Khataclimici China Doll (Edward Ka-Spel)

Graeme gbaillie@cs.strath.ac.uk

Track One: "Tick Tock" is all about sleeping and is a relaxing little
epic. Maybe its one to play on the walkman lying in bed at night. It may
well trance you to a beautiful sleep.

If you forget to switch off then "The Shadow Mask" will wake you up for
sure. Bizzare and lovely in the same song it staggers from mood to mood.
Some beats reminicent of early skinny puppy too. Nice.

The Third track being "Hotel Rouge" has that customised sitar-esque guitar
running through it. A song of two parts. Firstly a dreamy pop gem, then
melting into a meandering ambient piece. Ride the pink clouds.

"Our lady in madras" features some more skinny puppy overtones, as well as
some agressive distorted Ed vocals. Or as agressive as eddie could be I
suppose. Quite experimental in places but very nice of course.

"The Shadow Box" begins with some spooky goth organs and a plinky plonky
sound. And for sake of completeness it finishes with a train chuff. Or
what I presume to be a train chuff. Ho-Hum. You could imagine this track
in some warped horror film. Well at least i could imaginge it. I think.

"Another Tango" is what the next ones called. No fizzy orange juice but we
do get a tango bass line. It builds up into a cresendo of wailing guitars
and the like. But not loud ones so as not to scare the kiddies. Let eddie
take you on a trip on his big pink spotty magic carpet.

The last proper one is called "DOTZSONG" and it is a little bouncy
victorian tune. The most poppy thing on this cd, and it could be the best.
Maybe a dead heat with "The Shadow Mask".

The last track is a bonus for the CD reissue; and its a monster 25 minute
ambient drone fest. Called "Tsorniskowskyarrhi, the Baptist" for some
reason.

The first part has loads of spacy sounds, and it could probably be the
soundtrack to some tacky sci-fi B movie. One with aliens that just happen
to be very human like and totally un-scaresome; qualifying every B movie
ever made probably.

Then there is some droning and a hammond organ thrown in for good measure.
Not the type of track you would put on after staggering home from the pub
on a friday night with a curry and some dodgy wine. Listen to this one
with a lava lamp and a Brian Eno poster. If you can find one.

Right then, buy this one. Its worth it for the last track alone. but along
with 7 other Eddie gems its a MUST!

Hassle your local record shop for it today. Otherwise if you have it
already, just try pronouncing the title of the last song before the CD
finishes.

YOU WILL FAIL!

Review by Graeme gbaillie@cs.strath.ac.uk

Rex <richwill@xsite.net>