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Edward Ka-Spel (Legendary Pink Dots) is NOTHING if not
pretentious as hell. Anybody that would argue against
this point would argue against, uh, well, anything
that is concretely and indisputedly true. That Edward
Ka-Spel is pretentious as hell is one of those truths.
Now that you're convinced I'm about to lay into him
and rip the CD a few new ones, think again. I'm not.
I'm on my way to complimenting the man. It must be
said that the experimental genre is one rife with
pretentiousness and, indeed, even invites it. It could
be seen as one of the dark corners of music that
exists for that purpose. Ka-Spel exceeds, not in
pretention (well, he does, actually ...) but in
putting this type of music to its fullest use,
creating compelling ambience that is sometimes
moderately accessible, sort of, when it touches on new
age influences and at other times outright baffling,
as when the disc descends into total silence for a
Spel (oh, I had to, forgive me). The magic is that
even total off-the-map moves like that contribute to
the spookybeauty that is "Long Red Ladder to the
Moon." So, uh, check it out if you're open minded.-- review by Kristofer Upjohn
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