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d i g a p h o b i a █▀▄▀▄▀█
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Edward Ka-Spel
Pieces of 8
______________________________________________________________________________.
.date Jun-26-2004
.style Electronic
.label Beta Lactam Ring
.cat.no. mt082a
.source CDDA
.type Album
.quality VBRkbps 44.1hz Joint-Stereo
.size 75,6 MB
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Pieces of 8 is the latest bookend to the long shelf filled with China
Dolls too numerous to count, the holy books of Illumina, Lilith and
Tanith, the Heartbreak, the Needles and the colors: Blue Room, Red
Letters and Graye Skreeens. A vague continuation of the nautical, "soul
set adrift at sea" themes explored on 2001's rambling, unfocused O'er a
Shalabast'r Tyde Strolt Ay, the new album is ù true to its title ù an
embarrassment of riches, a sunken treasure chest of pirate's booty.
Pieces of 8 is an amazingly well-crafted concept album of remarkable
strength and focus from an artist who would have every right to be well
past his artistic prime. Over the years, we've learned how to listen to
Edward Ka-Spel's solo albums: the well-worn sonic palette, the familiar
arsenal of metaphors and lyrical themes. Ka-Spel's career as a solo
artists is virtually predicated on its unfaltering uniformity,
constantly retracing its own lines, deepening the grooves of an etching
long since completed. Those who love Ka-Spel's music know to listen for
those tiny nuances, the changes in perspective, the recycling and
re-contextualization of familiar lyrical conceits. Hence, there is
something of a learning curve for this music, an "EKS literacy" that is
nurtured over time by repetitive exposure. What's amazing about Pieces
of 8 is that it may be Edward's first album that peeks its out of that
endlessly self-referential universe of bedroom electronics, crepuscular
psychedelia and microcosmic dread. Musically, it's one of the best
albums EKS has ever crafted, consisting of several solid songwriting
efforts balanced perfectly with evocative sound-effects suites and
passages of pure electronic ambience. Ka-Spel's trademark gallows humor
is fully intact, explicating his constant themes of personal and
universal apocalypse, and the existential dread experienced in a world
of human emotions increasingly mediated by technology. Opening with a
whimsical sea-shanty that evokes some pre-war street accordionist
playing in a French harbor town, "The Writing on the Wall" inexplicably
transforms into a haunting piano dirge littered with atmospheric
samples. As ever, Edward is a storyteller, his lyrics spinning a yarn of
a doomed man forced to walk the plank who, paradoxically, seems
endlessly amused by his fate. "Here Comes the Night" is a lengthy,
sprawling ambient piece that follows the more abstract moments of Dark
Side of the Moon to their logical conclusion: a majestic space-scape
haunted by fragile piano melodies and the ghostly transmissions of
long-abandoned deep-space probes. The blasted, distorted electro groove
of "Comedown" is punctuated by handclaps and noisy throbs, Edward's
spiralling vocals evoking the terrors of infancy, pausing briefly to
reference David Lynch's Eraserhead. "Alms for Lepers" is more standard
EKS fare: melancholic vocals filled with linguistic puns and odd
metaphors, against a backdrop of spectral keyboards and deliberately
synthetic drum programming. The lengthy final track is a meticulously
constructed, multi-layered kosmische symphony of cyclical electronic
pulses that build in hallucinogenic intensity before giving way to a
scratchy, warbling old 78 spinning out fractured, kaleidescopic
nostalgia which bobs out over the whitecaps and disappears from view.
--Jonathan Dean@brainwashed.com
______________________________________________________________________________.
01 the writing on the wall 05:28
02 here comes the night 16:44
03 comedown 05:17
04 alms for leepers 06:13
05 hanti 02:34
06 8.2 8.3 15:00
. .
51:16 min
______________________________________________________________________________.
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▀▄ ██████████
▀▄ digaphobia ██████████ peace to music lovers everywhere
▀. public ██████████
▀. sound ██████████ 1real - amok - bcc - cmg - cmc - cms - diss
: █████▀████ drum - fuffens - hit2k - just - kw - nuhs - om
: ███████▀██ rac - radial - sb - sfe - soup - sour - tr - ube
. ██▄███████ _______________
▀██▀█ ▀██
▀▀ ▀ █▀██ go to the show
▀█ ▀ ██ buy the t-shirt
██ ▀ ▀█ ▄ order the vinyl
▀ ▄ ▀ ▀ _______________
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