The Lovers (Legendary Pink Dots)


Rex < richwill@xsite.net >

Originally released on Torso Records in 1985 and later reissued by PIAS, The
Lovers (another tarot card) is a stop-gap collection of live material, half
for an audience and half for a Dutch radio broadcast. All material is
previously unreleased, although some have studio counterparts available on
the LPD's self-released cassettes, and subsequently, the CD compilations of
this early material. The title track (in two parts) is breathtaking piano
and orchestral work that sounds unlike anything the Dots have done before,
and the best track is "MMMmmmmmmmmm...," another cracked pop song that
ridicules meat-eaters. The Curious Guy EP, a single from 1986, is appended
to the CD and sounds vaguely out of place.

"WK" < chameleon@owl-online.de >

(Vinyl release 1985, CD release 1991)
The Lovers is a split Album of sorts. The A-Side includes unreleaseed
live recorded material, the B-Side New Studio Material. The Live section
(recorded for a broadcast at a netherland radio show) starts with
mmmmmmmmmm, a very straight and fast song. This leads into geisha mermaid,
which is more a sketch of a song, a few keyboards and a nice violin to a
lost sounding voice of edward. The heretic some might know from the old tapes,
and the story behind it is still known, it refers to ed's schooltime as
he felt hurt by the other people of the school. And so the song sounds, like
a wounded animal crying out all his pain. Jungle is a song I can't
catogorize in any form, very rhythm based and a lot of sounds all around.
Jungle closes the Live section. If you own the vinyl, I bet you have played
the second side much more often than the Live side. It starts with the
wonderful tragic sounding Lovers one. This song includes so much feelings,
and all the violins in it are so beautiful, Great! Silverture/Flowers for
the silverman is sounding very electronic. This is Silvermans part of the
second sisde of this album. All those samples and bleepings at silveture
than leading in a straight keyboard track "Flowers", that reminds me a lot
of the tower 3-5 songs. Very straight! Lovers two closes the Album. And
after the rain falls and edward cried out all his love pain Mr. Pagannini
(Wright) plays the greatest strings he ever did. It sounds like a real
classic track........and feelings pure. I myself cried a lot of times two
Lovers 1&2, these songs belongs to the greatest I have in my complete music
collection! I count Lovers to the best releases the dots did in the 80s!
The 1991 CD-reissue also include the "Curious guy" EP, which is a hard to
find on Vinyl! I needed to drive from germany to belgium to get the
original! This release includes the fast and dancefloor titletrack Curious
guy, whih is in my opinion one of the best singles/EPs track the Dots ever
recorded! Also the B-side of the original EP, Premonition16, belongs to the
best premonitions ever. Some other premonitions are just sounds, this here
combines melody and experimantal stuff perfectly. The track runs 11:32
mins, and it built up a hall circle. Slowly starting and growing all the
time still it reaches his final and bless you with dreams and thrills.
The Lovers (Album) was the third or fourth LPD release I acquired, and after
I heard it I knew I needed to get all the others, so be careful, it may
get you finally addicted to the Dottish world!

Wolle!
Was ich haben will, das krieg ich nicht,
und was ich haben kann, das gefällt mir nicht!
(Fehlfarben, Monarchie und Alltag, 1983)