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█ █ P U B L I C . S O U N D
█ █
█ █ presenting our latest release
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r e l e a s e . i n f o
Artist.....: The Legendary Pink Dots
Title......: Plutonium Blonde
Rip Date...: Oct-2008 Cat.No.....: RUSCD 8305
Style......: Psychedelic Rock Label......: ROIR
Quality....: VBRkbps Type.......: Album
Size.......: 73,9 MB Source.....: CDDA
r e l e a s e . n o t e s
The Dots are as focused and as diverse a group as I can name. For
over 25 years they've been releasing record after record of
bizarre and colorful music. Even with such a voluminous catalog
behind them, their output remains completely unique and peerless.
Plutonium Blonde is a trance-like, somewhat awkward record that
meshes their eccentric pop sensibilities with dark, aggressive
machine music.
From the start it is obvious that this record is a move away from
the jam-band tendencies that have popped up in the Dots' music
over the past couple of records. The album opener, "Torch Song,"
is an aggressive and concise electronic nightmare that thrives on
synthesized beats and cascades of blurry keyboard effects. There
are guitars on this record, but they take a back seat to the
electronic errata conjured up by The Silverman and Edward Ka-Spel.
The emphasis on computerized music isn't just a stylistic turn for
the band, but a natural continuation of the themes that run
through Ka-Spel's lyrics. From the '50s era model on the cover,
the cracked mirror she's holding, and the truncated image of a
mushroom cloud inside of the booklet, to the themes of paranoia,
isolation, and distress in the song's words, it is clear that
technology and its effect on mankind is a central theme on the
record. When the odd guitar or errant flute emerges from the flux
of noise, drone, and found sounds that populate the majority of
these songs, they bring a good deal of comfort and relief. Whether
or not that relief is necessary is something worth considering,
however.
Some of the songs on Plutonium Blonde feature an approach to
songcraft that fans of the Chemical Playschool series will be
happy to hear. Stuttering tape collages, dark synth pads, organic
burps, and quiet percussive elements swim by beneath Ka-Spel's
narratives on both "An Arm and a Leg" and "Oceans Blue." The
intensity and creepiness of the vocals harmonize with the brooding
haziness of the instrumentation creating a strong synthesis of
abstract, psychedelic sound and conventional song-writing. Both
"Torchsong" and "Rainbows Too?" favor a semi-melodic, direct
approach to creating atmosphere, but are also the first two songs
on the album. Plutonium Blonde thus feels like a slow descent into
unfamiliar waters, one that ends up with the crushing woe of
"Cubic Caesar." The song begins with a biting quip: "My learning
curve was so acute it formed a perfect circle / My whole wide
world was virtual so I sank back in my shell." From there Ka-Spel
utilizes a combination of dry, phone-like tones and half-dead,
choking keyboards to spin a tale of slowly atrophying ideas and
feelings. Martijn De Kleer's guitar work is most successfully
worked into mix on this song; he draws a blues-like desolation out
of his strings that emphasize the loneliness present in Ka-Spel's
lyrics. The song reaches a climax as Ka-Spel muses over the safety
of virtual reality: "I know that far away exists mysterious
adventures / A life beyond / Uncensored where there's nothing
guaranteed / It's not for me / Oh I'll live with it."
My only complaints about this outing revolve around a pair of
songs that interrupt the slow descent I described earlier. While
"A World with No Mirrors" and "My First Zonee" draw their
lifeblood from the same topics found in all the other songs, the
musical aesthetic on both are so different from everything else on
the record that they seem almost entirely out of place. "A World
with No Mirrors" is composed of acoustic guitar and flute and
sounds pastoral despite its nocturnal and ambient ending. "My
First Zonee" is, on the other hand, a jaunty piece that only
emphasizes how difficult it is to use a saxophone on a rock record
and not come away sounding cheesy. Were these two songs removed or
replaced, the album might be exceedingly bleak and somber. Yet, I
find myself wanting to skip past both in order to get to the meat
of the record. "Faded Photograph" manages to lighten the mood
without breaking the album's continuity and so both the
aforementioned songs seem just a bit superfluous. That being said,
both songs stand well on their own and are nowhere near
distracting enough to ruin the record. I suppose I'm simply more
endeared to Ka-Spel's darker creations, which is why Plutonium
Blonde keeps me coming back. It is twisted, dark, and filled with
a multitude of musical approaches that few (if any) other
musicians have ever even thought of blending.
p l a y l i s t
01 torchsong 07:06
02 rainbows too 09:31
03 a world with no mirrors 05:16
04 my first zonee 03:57
05 faded photograph 04:27
06 an arm and a leg 06:40
07 mailman 02:21
08 oceans blue 07:46
09 savannah red 01:47
10 cubic caesar 06:32
55:23 min
g r e e t i n g s
agw - amok - bass - bcc - bex - boss - cmg - cmc - cms - d2h
def - dh - disc0 - drum - emp - ftd - fwyh - gem - i8 - ipc
jce - jfk - jrp - just - khz - kinky - kw - lame - maem - mbs
mgc - psycz - r2r - rac - radial - rapid - rks - rtb - sb
sever - sfe - soup - sour - sq - tr - trt - ube - uc - upe
uki - xtc - yard - zi
respect to music lovers worldwide
never forget : go to the show. buy the t-shirt. order the vinyl