Prayer for Aradia (Legendary Pink Dots)

Franz de Ward

THE LEGENDARY PINK DOTS - PRAYER FOR ARADIA (CD by Terminal Kaleidoscope)
Finally, the Pink Dots have begun to re-issue their vast back catalogue of
cassette only releases on CD. The demand must be immense, since their popularity
has risen after many of those releases have been out of print for years. This
particular release is from 1985 (if I remember correctly), but was recorded 2-3
years before that. When I played the CD, I realized that I still remembered the
tape so well. I could sing a long with 'Outsider', 'Purity', just as I did 10
years ago. As it was a relatively short cassette (30 minutes), they have added
two unreleased tracks plus Premonition 5 (from Rising From The Red Sand - that
damm historical tape compilation of which a selection will finally appear on a
double CD soon) and outtakes from Chemical Playschool 1 and 2. I don't think it
is just plain nostalgia here, but I still like the vivid cut-up technique the
Pink Dots used back then in combination with their psychedelic popmusic.
'Crucify the heretic, the fanatic...' (FdW)

Jerry Nilson

Guillaume Ollendorff <ollendor@grolier.fr>

it's impossible for me to give you a track mlisting as i'm at work and
without my pink dots cds !!
but anyway, prayer for aradia is a 30mn tape originally released in 82.
the 2 first index of the cd are the both sides of the tape (15mn each)
after this you have the really legendary premonition 5 (in wich you have
after 10 mn of ambient space dark intro the 'voices' track played backwards
and a beautiful spoken/singing by ed, it was originally released on rising
from the red sand and it's really Wooo)
and then you have 2 unreleased track from the 81 82 period (stone obit 80
and ?) wich i do not remember, and 5 (5 or 6 ?) nice tracks taken from the
very naive and cheap chemical playschool 1&2. that's a shame because i
suppose this means they will never be released as cds...

abstract : buy it !!

keywords : cheap, disco, dark, psychedelic, stupid, GREAT.

Rex <richwill@xsite.net>

"John H Wilterding" <wilterdi@pilot.msu.edu>

Prayer for Aradia. (CD Version)

Recorded in 1981/1982 early in their career, and released in 1985 (and
subsequently) on a 30 minute tape, Prayer for Aradia accounts for about one
third of the material on the CD version. The remainder, two unreleased tracks,
a compilation track (premonition 5) and the rest (8 tunes) from chemical
playschool [1,2] threatens to give this release an uneven sound. This,
however, is avoided by the exclusive presentation of t early historical
material which gives this release an overall unified feel.

Prayer for Aradia is comprised essentially of two parts, each subdivided into
alternating shorter experimental instrumental pieces and longer, vocally driven
ÒsongsÓ in the more traditional sense. Thematically, Prayer is hard to
characterize, and might be best left to the individual for personal
interpretation (I admit this cop-out). The collective feel of the Aradia is
one of a song cycle, beginning initially with a premonition (8), and ending
with another (premonition 9). In between the sheets, so to speak, Aradia has
strong sexual overtones, but it would be a simplification to admit this as
conventional sex (see Love in a Plain Brown Envelope). A souped up version of
Flesh Parade provides a backdrop to such musings, and ends in a pyrotechnic
display of early classic dots which has often been affectionately referred to
as their Atari period. Treated sounds, from cheap computer cyborg games,
appears to be the tools with which they create their sound. While sometimes
maligned as laughable, we should not forget that in their lean, formative early
years without the high tech gizmos and gadgets, the dots revealed their
wizardry and resourcefulness that continues to be their trademark today. The
world of sounds are their possibilities, and even early on they excelled at
exploiting these sounds, wherever they could be found.

I think in the end, Aradia might be seen as a surrealistÕs canvas in which each
song, or instrumental, is a background, a corner, an odd, beautiful distorted
image....and whose images are no less than the complexity of the whole.

The remainder of the collected early tracks lacks the cohesion and unity of
Aradia, but are no less compelling as individual surrealist landscapes. Most
impressively I think, is Premonition 5. Released in 1983 as a compilation only
track, its delightful sampled violin and acoustic guitar sources taken from
the delightful Time Dance (see Pink Box), gives this Premonition a surprisingly
lush sound...and appears to take the dots well beyond this sonic period.
Compared to their more mainstream releases of their time (see BNow, Curse),
this premonition hints to sonic ground later expanded in the early 90Õs. In
the beginning, a backwards sampled youth (boys ?) choir pulsing in and out,
hints to work done just prior to this by Holgar Czukay (of Can)...and evolves
as a nice dynamic piece of music ending in a spoken word monologue.

