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Edward Ka-Spel, "Fire Island"
This minor but charming solo effort was recorded earlier this year while Ka-Spel enjoyed a vacation on Fire Island.  Given the logistical difficulties inherent in transporting an entire studio across the ocean, these songs are necessarily more loose, informal, and stripped-down than is typical for Edward (if anything about his oeuvre can be described as such).  Such an approach does not necessarily cater to his strengths (Ka-Spel is at his best when he is at his most complexly hallucinatory), but this batch of lilting, drum-machine-driven psych-pop miniatures offers some pleasantly twisted diversions nonetheless.
Knowing the origin of this album, it is hard to avoid speculating on both Ka-Spel's mindset and the order in which these songs were composed.  For one, it is amusing to think of anywhere in New York as an appealing vacation option in January.  Secondly, these six songs run the gamut from fragile, melancholy piano balladry ("A Sad Society") to comparatively sunny and upbeat ("One Big Happy Family") to endearingly playful (the strangled blurts of saxophone in "A Step too Far").  Despite that breadth of moods and styles, Fire Island still feels remarkably coherent, which is largely due to its restricted palette (a synth, a saxophone, and a laptop?) and its unexpected accessibility.  The sole exception is the requisite lengthy soundscape filler ("Surfing the Volcano"), but even that avoids becoming particularly nightmarish.
While Fire Island is certainly a refreshing change of pace for Ka-Spel, he was still not able to completely escape some of his more exasperating tendencies (overlong songs, filler, awkward tonal shifts, etc.).  However, with a few exceptions, those quirks are largely kept to a bearable minimum: all of the actual songs are quite good, despite their rough patches.  The most prominent wobbles are the otherwise likable "Mr. Negative" and "One Big Happy Family," which respectively suffer from an awkward string interlude and a vocal crescendo that sounds shrilly elfin, but even those are quite minor.  Most of the other songs are either completely flawless (the warm ambiance of "Entrance and Illumination") or boast motifs strong enough to sustain them through their minor shortcomings (like the heavy groove and peripheral mindfuckery of "A Step Too Far").
Consequently, it is somewhat surprising that this material is relegated to "limited-edition, self-released CDR" status, as it boasts a higher success rate than several of Ka-Spel's more formal, higher profile albums.  There is a certain logic to it, however, as a third of Fire Island's running time is consumed by "Surfing the Volcano" and a one-minute field recording of the sea.  Also, some of the remainder is arguably not particularly representative of Edward's vision (even if he is essentially a human kaleidoscope).  It is quite hard to imagine anyone who is a fan of his work being disappointed by this effort though: it may not be especially revelatory, complex, or ambitious, but it is consistently strong and somewhat unusual (and is almost certainly the leading candidate for "best album ever made on vacation in a beach community in the dead of winter").
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