Down in the City of Heartbreak and Needles part 2 (Edward Ka-Spel)

mark weddle <markw@southwind.net>

Overall impression: very good. Despite Ka-spel's vast array of songs
with the Legendary Pink Dots, Edward still has an abundance of leftover
odds and ends that he (thankfully) puts out as a solo artist. "Down in
... Volume 2" continues where Vol 1 left off, collecting those odds and
ends from the past 14 years onto one beautifully designed digitally
mastered disc. Track 1 is from the 1984 Dance China Doll 12" EP, tracks
2, 3, 7 and 8 are from the 1984 Laugh China Doll LP, tracks 4 and 5 are
from the 1993 Robot Records 10" mini album, track 6 is the a-side from
the 1993 Robot/Anomolous Records 7" single and tracks 9, 10 and 11 are
previously unreleased (no dates given, but I believe they're all 90's
works). As you can see, the cd is split about evenly between old and
new. The '84 songs are keyboard and vocal oriented, more structured and
"song-like" bizarre pop ditties with the unique Ka-spel lyrical/vocal
touch. The 90's songs are generally more experimental, often lengthy
ambient/noise pieces ("A Crack.." is a noisier extended re-working of
the song from LPD's "9 Lives to Wonder" album). I appreciate the
balance here, the older and newer songs counterpoint each other nicely.
All in all, a great sampling of Ka-spel's many worlds and yet another
must have for the LPD fanatic. Sing while you may ...

Freq E-zine

This collection of odds and ends brings together some highly rare tracks
from various singles and EP, and (nearly) completes the CD re-release of the
Laugh China Doll LP started by Volume 1. Unfortunately for completists,
there are still missing tracks, so it's still going to be necessary to hunt
down the originals. "Even Now" is an all too-brief, simple soaring melody
based on a typically arpeggiating keyboard line from the Dance China Doll
EP, while "Lady Sunshine" has a similar approach to heartbreak and yearning
from the same era (1984). "Find The Lady", "Paradise Then" and "Atomic
Roses" are engaging, cyclical ditties which show both how much and how
little the essential heart of Ka-Spel's muse has changed over the years -
especially in the case of the latter's cheap drum-machine and keyboards
arranged into bouncy apocalyptic angst, which Edward continues to re-work
live on occasion.

With the chronological order of the songs abandoned and a sprinkling of
alternate unreleased versions, City Of Heartbreak 2 is constructed as a work
in its own right rather than just a straightforward compilation. "Inferno"
and "Illusion" are two early Nineties pieces of lengthy Ambient Concrète
layering and reflective mythological worrying placed in between the older
material along with "The Man Who Never Was" (now re-released as a 7-inch on
Anomalous Records), a downbeat track which could have come from the
contemporary Pink Dots release 9 Lives To Wonder. The same applies to "A
Crack In Melancholy Time," which is an ominously Ka-Spellian reworking of a
piece from the same album showing that what constitues a solo release is
more a matter of mixing than the norm with other musicians. "The Fool With
Spanners" and "Number Nine Number Nine Number Nine Number Nine" close the CD
with shimmering, vindictive ennui, and that old favourite, a
backwards-looped radio abstraction respectively, completing what in any
other hands could be a set of detritus and ephemera, but here is testament
to the seemingly boundless creative energy of one of the great musical
artists of the underground.

-Antron S. Meister-