The 1981 Listening Post - The Legendary Pink Dots - Kleine Krieg

 Reviewed by Jim Coursey

Released: 1981 The Legendary Pink Dots Kleine Krieg Genre: Experimental Synth / Darkwave / Psychedelic Rating: 2 out of 5 Highlights: Brill Down From The Country Note: for an explainer on this notorious Listening Post bugaboo, see my review of their 1982 cassette “Premonition.” Standard early cassette fare from the Pink Dots. As usual with these releases, “Kleine Kreig” features numerous sketches of songs that later would end up on their first three proper albums, “Brighter Now”, “Curse”, and “The Tower”, as well as a few “standards” that would crop up on other cassette releases. Also usual for these releases, they bias towards experimentation over the type of editing and manicuring common on an album release. Unfortunately, “Kleine Kreig” is not one of the better ones. It’s overlong for one, clocking in somewhere around 90 minutes. There are precious few highlights adding value here that aren’t done better on other releases (even cassette ones). Album opener “Defeated / Deflated Black Highway” could be a fine track on the second side of one of these releases, after they’ve built up enough structure to allow for a descent into madness. As it stands, it is so disorienting it probably would not entice anyone to listen further. There are certainly moments of interest to a fan along the way in the variations on common themes, but it takes an hour before I found anything worth highlighting. “Brill” is a collage of synth weirdness, developing out of an especially spritely and demented version of “Doll’s House.” It’s followed by the lo-rent boogie of “Down From The Country” (the only track I recognize as being excerpted on subsequent compilations). This short streak of interest is killed with an incomprehensible rendition of “Thursday Night Boogie.” As a one-time superfan, there were a few of these cassette-only releases I listened to repeatedly. This one would have been listened to once and stashed with the collection.

The 1981 Listening Post - The Legendary Pink Dots - Only Dreaming

 The Legendary Pink Dots - Only Dreaming 

#25

January 1981

The Legendary Pink Dots

Only Dreaming

Genre: Please kill me

1.5 out of 5

This is the 5th Pink Dots record we’ve covered here at The Listening Post. I was able to avoid any knowledge of this band until our research team added them to the catalog. 

So, that means that whenever I see their name pop up on my to-listen list I dread it and try to push it off as long as I can. 

And then, occasionally I am greeted by these beautiful words on the YouTube link: “(Missing 4 tracks) and I actually feel…lighter. 

You know that feeling when you get a really good night’s sleep and are ready to take on the day? I feel the exact opposite when I start a Legendary Pink Dots record. But those three words…that’s like getting the right target on your Sleep Number Bed for the first time. That’s 7+ hours of uninterrupted (even to go to the bathroom) sleep and waking to no alarm in a room with blackout curtains. 

Because those 8.5 lost minutes…out of a 60+ minute calliope of nightmare music for a carnival that makes Escape From Tomorrow seem like a David Lean epic…are a gift to me. 

Except that…those missing songs are all weaved into the other tracks so…ugh. 

I do not like The Legendary Pink Dots.

Even when they seem remotely interesting like on “Black Highway” and “Defeated” the vocals completely ruin everything. 

From Wikipedia: “The first edition was released by Mirrordot and simply limited to ten copies, all with different covers. Initial releases on the Jarmusic label were released in 1989 (limited to 89 copies with two different covers), 1990 (limited to 100 copies, also with a different cover), and 1995 (limited to 250 numbered copies, yet again with a different cover).”

Sadly, one of those copies was uploaded to YouTube. 

Stick to xex. 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBktFsJrRUw&list=PLlvn8uktX5LsJBPw3BYlT_y_IGbmf-BXf  (Missing 4 tracks - It Rots Your Liver, Game, O(ri)ffice and Only Dreaming)

The 1986 Listening Post - The Legendary Pink Dots - Jewel on an Island

The Legendary Pink Dots - Jewel on an Island

#270/1395

1986 Housekeeping

The Legendary Pink Dots

Jewel On An Island

Genre: Goth Pink Floydwerk

1.75 out of 5

I am still unsure of why this band continues. They want to be gothy but they never get there enough for me. They want to be experimental electronica but they shy away from jumping all the way into that as well. 

They *sound* important but they never seem to get there, either. So I don’t know who this is for or why one would listen to it. 

FYI, they have an additional 32 records after this one. 

How has there not been a documentary about these guys?

https://music.apple.com/us/album/island-of-jewels/78372913

The 1985 Listening Post - The Legendary Pink Dots - Prayer for Aradia

The Legendary Pink Dots - Prayer for Aradia

#427/1062

1985 Housekeeping

The Legendary Pink Dots

Prayer for Aradia

Genre: Experimental

2 out of 5

Oh, Dots…

Here: Take Jean Michel Jarre, force him to watch everything David Lynch has ever done (sans Straight Story) and composed music immediately after you might get close. 

It’s been no secret that I don’t care for these guys. This one didn’t help. 

If you choose to listen to this as I did, the way it was originally released, as a cassette offering that moved about 1000 units, it’s just the first two 12+ minute tracks, which are comprised of a a series of ideas and notions strung together in a Pink Dot fever dream. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/3GFU7au6YQZZQkSs1Sj7XL?si=5G64-ILvTvKxelfAPZWVJA

The 1985 Listening Post - The Legendary Pink Dots - Asylum

The Legendary Pink Dots - Asylum

#31

1985 Housekeeping

The Legendary Pink Dots

Asylum

Genre: Post-everything

2 out of 5

I got nothing. 

This is a double album by the band that brought us that obnoxiously semi-interesting album The Tower at the end of 84. Welp, here they are with…opera? Soundtrack to unmade movie? “Femme Mirage” sounds like it was written for a late 70s horror movie and then it turns into…a carousel New Wave track about a psychopath that could be included on…an 80s horror movie?

Side Two opens with what portends to be a neo-classical instrumental but devolves into standard sub-par no wave that we’ve heard from them before. And then devolves into random soundscapes that ends with a riff from “The Jets Song” from West Side Story. Why? I don’t know. I just want it to end...and it does with…classical meets prog meets…Disco? What?

The rest of it is just indulgent people with a lot of studio time who couldn’t even find a way to be as inventive as Pink Floyd or Spirit. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/asylum/78372783

The 1984 Listening Post - The Legendary Pink Dots - The Tower

The Legendary Pink Dots - The Tower

#353
1984 Housekeeping
The Legendary Pink Dots
The Tower
2.25 out of 5

So...is this a post-apocalyptic techno concept album?
Do I have to do more reading?
If Kraftwerk or Pink Floyd (I know, but the album vacillates between those sounds) were to make a soundtrack to a horror carnival video game. It might sound like this. (When it’s not ripping off John Barry’s The Elephant Man soundtrack “Tower 2”, that is).
I listened to the rest of it as I was trying to make my connection from one flight to another and, fully half of it went by as I made my across Minneapolis's airport.
I think that's a good thing. So, hence the extra .25.
;)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-tower/156135828