| Amanda Palmer & Edward Ka~Spel |
I Can Spin a Rainbow |
Amanda Palmer & Edward Ka~Spel — I Can Spin a Rainbow 
••• The Skinny (UK) says: “Light a candle in a dark room and wrap up snug; this is a haunted house of a record… the album blends storytelling, poetry and lyricism with a wide range of soundscapes.”
••• The Boston Globe says: “…desiccated nightmare lullabies or ambient carousel music from the grounds of an abandoned carnival.”
••• June 4 — Palác Akropolis — Prague — SOLD OUT
Birth name: Amanda MacKinnon Gaiman Palmer
Born: April 30, 1976, New York City, New York, U.S.
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
2005: Best Female Vocalist in the WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll.
Birth name: Edward Francis Sharp
Born: 23 January 1954 in London
Location: Nijmegen, Netherlands
Styles: Alternative/Indie Rock, Experimental Rock, Neo~Psychedelia
Album release: May 5th, 2017
Record Label: Cooking Vinyl
Duration: 50:53
Tracks:
1 Pulp Fiction 6:05
2 Shahla’s Missing Page 5:08
3 The Shock of Kontakt 7:15
4 Beyond the Beach 2:50
5 The Clock at the End of the Cage 4:52
6 The Changing Room 4:01
7 The Jack of Hands 3:53
8 Prithee/Liquidation Day 9:39
9 Rainbow’s End 7:10
© 2017 Eight Foot Records under exclusive licence to Cooking Vinyl Limited
© Umbrella. A+E. Press photos: Viki Beshparova
I CAN SPIN A RAINBOW LYIRCS
1 — PULP FICTION
1.) We came here as a matching set
The six of us, just us six innocents
A blind date at the fiction
May I peek through your blue eyes?
The night is white the lights are flashing
And the six us of are hot
Although it’s March, you’ll find us splashing
Where the rest of you would not
2.) The room just keeps on spinning as the bad boys play roulette
I lost a shoe, but I keep winning
No contusions no regret
Because it’s better to be hammered than a useless rusty nail
It’s all the sixes, and we’re set, into the morning Abigail
3.) I’m on my knees
Not praying
Is there anybody down there?
Sorry, please
It’s taken
You won’t find anybody in here…
4.) We’re flying at the fiction on a night you won’t believe
Free spirits flailing in the fountain
And near nothing underneath
It’s like the movie where she gets the guy
And takes the plane and leaves
The tragic facts of life for losers for a life less ordinary
5.) They all shoot horses, don’t they?
Sure we’re doomed to drop
I don’t care how long it takes
Just need to make it to the shops
So can you help me cause I need it
Got my head stuck in this pail
The weekend’s young, and I am trying
Turn the light on Abigail
6.) I’m on my knees
Not playing
Can’t find anybody in here
For pity’s sake, what would I have to
Take for you to listen
7.) So please don’t shout
Stop shaking
Don’t take any pictures
I’m so sorry, Abby, really
Being blinded by the fiction
2 — SHAHLA’S MISSING PAGE
1.) I have a little vial
A little plastic vial
I keep it in my pocket
Deep down where no one sees it
2.) I’ve carried it for twenty
Two and a half years and we
Touch through the tall electric
Fence wearing masks and blankets
3.) My father always told me
To keep a glass of pepper
So I could fight the night men
So I could sleep forever
4.) If they found my hiding spot
I’ll tell you where I keep it locked
At night the code is 3~2~1
Be brave…
Share it with our sons
5.) The crack of dawn and rifling
We heard the sound of engines
It was the wind perhaps the
Living room floor collapsing
6.) My father always told me
To say a little prayer
Before I lay my head down
Before the men take over
7.) Eyes tight, one step, I stumble
Into a night dressed navy
I promised, and you promised
I see our children waving
3…
2…
1…
Be brave…
Review
George Sully | 03 May 2017 | Score: ***
••• Light a candle in a dark room and wrap up snug; this is a haunted house of a record. Dark corners, echoey corridors, lyrics half sung, half spoken. If this is truly the long~yearned~for project of Bostonian radical Amanda Palmer, concocted with her teenage hero Edward Ka~Spel (vocalist of London~via~Amsterdam experimentalists The Legendary Pink Dots), then there are some forlorn, unsettling things living in their shared psyche.
