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Edward Ka-Spel, "Happy New Year"
Though I always search in vain for anyindication that the Legendary Pink Dots front man is resting on his laurels, phoning it in,or "taking the piss," as they say, each new release tends to hold to animpressive level of quality control.
HappyNew Year is the new chunklet of music-scented sound art from EdwardKa-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots, and its release represents only oneof a small avalanche of EKS albums to be issued in 2005. Already thisyear has seen the release of O Darkness! O Darkness! and Fragments ofIllumina, and if Beta-Lactam Ring Records sticks to their plans, therecould be as many as three more EKS albums issued this year. The reasonfor this sudden spike in Ka-Spel's already absurd prolificacy couldonly be speculated about, but one thing is for certain: if anyone hasearned the right to unleash a ridiculous amount of vanity albums on theworld, it's Edward Ka-Spel. An argument could be made that Ihave merely fetishized Edward's recording aesthetics and artisticobsessions, and that an objective assessment of his work would beimpossible. Well, fuck all that.
Happy New Year clocks in at about 26minutes, making it more of an EP than a full-length. The recording wasundertaken on New Year's Eve 2004, when the artist found himself insolitude, alienated from the celebrations occurring outside his door.While most of us would probably get drunk and call up an old flame, EKSdecided to record this layered mini-album. In the far distant background of therecording, you can hear the crackling and whistling of fireworksexploding as EKS rifles backwards through his recent memory, producinghazy, backwards washes of analog synthesizer that reek of nostalgia,sadness and regret. Lovely, meandering piano melodies take the fore,picking out deconstructed variations on "Auld Lang Syne" and othercelebratory songs. It's haunting, elegiac and tasteful, never totallysurrendering to melancholy, but gracefully skating around its edges.
"What Goes Around" is the second track, and though it is not part ofthe same New Year's Eve recording session, it is paired with the firsttrack because of its similar insistence on looking backward, on thenebulous play of memory in the mind's eye. It ends with a spooky loopfrom an old-time-y record, running out numbly into oblivion. Theconstruction of both tracks is along the lines of EKS' moreexperimental, dislocated, ambient work, as opposed to the moresong-based structures of classic albums like Khataclamici China Dolland Tanith and the Lion Tree. This is not a bad thing by any means;just a caveat. Though this brief memento of days gone by is barelysubstantial enough to warrant repeated listens, Happy New Year is stillanother terrific little entry in the EKS discography.
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