Mick Karn - Three Part Species '2006

Tracks list

If it wasn’t for men like Mick Karn, my formative years would have been
filled with a lot less hairspray and eyeliner, synthesizers and saxophones.
There would have been no Duran Duran, no Spandau Ballet, no ABC and quite
possibly no New Romantic movement at all.

Without which, a staggering quarter of a century after Japan released their last
studio album, we would have no Killers, no Bravery, no Burlesque, Lost Vagueness
nor Koko and everything round these parts would be ripped jeans and screamed
punk anthems.

If you think it’s a good thing that musical history has turned out the
way it has, then you’ll enjoy this latest offering from the former Japan
man. Three Part Species is a rich delight of ethnic beats and ambient swirls
perfect for enjoying chill-out cocktails as you lie back and savour the musical
and sartorial debt we owe him.

Looking back across an electronic landscape that’s spawned everything
from ambient to drum and bass to trance to trip-hop, it’s hard to
remember (even if you’re old enough) how ahead of their time Japan
sounded in 1977. The antithesis of punk’s raw energy and
three-chords-are-all-you-need ethos, they rewrote the rules and helped to ensure
the Velvet Underground were never forgotten and split just as hordes of their
copyists were taking the styles and sounds they created into the mainstream.

Since then, Karn has worked with everyone from Bauhaus‘s Pete Murphy to
King Crimson‘s Bill Brufford via Natacha Atlas, Riyuchi Sakamoto, jazz,
drum and bass and whatever else has taken his fancy.

Add into all of this a background as a classically trained bassoonist and
it’s hardly surprising that by his seventh solo album (following on from
the recent Love’s Glove EP) he can’t really surprise us any
more.Three Part Species isn’t an outstanding album, but that’s
only because it’s got such tough expectations to live up to. It’s
no less an achievement than his previous efforts but it is clear that he
doesn’t particularly need to push the envelope any more.

The result is lush and rich, relaxed and confident. Opening track Of & About
delivers haunting swirls over a slow percussion that gets trancier as it goes
along, backed by a steady beat that holds everything together in a warm embrace.
This is followed by Twitchy Hand Mover, one of the dancier tracks, and like the
other gems you’ll find here, it’s mostly instrumental. The
remaining eight vary from repetitive beats and resonating bass to the deep,
sinking down under woodwinds of I’ll Be Here Dreaming.

There’s haunting strings and piano melodies on tracks such as Chocolate
Was a Boy and economically rationed vocals throughout the album, used sparingly
and to great effect. Female whispers echo in and out of All You Have, while a
male counterpart booms out with gravelly horror narration on The Wrong Truth, by
far the album’s best track. With its paranoid, sinking and trancy feel
and incongruous cymbals, it comes across like an imagined score to a gloriously
shot film noir, dubbed into a language you don’t quite understand but
like to look at nonetheless. Beautiful. –review by Jenni Cole.



Tracks:

1. Of & About [6:25]
2. Twitchy Hand Mover [6:08]
3. Floating Home [3:43]
4. All You Have [6:05]
5. Ill Be Here, Dreaming [5:05]
6. Red Film [4:27]
7. Chocolate Was A Boy [4:09]
8. Pitta Pop [4:13]
9. The Wrong Truth [5:45]
10. Regretted [5:21]


A solo recording, written mixed and produced by Mick Karn, exсept All you
have - lyrics and vocals by Becky Collins.

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