••• I Can Spin a Rainbow is partly a reference to that childhood colour~learning rhyme, and partly to everyone’s favourite spinning beach ball of death; this theme of contemporary malaise ~ underpinned by the melancholia of lost youth ~ is made manifest throughout.
••• Opener Pulp Fiction features a woozy Palmer waking up amid electronic bleeps, like a coma patient on life’support, while lead single The Clock at the End of the Cage marries childlike glockenspiel with eerie choral harmonies. The Jack of Hands starts like a lullaby, before sinking into the mire: Ka~Spel’s playful storytelling mode giving way to Palmer whispering into our ears, ‘Jack’ll fix it, Jack’ll fix it’. Prithee~Liquidation Day’s immersive 10 minutes slides from haunting strings to an unnerving funhouse organ, all of which collapses into a kaleidoscopic minor~key maelstrom. This is not a happy album.
••• It’s a bold, considered whole; it’s rich in theatrical texture and ambient psychedelia, but it’s not an easy listen. Often deliberately discordant, it won’t be to everyone’s tastes, certainly not to fans of Palmer’s poppier work. This is Palmer filtered through LPD’s dark and oblique narrative lens, with her familiar vocal offset by Ka~Spel’s gravelly, otherworldy poetry. It’s clearly the output of two passionate creators on a simpatico wavelength; the jury’s out as to whether that synthesis was a worthwhile endeavour. But if you’re drawn to the anxious mystery of the unknown, maybe you can spin a rainbow, too.
••• Listen to: The Shock of Kontakt, The Clock at the End of the Cage
••• http://www.theskinny.co.uk/
Review
By Charles Steinberg
••• Amanda Palmer has collaborated with Legendary Pink Dots founder Edward Ka~Spel on her new album I CAN SPIN A RAINBOW, which arrives this Friday, May 5th. Under the Radar has the exclusive album stream. I CAN SPIN A RAINBOW is the first full~length collaboration between Palmer and Ka~Spel, founding member of visionary Anglo~Dutch psychedelicists The Legendary Pink Dots. This was an exciting project for Palmer, marking the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to work with one of her artistic heroes who has inspired her most. Palmer has been an avowed fan of Ka~Spel and The Legendary Pink Dots since discovering their psycho~theatrical, multi~textural work in her teens.
••• I CAN SPIN A RAINBOW, engineered and mixed by Ka~Spel on his own laptop using Ableton, “is a truly collaborative effort, ‘a spiritual experience,’” says Palmer, in which both artists’ stories, song fragments, poems, and lyrics became wholly meshed with loops, melancholy piano playing, melodic beds, and strange rhythms. “We merged our songwriting heads and poetic worlds to make a new universe,” Palmer says. “We would sit in Imogen’s house drinking cups of tea, bemoaning the state of the upcoming election, binge drinking in the UK, the refugee crisis, our internet addictions, frightening news we had read, our relationships...and then we’d compost all of the ingredients of our fears and conversations into song form.”
••• The two musicians first met in 1992 when Palmer, then 16, attended a Legendary Pink Dots show in her hometown of Boston. In 1995, having found that the Pink Dots were looking for lodging with fans to save money on the road, Palmer hosted five members of the band and crew at her childhood home. Ten years later, Palmer’s internationally acclaimed punk cabaret duo, The Dresden Dolls, had achieved enough success that they were able to invite the Dots to support them on a German tour, and it was then that Palmer and Ka~Spel vowed to carve out time to collaborate on an original recording. You can check out the glorious fruits of their collaboration, recorded in Imogen Heap’s home studio in Essex, England, here, before the album release. ••• http://undertheradarmag.com/
Website: http://amandapalmer.net/
Website: http://legendarypinkdots.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pinkdots
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/legendarypinkdots/
Bandcamp: https://legendarypinkdots1.bandcamp.com/
© Children. A+E. Press photos: Viki Beshparova
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| Amanda Palmer & Edward Ka~Spel |
I Can Spin a Rainbow |
••• The Boston Globe says: “…desiccated nightmare lullabies or ambient carousel music from the grounds of an abandoned carnival.”
