, rubbery percussion sounds.  That said, though, the more I listen, the more I seem to enjoy this one.  I might have to check in with this review later, and see how future me feels about what present me has written here.

source: http://kittysneezes.com/?p=7541