Edward Ka-Spel
Fragments Of Illumina

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Edward Ka-Spel - Fragments of Illumina

2005

CA CDR Piehead PIE037
US CD Beta-Lactam Ring MT063a (2006)

  1. My Space - [MP3]
  2. The End Of Everything (Part One) - [MP3]
  3. The End Of Everything (Part Two) - [MP3]
  4. Sticks & Stones - [MP3]
  5. Yet Another Fragment - [MP3]

Edward Ka-Spel - keyboards, voices
Tasmyn - little voice

Piehead edition limited to 233 copies (333 was originally planned)
BLRR CD edition limited to 300 copies, some tracks edited

While not creating strictly-formulated concept albums, the Legendary Pink Dots frontman does tend to take an idea or a mood and run with it throughout a release. This is very much apparent on Fragments of Illumina, which has a sense of wholeness and completeness despite the radically different approaches in its songs. Legendary Pink Dots albums, at their worst, can sound like horrible messes: a cacaphony of ideas, genres and quirks that refuse to harmonize. When Ka-Spel records a solo release, however, it's understood that it will be--at the very least--coherent from the beginning to the end. The highlights are two tracks called "The End Of Everything," the first of which tells a classic Ka-Spel fairytale (life, afterlife, drolly humorous disappointment) and will have Peggy Lee cocking whatever remains of her eyebrows. The second part sounds like a spaceship trying to take off from the BBC roof during the 1970's...but in a good way, for those who like that sort of thing. "Yet Another Fragment" is a gorgeous, delicate, extended moment of flangey ambience, a welcome follow-up to the (surprise!) stuttering head-banging of "Sticks and Stones." The first track on the CD, "My Space," is--sadly--the one sour note for me; a song whose lyrics are jarringly out-of-sync with the rhythm...I skip it, but it's unfortunate that it opens an otherwise exceptional CD. Regardless, it's a testament to Ka-Spel's skill that all these musical styles--effect-heavy ambiance, poetry, analog boopiness, obnoxious guitar sampling--can fit together on one album without sounding discordant, and that all of them are done so well. - Muffy St. Bernard - Brainwashed


Cover Image

US 2xLP Beta-Lactam Ring MT063b (2006)

side a

  1. My Space - [MP3]
  2. The End Of Everything (Part One) - [MP3]

side b

  1. The End Of Everything (Part Two) - [MP3]

side c

  1. Sticks & Stones - [MP3]
  2. Yet Another Fragment - [MP3]

side d

  1. Apocalypse De Ron

Limited to 400 copies