••• June 4 — Palác Akropolis — Prague — SOLD OUT
Birth name: Amanda MacKinnon Gaiman Palmer
Born: April 30, 1976, New York City, New York, U.S.
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
2005: Best Female Vocalist in the WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll.
Birth name: Edward Francis Sharp
Born: 23 January 1954 in London
Location: Nijmegen, Netherlands
Styles: Alternative/Indie Rock, Experimental Rock, Neo~Psychedelia
Album release: May 5th, 2017
Record Label: Cooking Vinyl
Duration: 50:53
Tracks:
1 Pulp Fiction 6:05
2 Shahla’s Missing Page 5:08
3 The Shock of Kontakt 7:15
4 Beyond the Beach 2:50
5 The Clock at the End of the Cage 4:52
6 The Changing Room 4:01
7 The Jack of Hands 3:53
8 Prithee/Liquidation Day 9:39
9 Rainbow’s End 7:10
© 2017 Eight Foot Records under exclusive licence to Cooking Vinyl Limited
I CAN SPIN A RAINBOW LYIRCS
1 — PULP FICTION
1.) We came here as a matching set
The six of us, just us six innocents
A blind date at the fiction
May I peek through your blue eyes?
The night is white the lights are flashing
And the six us of are hot
Although it’s March, you’ll find us splashing
Where the rest of you would not
2.) The room just keeps on spinning as the bad boys play roulette
I lost a shoe, but I keep winning
No contusions no regret
Because it’s better to be hammered than a useless rusty nail
It’s all the sixes, and we’re set, into the morning Abigail
3.) I’m on my knees
Not praying
Is there anybody down there?
Sorry, please
It’s taken
You won’t find anybody in here…
4.) We’re flying at the fiction on a night you won’t believe
Free spirits flailing in the fountain
And near nothing underneath
It’s like the movie where she gets the guy
And takes the plane and leaves
The tragic facts of life for losers for a life less ordinary
5.) They all shoot horses, don’t they?
Sure we’re doomed to drop
I don’t care how long it takes
Just need to make it to the shops
So can you help me cause I need it
Got my head stuck in this pail
The weekend’s young, and I am trying
Turn the light on Abigail
6.) I’m on my knees
Not playing
Can’t find anybody in here
For pity’s sake, what would I have to
Take for you to listen
7.) So please don’t shout
Stop shaking
Don’t take any pictures
I’m so sorry, Abby, really
Being blinded by the fiction
2 — SHAHLA’S MISSING PAGE
1.) I have a little vial
A little plastic vial
I keep it in my pocket
Deep down where no one sees it
2.) I’ve carried it for twenty
Two and a half years and we
Touch through the tall electric
Fence wearing masks and blankets
3.) My father always told me
To keep a glass of pepper
So I could fight the night men
So I could sleep forever
4.) If they found my hiding spot
I’ll tell you where I keep it locked
At night the code is 3~2~1
Be brave…
Share it with our sons
5.) The crack of dawn and rifling
We heard the sound of engines
It was the wind perhaps the
Living room floor collapsing
6.) My father always told me
To say a little prayer
Before I lay my head down
Before the men take over
7.) Eyes tight, one step, I stumble
Into a night dressed navy
I promised, and you promised
I see our children waving
3…
2…
1…
Be brave…
George Sully | 03 May 2017 | Score: ***
••• Light a candle in a dark room and wrap up snug; this is a haunted house of a record. Dark corners, echoey corridors, lyrics half sung, half spoken. If this is truly the long~yearned~for project of Bostonian radical Amanda Palmer, concocted with her teenage hero Edward Ka~Spel (vocalist of London~via~Amsterdam experimentalists The Legendary Pink Dots), then there are some forlorn, unsettling things living in their shared psyche.
