Edward Ka-Spel - Long Red Ladder To The Moon
Edward Ka-Spel - Eyes, China Doll
- The Grandmaster of Psychedelic Poetry

Good to see another Ka-Spel fan! Eyes, China Doll is one of his best solo efforts I think (especially the epic "Hotel Blanc"). I've had the rather rare original vinyl release for some time, but good to see it has finally been re-issued on CD.

What is the other one like?

Eyes, China Doll is his best solo effort, mostly due to "Hotel Blanc" (which is, afaIc the greatest psychedelic track ever). The new album is quite good. For starters, it has more "bite" than some previous solo albums. Especially Tanith and the Lion Tree was rather weak in comparison to his more powerful stuff like the complete ..., China Doll series. But you also get a very familiar sound. That's actually one thing I like about Edward and also his band Legendary Pinkdots: No matter how different the songs are, you can always recognize their heritage.

Some people may call that a weakness (there is a rather lively discussion going on here about Jarre's evolution , but I really don't mind.

Furthermore, this album is a real "headphone-trip". There is so much going on in the mix that it took me at least three complete listens to get some idea of what is happening. Recording quality is excellent, some nice "new-ish" arrangements, great lyrics and also great artwork.

The funny thing though is that there seems to be someting significantly different about the sound of the Eyes, China Doll re-issue. I compared it to a previous re-issue on Down In The City Of Heartbreak And Needles pt. I and first of all this new re-issue is much louder. I have to agree that the original re-issue could have done with some normalisation, but somehow I get the feeling that normalizing is not the only thing they did to it. There is a sense of compression as well, that leaves the dynamics slightly diminished somehow, and the original reverb on Edwards voice is so much "louder" now that his voice sounds much further back into the mix, even slightly disembodied.

I have mailed Edward about this, and he assured me that there was no extra reverb added. And I have absolutely no reason not to believe him. It might have something to do with the remastering process. If they boosted the midrange (which could also be a side-effect of compression - or worse: maximization...), they would also have boosted the reverb that is in the same frequency range.

Anyway, I'm still not sure which version I prefer. The old re-issue now sounds slightly thin and soft, but the new re-issue has the drowning vocals...

Anyway, the artwork is pretty awesome (a mini-gatefold with the original - white, not the pink, alas - artwork), and just for that it is worth getting.

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I'm also hoping I might finally be able to catch them live when I'm in Europe a bit later this year.

Always worth visiting one of their gigs. I saw them play live 4 or 5 times, and it was a blast to see my first psych-heroes perform live. At the first gig I went to, I even waltzed with Edward!

You probably know this site already: http://www.brainwashed.com/lpd/main2.html

There you can find a lot of interesting stuff, including tour dates.

BTW, have you heard the solo album by long-time LPD guitarist Martijn de Kleer? It's called So Close Yet So Far Out and it's great.

Here are my purchases from the last 6 weeks. Its been slow because of lay-off.

Didymos - Connected & Grief Distance
Redshift - Redshift
Ken Martin - Berlin Impressions 1 & 2, Crystal Voyage, Transparent Shadows & Spheres.
Andrew Forrest - Alpha Omega, Alchemy.
TD - Springtime In Nagasaki & (Best Of Blue Years, Pink Years for collection)
Jonn Serrie - Planetary Chronicles II & Lumina Nights.

Most listened to from this list - Didymos's Grief Distance & Redshift's debut.

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Yes, I visit the brainwashed site every once in a while. I haven't heard the Martijn de Kleer solo album (I had heard he was doing some sort of a dub project, or perhaps that was one of the other guys..?).