From Irene McC Sent Sun, Jul 4th 1999, 10:41
From Irene McC Sent Sun, Jul 4th 1999, 10:41
My Kumquat CD01 has arrived and first of all, a big thank you for Fred Church's selfless generosity : beautifully packaged in its custom designed cardboard box, the CD itself in cellophane and as others have commented, the artwork is colourful and very well put together in a rather Alince in Wonderland way. I was expecting a CD-R; however this is a very professional product : well done, Kumquat! On to the music itself. These kumquats have been reared on a diet of steroids! Chock-full of frenetic ideas, none outstay their welcome; although none seem fully expanded either - there's promise of something really nice blossoming, but before it gets a chance to develop, we're onto the next segment. Slow down, slow down!! Personally, I am not a fan of spoken word samples, and here and there I catch a phrase about a horse and Corn Flakes - but goodness knows what they're on about... :-) The sounds themselves are a lot of fun : everything is shot through with a good sense of humour and quite a bit of it is reminiscent of 80's synth pop, even to the point of guitar-driven chordery. Being a short 40 minutes total, I've put the disc on repeat and it's beginning to gel, here and there I recognise snippets as they come round. Pick a favourite? The Windmills of the Fairies, with its mellifluous Dutch vocals. This one seems to me the most musically coherent and with the volume up loud it's got a nice driving bassline. I get occasional weird flashbacks of Wagon Christ/Vibert and I have a feeling that the more I play this, the more I'll enjoy it. Is this the only copy on the African continent? Ha! I'm honoured and will be playing it to various friends soon. I * np : everyone is afraid of clowns