Ka-Spel, Edward / Scriptures of Illumina, the
Album: Scriptures of Illumina, the   Collection:General
Artist:Ka-Spel, Edward   Added:Aug 2000
Label:Caciocavallo  

Recent Airplay
1. Sep 05, 2008: Oatmeal
The Never Man

Album Review
David McWade
Reviewed 2007-09-25
Genius experimental synth-celestial goth, which is what you'd expect from Mr. Ka-spel, either solo or as the singer to the Legendary Pink Dots, except his music is always different from album to album. His lyrics are almost always personal and often poetic and twisted. His technical mastery of synthesizers, sequencers, et cetera are nearly unsurpassed. Some of these songs are long. This is a 2000 release, which means it's one of his later works (he's been active as a solo artist since 1984). As always, highly original, and as often, successful.

Songs tend to run into each other and watch out because they're not cued quite properly (ie the next song tends to start 1/2 second before the end of the previous track).

try 2, 3, 8

1 tribal, washes of somewhat harsh sound, deliberate, poetry, nice, prominent spoken word poetry at end, goes right into next track
2 brooding, repetitive, great percussion, B minor, poetic, fits in with celestial music (if you want to go a little more goth), really great although perhaps a bit long, tape noises to end it
3 short, pretty, like playing a synth with the reverb pedal pressed, twisted lyrics
4 tape noises, intricate and up to date synth lines, new-agey, instrumental
5 plodding, low-end bass, this poetry isn't quite as good, electronic effects, nice 50-second long affected ending of digital tape loops
6 experimental electronics and loops, kind of unfocused
7 starts almost like a dark soundtrack, lyrics come in w/ 6:10 left, changes in lyrical style
8 beat starts it, chaotic noises, ambient synth, lyrics, beautiful
9 starts out with this '30s jazz tune, plodding lyrics, experiments, FCC 'fucking' 3:24 left, gets more focused and apocalpytic w/ about 2:00 left
10 repetitive industrial percussion, Ka-spel doing spoken word poetry, occasional samples of early 20th century horns throughout, organ-like sound in second half, like a coda
11 very celestial and ambient, ends about 10 secs early

Track Listing
1. Illumina   6. Mayday
2. Memoires of Dr. Bliss   7. The Never Man
3. A Grain of Salt   8. Laughing Venus
4. Homage   9. There Was a Crooked Man
5. Gomorrha   10. Illumina 2
  11. The Last Door on the Left