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KA-SPEL, EDWARD - Eyes! China Doll

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Beta-Lactam Ring Records mt114 Release Year: 2006 Note: re-release of LP from 1985, w. two bonus-tracks! oversized gatefold-cover Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.00 Warning: Currently we do not have this album in stock! More Info Wiederveröffentlichung der zweiten LP von 1985 inklusive zweier Bonus-Tracks und im Klappcover-Design mit Reproduktion des Original-Covers von Steven Stapleton! "Each CD will have a coupon to receive a bonus CD of new material once all the solo albums of Edward have been reissued. Includes two unreleased tracks. Edward's second solo full length first appeared as the world was still rubbing ITS eyes from new wave fall-out. Synth pop had, by now, been fully co-opted by the populace at large with Wham, Madonna and Chaka Khan topping the US charts and Dead Or Alive and Paul Hardcastle making a splash across the pond. With Eyes Edward proved a couple things: 1) He really DID have a musical voice distinct from his work with LPD and 2) somehow synth pop could still be melodic, challenging, exploratory AND kick ass. On first hearing Avengelist's almost martial sequences bubble up from behind Mirror Soul's pleasantly plaintive analogue drone, I cancelled all the day's plans so I could just sit home and study this odd record until I passed out. Soon the end of the experimental Hotel Blanc suite was triggering emotional responses of longing. Eyes was...IS a unique electronic vision quest that is schizophrenic in all the right places. In those mysterious pre-internet days LPD and Ka Spel still had an almost Jandek or Residents-like sheen. Had...to...find...out...at...all...costs. It was like that beautiful Steven Stapleton cover was beckoning me personally, but also warning that things would always be a little different from then on. 'Why another China Doll?;' 'is Edward part of Nurse With Wound?;' 'who is Lady Sunshine?' Stories were fabricated to fill in the details, all with Eyes chiming CONSTANTLY in the background with its somber synths that were somehow not sad and Edward's bizarre anti-nursery rhyme lyrics. Weird samples from inside the goldmine: the use of sound on Eyes tugged at the ear and the gut. From a song to a...thing, to another song to another...thing, to a noise, to a sequence to a...run, hurry, flip the record, AGAIN! Completely minimal yet subliminally lush. A chirpy waltz to break the din, but then it felt a bit like being at a run down, radioactive circus. Best circus I've been to so far. Omnipresent little additives made for new discoveries with every listen. Edward seemed to exist in a no man's land hidden somewhere betwixt the new wave and Elysium. He's still there and Eyes is still fresh after 20 years, finally reissued properly as a CD, repackaged with its original art in a mini LP sleeve for maximum geek-out effect. Eyes, I feel for you...I think I love you." [press release]