The Tear Garden "Crystal Mass" Nettwerk 0 6700 30158 2 0 2000 (57:44)
Lament (6:28)
The Double Spades Effect (5:13)
Desert Island Disc (5:23)
Hopeful (3:28)
Castaway (7:02)
Her Majesty's Trusted Food Taster (5:17)
Feathered Friends (4:56)
To Mourn the Death of Colour (12:39)
Six of One (7:25)
cEvin Key - electronics, keyboards, drums, percussion, tapes; Ryan Moore - bass, keyboards (track 1), acoustic guitar (track 3); The Silver Man - keyboards; Martijn de Kleer - acoustic and electric guitar, violin; Edward Ka-Spel - voice, keyboards, electronics; Niels van Hoorn - flute (track 7); Russell Nash - scanmaster (track 7); Bill van Rooy - hand percussion (track 5).
The Tear Garden is a 15 year old collaboration between members of Skinny Puppy / Download and The Legendary Pink Dots. With the untimely passing of Dwayne Goettel in 1995 the band has become more like a Key augmented Dots and each album tends to take on much of the same character as LPD albums from the same time frame. "Crystal Mass" picks up where the sparse 1996 album "To Be and Angel Blind, The Cripple Soul Divide" left off, adding generous amounts of synth work to the clean guitar/bass/drum sound on several songs and perhaps being a little less melancholic overall in mood. Unfortunately, the track indexing mistakenly adjoins 2 tracks and the track listing in the insert doesn't seem to match what's on the cd (even when you take the indexing problem into consideration) so titles for songs mid album are a little difficult to discern. Regardless, the 9 songs cover and extend beyond the range of recent musical LPD-isms: the Krautrock inspired grooves of "Lament" and "The Double Spades.." (including violin on the latter), the heart melting slide guitar and jaunty percussion interplay of "Desert Island..", the bright and cheery acoustic guitar of, um, track 4, the strange and chaotic deep dub bass/percussion/sound effects of the 5th song (which I think is actually "Her Majesty's ..." argh!) and "Feathered Friends", the impossibly sad beauty of track 5 ("Castaway" maybe? argh!), the electronics and effects drenched funk of "Six of One" and, finally, "To Mourn.." seems to sum much of it up in one convenient 12+ minute suite that includes a long electronic/ambient outro passage. A very nice balance of acoustic/electronic and live/programmed music. Ka-Spel's lyrics are effortlessly poetic and brilliant, as always, delivered with his unmistakably unique voice. Altogether "Crystal Mass" finds TG in fine form, as always, and is my favorite Key / Dots related release in several years. Don't let the horrid artwork and production errors keep you away. The Tear Garden may finally tour sometime next year, assuming all the planets align and hell freezes over ...
The Tear Garden
The Legendary
Pink Dots
Litany:
Scott's Music News Covering Skinny Puppy, Download, etc.
Subconscious
Studios
Where did I get this cd? - mail order via Riouxs Records.