15 October 2005

ARTHUR BROWN'S KINGDOM COME "Journey" UK 1973



'Time Captives!!' Truly an out of time leap predating techno, 4AD, punk & encompassing all... with a drone calliope trance-induced second cut, 'Triangles.' 'Gypsy' rolls in all majestic like and teutonic as hell, the kind to make Julian Cope's hair and curls stand straight up on end. Like foggin' Ayyy right-o and rooty-tootin'. This album, the earliest (successful) drum machine usage, dating to 1974 backing a seeming progressive rock band (coming off the heels of the dervish whirlwind of "Galactic Zoo Dossier" and "Kingdom Come") proved quite clever to bring out a cosmic krautrocker's heaven vibe over the lyrical guitar work of the English with dollops of synthesizer heaped freshly atop like cherries to boot. Lest we forget, this beast heralds from the pits of hellfire and brimstone gleams with shiny red teeth - a matured delivery croons in a slight wail akin to some of the vocal work done by Tim Buckley on "Blue Afternoon," "Happy/Sad" or tiny bits of "Starsailor." This third cut, is a pretty well sprawling epic of a monster that rides through the edge of the fourth dimension to bring a spacelock syndrome finale to crumble Hawkwind in it's leaden fist and eat us alive like so much Soylent Green as treated murmurs in English flip out like Franco Battiato through a Flamen Dialis Residentzophone Regal Zonocomb shimmering smattering of vocals - this thing climbs like Jumbo on acid vietato any DNA evidence of who did this to you, in the den with the candlestick and its interloping guitar lines like an Alphataurus carrying the heaviest moments of 'Shaving is Boring' by Hatfield and the North and/or the combination of compensatory parts off of Egg's "The Polite Force" like Atlas on their backs... but, oh no, it's not over yet! The drilling continues to churn into a fuzzy guitar cutoff at 9:10.

'Superficial Roadblocks' brings the authority of Gracious! to attack Troy at the orders of Agamemnon von-Hotep with KGB papers.. Then, all of a sudden, you are in an egyptian Lysergodrome being led in to feel Ray Davies as impersonated by Frank Zappa on mushrooms. No joke, kids, the theatricality employed by Mssr. Brown on this rivals the impish complexities of the divided alien himself, Daevid Allen, of Gong fame. The chords strummed here howl with the power of The Who still humming in the background stadiums and Second Hand chirping their chant of “Death May Be Your Santa Claus” when massed choirs of our fabled and favorite Mellotron set the bset for and bring in the ripper to shred the bed with muscle bound strumming and picking a storm frenzy of clearly meant, well-kept, note flurries. What? And then at the end take us inside a church of a wholly wooly elegiac dirge outro, cue the Brainticket!

Next up we have the closest thing to a regular cut ('Conception' clocks in at a princely 2:06) with thick bass lines counter measures against some screeching, calypso drum patterns, and odd bits off the sythnie.. It gets stranger folks! Popping 'Spirit of Joy' off by way of Allman Brothers like family passion we get a wheezing Neu! 4/4 bravado a bit more electrified reverbo-vocaled insane monkey kumquat and guesting Simeon oscillating his Silver Apples thing here and there like Pierre
Henry playing a Theremin to his own private Siberian beach, chillin' with Leon and sipping some absinthe, boys...

'Come Alive' has punishing guitars and dueling bass methods has that by the time it gets mid-stride, you realize and relate to the Bentley in all too different manner. The creative usage carries compositions well and supports fine instrumentation throughout. Maybe even a couple measures like T2 off "It'll All Work Out in Boomland" and pensive keyboard bleating melodies ala Angel Rada in his masterpiece, “Upadesa” make themselves present on this tune. At the outset here, we get a nice serving of psychy fuzzed processed guitar over a looming Jonathan Richman-esque string-jangle copping his best Lou Reed expressions. No, it's more than that happening here right as it is almost over. Tweaky vocals bring you in to question the whole trip and then leave you dusted off on the platter in the desert where El Topo shot your Zorro mask off and left you crying in your diapers to hear this amazing ship sail again and again.. did he just do a David Bowie cum Police reggae gumbo jamboree bowl porridge of pleasing you with the right tempered mix of seemingly disparate elements??? Dunno, whoah.

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