••• I Can Spin a Rainbow is partly a reference to that childhood colour~learning rhyme, and partly to everyone’s favourite spinning beach ball of death; this theme of contemporary malaise ~ underpinned by the melancholia of lost youth ~ is made manifest throughout.
••• Opener Pulp Fiction features a woozy Palmer waking up amid electronic bleeps, like a coma patient on life’support, while lead single The Clock at the End of the Cage marries childlike glockenspiel with eerie choral harmonies. The Jack of Hands starts like a lullaby, before sinking into the mire: Ka~Spel’s playful storytelling mode giving way to Palmer whispering into our ears, ‘Jack’ll fix it, Jack’ll fix it’. Prithee~Liquidation Day’s immersive 10 minutes slides from haunting strings to an unnerving funhouse organ, all of which collapses into a kaleidoscopic minor~key maelstrom. This is not a happy album.
••• It’s a bold, considered whole; it’s rich in theatrical texture and ambient psychedelia, but it’s not an easy listen. Often deliberately discordant, it won’t be to everyone’s tastes, certainly not to fans of Palmer’s poppier work. This is Palmer filtered through LPD’s dark and oblique narrative lens, with her familiar vocal offset by Ka~Spel’s gravelly, otherworldy poetry. It’s clearly the output of two passionate creators on a simpatico wavelength; the jury’s out as to whether that synthesis was a worthwhile endeavour. But if you’re drawn to the anxious mystery of the unknown, maybe you can spin a rainbow, too.
••• Listen to: The Shock of Kontakt, The Clock at the End of the Cage
••• http://www.theskinny.co.uk/
By Charles Steinberg
••• Amanda Palmer has collaborated with Legendary Pink Dots founder Edward Ka~Spel on her new album I CAN SPIN A RAINBOW, which arrives this Friday, May 5th. Under the Radar has the exclusive album stream. I CAN SPIN A RAINBOW is the first full~length collaboration between Palmer and Ka~Spel, founding member of visionary Anglo~Dutch psychedelicists The Legendary Pink Dots. This was an exciting project for Palmer, marking the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to work with one of her artistic heroes who has inspired her most. Palmer has been an avowed fan of Ka~Spel and The Legendary Pink Dots since discovering their psycho~theatrical, multi~textural work in her teens.
••• I CAN SPIN A RAINBOW, engineered and mixed by Ka~Spel on his own laptop using Ableton, “is a truly collaborative effort, ‘a spiritual experience,’” says Palmer, in which both artists’ stories, song fragments, poems, and lyrics became wholly meshed with loops, melancholy piano playing, melodic beds, and strange rhythms. “We merged our songwriting heads and poetic worlds to make a new universe,” Palmer says. “We would sit in Imogen’s house drinking cups of tea, bemoaning the state of the upcoming election, binge drinking in the UK, the refugee crisis, our internet addictions, frightening news we had read, our relationships...and then we’d compost all of the ingredients of our fears and conversations into song form.”
••• The two musicians first met in 1992 when Palmer, then 16, attended a Legendary Pink Dots show in her hometown of Boston. In 1995, having found that the Pink Dots were looking for lodging with fans to save money on the road, Palmer hosted five members of the band and crew at her childhood home. Ten years later, Palmer’s internationally acclaimed punk cabaret duo, The Dresden Dolls, had achieved enough success that they were able to invite the Dots to support them on a German tour, and it was then that Palmer and Ka~Spel vowed to carve out time to collaborate on an original recording. You can check out the glorious fruits of their collaboration, recorded in Imogen Heap’s home studio in Essex, England, here, before the album release. ••• http://undertheradarmag.com/
Website: http://amandapalmer.net/
Website: http://legendarypinkdots.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pinkdots
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/legendarypinkdots/
Bandcamp: https://legendarypinkdots1.bandcamp.com/
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