The remainder of the disc, is no less interesting and exceptional. Several
shorter instrumental pieces (Spanish Bridge, Peace Krime 2, and Brill) are
intermixed with longer vocal based songs, and in this way is not unlike the
overall structure of Aradia. The hymn-like Professional (a soldiers monologue)
and Stoned Obit 1980 (a reluctant modern savior?) and Temper Temper (a crazed
lunatic) are nicely juxtaposed with another...and prevents the remaining half
of the disc from appearing uneven.

Often maligned by late-comers to the dots, this dots fan (joining on Malachai)
has recently come to find the same kind of magic in the earliest of dots
material as in their most recent...and in some respects, the early material,
such as Prayer for Aradia is, at the very least, more thematically difficult.

This is charming music. Where else but LPD centraal can you hear a sound
painting (Before the End) which describes the normal, pre-apocalyptic goings-on
of politicians, sexual lobbyists, shoplifters and motivated suicidals. This IS
good stuff. Get it while you may.

john

"W.Kabsch" <chameleon@owl-online.de>

Prayers for Aradia.............some thought about it!

One things before I start to talk about "Prayers":

I always have had problems to come in all those LPD
releases with older tape matirial on it. The LPD Box,
as it was the first release of this kind and the direct
follow up album to "Gloden Age" which is very easy to
get in, took years to get in my ears. The only release
of olser LPD matirial I haven´t had any problems with
had been the "Stained glass soma fountain DCD".
"Prayers needed me a lot of listenings aswell, even as
with it a lot of other LPD-matirial were released!
But that´s what made this music of LPD this good, once
you get it you love it!

"Prayers 1"
Starts with a collage of different samples we all know
from various LPD songs, perfect start that turns to
Fleshparade....and I like this version now better than
the EKS solo ver. It is much rougher and suits better
to the lyrix!Purity/Purefied, very pulsing, fast song
and typical dotsmelody. In both prayer parts it is
difficult to point out the only songs, so I finish part
one with the statemant that it always runs
intro/song/interlude/song/interlude.........and that I
sometimes can´t belive that they recorded this all with
this low equiqumant!

Prayers two
Outsider is this very early heretic version and has the
same attributes as "Fleshparade"....much rougher than
the Loversversion and suiting better to the lyrix,
Invocations is another interlude and leads to "Plain
brown envelope 1" wich is not much different to the
"Faces" ver. and followed by another interlude."Space
captain" will always be one of my favorite LPD songs,
in it´s very naitive music....dreamy, catchy and those
positive words: ....you can be everything you want to
be! Great!"Premonition 9" is a good ending for the
aradia circle....and did everyone reconiced the horns
in it.....must have been the first time they used
horns.....!

"Premonition 5" is one of the better premonitions.Very
melodic, nice violins. It is a very "Compct"
song.....even the end and very catchy!
"Spanish bridge" is just a lovely scetch like "CVA" but
I love this one......a nice sampel I often use to fill
little left spaces on Cassettes.

>From the left songs I only want to state out "Temper
Temper", a very lovly little dotty popsong. The rest
isn´t bad.....it is just those stuff the dots made in
this early years......with lowest budget producing
little dreams and psychedelic visions of another world!
It is really difficult to review this CD, cause you
always need to think of the low production. It isn´t a
CD you listen to very often, but if you take it again
out of the CD-board and turn it on, you always will
love again to listen to it!

listen to it carefully............and you always can be
everything you want to be.............

Sing while you may!

Greetings 834,

Wolle!

Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte,
wünschte ich mir etwas Glücklichsein,
denn wenn ich gar zu glücklich wär´,
hätte ich Heimweh nach dem Traurig sein.
(F.Holländer)
v1.2a s+r>d TW# 4/0/pw+r tG 12? 0 DSotM 9 30 <29dec97>

Joel <joel@milner.com>

Hello,

PRAYER FOR ARADIA:

All I want to say is I think it is a great release, all the songs
are wonderful, and I love having the tracks on CD but when I
received the CD and still today I am disappointed that the Chemical
Playschool tracks have been split up again, the Pink Box also did
that. I find the Chem 1&2 tracks by them self very good and I enjoy
listening to them but they feel out of context without the rest of
Chem 1&2. I do love it though. Sorry for no review of the tracks on
the CD, it's just my thought about the CD.

Safest of Travels
Joel