Pre-Millenial Single (Legendary Pink Dots)

mark weddle <markw@southwind.net>

Overall impression: excellent! LPD are back, only a year after their
phenomenal album, "Hallway of the Gods". This single is a precursor to
the new album, "Nemesis On-line" and is essentially a gift to the fans.
Hellsville and Andromeda are updated re-workings of what are arguably 2
of the finest songs from the Dots *huge* back catalog. Needles is also
an updated song, this one originally being a solo Edward Ka-spel track.
These new versions are very nicely done, reminiscent of how LPD played
them on recent tours. Hellsville is chock full of great horn blasts,
miscellaneous noises and Edward's crescendos of yelling and laughing.
Needles features Edward as a father guilt-tripping his son into
following his parents in leaving home behind for a new and better
place, "Sirius" as a building wall of drums/bass/keyboards propels the
song. Andromeda is my favorite of the 4, a beautiful song that has
several different parts (like many of those multi-part 70's Pink Floyd
songs): a 3 minute or so mellow lyrical part, a long ambient bridge
which then gives way to the horn/keyboard blasting chorus section.
Awesome! The last track is a different version of Abracadabra from the
new album, "Nemesis On-line". It's a fairly noisy, drum propelled
instrumental (Edward is repeating a phrase throughout, but it's so
densely effected that I can't tell what he's saying) that culminates in
a wonderful mess of sampled noises/sounds. Very cool artwork: a b/w
photo of a giant (God?) that has people imprisoned within him on the
front, and a b/w photo of what appears to be assorted medieval torture
devices on the back. All together, another brilliant release from the
Dots, one that will most surely be appreciated by any Dots fan ...
especially those who witnessed the '97 Hallway tour. Mp3 sound clips
are available at the Brainwashed site below. Sing while you may ...

Antron S. Meister

Taking several live favourites from their recent tour and re-recording them
in the studio, the Pink Dots have produced one of their greatest singles so
far - especially the evocative Wicker Man print on the cover. "Hellsville
'98" is a faster version of the storming track from Crushed Velvet
Apocalype, descending into a fit of sampled laughter , while "Abracadabra
zzzz" is a fair remix of the bass-heavy track from this year's Nemesis
Online album.

However, it's the Version Sirius of "City of Needles" which really drops
the paranoiac bombshell, improving on the dodgy sound quality of the Live
At La Luna video version while retaining the scorching intensity of the
first-person tale of a father cajoling his son into a Heaven's Gate style
suicide trip to the stars. As if this wasn't enough, there's a blinding
interpretation of the epic "Andromeda Suite" (here reduced to a mere eleven
minutes), a track apparently lost from the video. Soaring, uplifting,
Meta-Space Rock from the heart of the Galaxy, "Andromeda" was always a bit
of a slow-burning trip, but here it becomes (eventually) an echoing feast
of flute, analogue swirl and rising, ecstatic, glory. Simultaneously
(partially) justifying and knocking into a cocked hat any comparisons with
Pink Floyd - Hawkwind always seem a better reference point somehow - and
even managing to slip in a brief "Imagine" quote, "Andromeda '98" is the
hightlight of an essential Dots release.

-Antron S. Meister-