Tanith And The Lion Tree (Edward Ka-Spel)

Simon Williams

Weirdos in pop - don't cha just love 'em. Edward Ka-Spel has spent
several millennia with Euro experimental oddbods The Legendary Pink Dots,
and it shows like a throbbing pustule on the perfect visage of a cover
model. 'Tanith And The Lion Tree' (Yeah, dig that imagery, man!) is a
solo LP that veers from the ambient oozing of 'Interference' to the
bleepy, farti ng effects of 'Four Out Of Ten' and wallows in a morass of
mildly vicious physical poetry.

At times, Ed's doodlings can become overbearing. At others, his electro
swathes charm like an old lady baking scones. Forget the pervy leather
lust of synthy second cousins Depeche Mode, this is real stroke-yer-beard
and crank up the barn-sized raffia work electronic applicance stuff.
With child-like warbling and an old-fashioned sense of grandeur. In
short, the defience of science.

Reviewer Simon Williams
NME of 8 November 1991.

Note by Steve Rolls:

In 'Music From The Empty Quarter' Issue 5 of May 1992 there was an
interview with Gary Levermore, head honcho of Third Mind and he says:

"Edward Ka-Spel 's Tanith And The Lion Tree, that's a very strange record
of course and that's a very good example of one that's never going to
be a world beater! But, again, Eward Ka-Spel is one of the most genuine
people and I would rank him up there with Steve Stapleton in terms of the
ideas that he has and the way that he goes about things. And he's ver
individualistic as well. He's somebody who's been a really good friend
for over ten years now and to finally do a record out-right with Ka-Spel
was great. It didn't cost a lot of money to do, but that was the way he
wanted it and I was happy with that as well. It's really nice to have
a record like that on your catalogue, because I see Edward Ka-Spel and
the Dots as coming from that tradition that's worked it's way through from
Can and Faust onwards. They have their very own english peculiarity
compared to the German bands of the late sixties/early seventies, but I
think they're coming from the same rough background. I guess the same
goes for Steve Stapleton as well in his own way."

Strychnine Kiss <nothing@eden.rutgers.edu>

Date: Sun, 6 Oct 96 22:43:01 EDT

i picked this cd up a few months back in the midst of a spending binge in
new york. I had heard it wasn't very good and pretty much just got it
to be a completist. I listened to it once perhaps, but as is the case when
i buy several cds at once none get a very thorough listen. So i realised
last week that i had never even listened to the whole thing and put it on.
I love this album. I think it might be my favourite amongst Edward's solo
releases. Hotel X is utterly remarkable. Some songs are so strikingly
beautiful in their simplicy that it alarms me (ie Prithee and Tanith). The
random 'noise' songs that are strewn in between are a welcome complement and
don't take away from the rest of the album in the least. So someone wanted
to know what my favourite LPD album was. Right now this is it. Next week
who knows. But today...

cheers

-=joshua

MR. From Electric Shock Treatment 3 of Summer 1992.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to describe this man's work.
This is due to the eccentricity of the sounds contained within. For those=
familiar with Ka-Spel's vocalisations, there's more of ;the same here. =
However the adult ballads and nursery rhymes are this time coupled with =
a dark, malignant backdrop which shoud appeal to many 'industrialists'. =
Ka-Spel's voice is at the fore in the majority of these pieces, narrating=
like some anonymous deity from the Land of Oz. At once reed-thin, dry, =
then a precessed monster, Ka-Spel's trademark is his strange lyrical cont=
ent. Given the environment on this particular release, Ka-Spel's visions=
come squirming into reality. Truly Bizarre

Reviewed by MR. From Electric Shock Treatment 3 of Summer 1992.

Check out Brian Duguid's web pages at http://hyperreal.com/zines/est/
for articles from back issues of EST and some good links.

Rex <richwill@xsite.net>

Several years passed before the next Ka-Spel solo endeavor, and when it did
turn up, it wasn't a China Doll release. (The "China Doll" suffix at this
point seems to be retired, at least for proper album releases.) Tanith and
the Lion Tree, released by Third Mind Records in 1991, is yet another step
closer to the concurrent sound of the Legendary Pink Dots, but is distanced
from them by the presence of three or four uneventful tape loops that serve
no real purpose but to fill space. The opener, "O From the Great Sea," is a
full-fledged masterwork with splashy synth sounds and dramatic crescendoes.
The title track, which follows, is a quiet, soothing piano melody. Other
tracks continue the self-reference trend. "The Bakersman," a snappy,
sophisticated song which seems timed to a metronome, recalls Jerkov from
LPD's "The Dairy" (from Island of Jewels). "Hotel X" begs comparison to 9
Lives to Wonder's "Hotel Z." The suffix of the same song repeats, "Tired
eyes, slowly burning," which is the title to the first Tear Garden album
(Edward Ka-Spel with Cevin Key of Skinny Puppy). Generally, Tanith and the
Lion Tree is an excellent album that would have made an even better EP.
After being out-of-print and hard-to-find for half a decade, Polish label
SPV reissued Tanith... in 1997, with cover art that replaces Elke Skelter's
drawing of the lion tree for a generic gray geometric pattern.