It's almost embarrassing how much material the Legendary Pink Dots recorded in their early years. Released back to back in 1982, the next two cassettes were both relatively short showcases of songs that were not necessarily new—the quality of the recordings and the general sound on both tapes is about the same as that of Premonition or at times even Chemical Playschool Volumes 1 & 2—but none of the tracks had appeared on previous cassettes except for one ("Ideal Home"), so the end result is over an hour of all-new material. Both tapes demonstrated a bit of evolution in the way the tracks flowed together, and in fact, in the digital realm no effort has ever been made to index the individual songs; the entire duration of each side of each tape makes up a single file. Obviously the Dots are proud of the flow in the way these tracks were mixed for cassette, and thus this aspect is well-preserved for the digital format.
While other early Dots cassettes feel stuffed with rehearsals for tracks that would eventually find better homes in more developed versions, these play like an alternate history of the band, presenting many obscure-but-classic songs and experiments in a palatable format with other material of the exact same ilk, most of which would start and stop with these exact recordings. Nothing feels particularly out of place nor do any pieces detract from the overall sound or mood, which is livelier and slightly edgier than that of Premonition.
The individual tapes, Atomic Roses and Apparition, are now available separately as digital files on the Legendary Pink Dots' Bandcamp site. The former has also been released on vinyl for the first time, while the latter was given an additional digital remastering treatment due to speed inaccuracy the first time around. But as the two albums have historically been coupled together for about a twenty-year span, they are being kept here together on the Legendary Pink Blog.
Atomic Roses
The Atomic Roses program comes first, and despite a weak beginning it's probably the stronger part of the collection. "Of All the Girls..." is strictly introductory material, a bunch of dissonant Casio chords played on top of one another under samples of classic Hollywood movie dialogue. Nothing to see here. "What's Next?" is a slight and simple song with a little bit of melody in the music but none in the vocals. "Playschool," despite the title's use on earlier tapes, is a spoken vocoded piece that appears in longer form as "Trance" on Chemical Playschool Edition 2. It also lacks melody, which is excusable for tracks that are interesting in other ways; thus far none of these have managed such a balance. "Sex" raises the bar several notches, however. The song is built upon a faster arrangement of "Violence," the plodding opener to Ancient Daze (get the connection?), but features a more electro sound and a slightly more neurotic performance from Edward Ka-Spel. And at a mere three minutes, it still manages to sport an industrial midsection that gives it surprising musical heft. "Closet Kings" follows immediately, and it's easily one of the best tracks here. A brilliantly performed lyric about possibly gay men finding better satisfaction in the safety of their homes rather than cruising the anonymity of the nightclubs is propped up by a staccato piece with an exotic tone and a strange undercurrent of "hare krishna" vocoders. It's no "Hanging Gardens," but it solidly entertains. Continuing the winning streak, "Spiritus" opens with parts of "Apocalypse Then" (from Brighter Now) played backwards but eventually gives way to whooshing wind effects underneath a lively and lengthy demonstration of synthesized piccolo. The end result is slightly medieval, thoroughly New Age, and unlike all the band's other efforts.The mighty, memorable "Hauptbahnhof" leads into the second part and reads like a journal entry, logging a series of observances upon the crazy life at a train station. Meanwhile, a naïve synth line climbs up and down the scale on top of washes of keyboard. The best Dots tracks either juxtapose great lyrics with surprising musical choices or perfectly match the vocals with the other instrumental happenings to bring about something that transcends its sonic limitations; this is an example of the latter. Following this track with a thoughtful instrumental piece would have been a nice way to boost its power. Instead, the next track revives the horrid chirping mania of the first version of "Louder After 6," from Ancient Daze, with new lyrics. "The Wrong Impedence," indeed! At least here the chirping dies out occasionally to focus on the scraping rhythm underneath, which almost has a cool ambience to it, and the deeper sections of the track again manage industrial undertones. "Passing Thought" is just that, a snatch of angsty poetry reading by one Sally Graves. I've now almost said more about the track than her poem does. "Atomic Roses" was the title track of the original cassette for a reason: ambition. It's a six-minute exercise of slow-burning electronic psychedelia split into two parts and is nearly impressionist in its approach but not entirely successful. The song it cradles in its center, "Ideal Home," is a warm and charming guitar-based pop song that recalls the late '60s hippie songwriting of David Bowie. It immediately qualifies itself to be of the utmost early Dots caliber, akin to tracks like "Voices" and "Defeated," and strangely it anticipates the sound of the Dots' upcoming second LP more than the others featured here.
Apparition
Moving on to the Apparition portion of the program, the good stuff just keeps on coming! "God Speed" kicks off with the sounds of someone plunking quarters into an arcade game and a starting-gate fanfare that should sound familiar to 8-bit gamers. This erupts into a drum machine rhythm that recalls the new wave pop scene that was actually happening at this time, proving that the Dots weren't entirely oblivious to it. The melody is anemic but its close proximity to actual dance music and the collage of white noise into which it eventually breaks down adequately make up for its weaknesses. "Pay to Be Alone" is kind of weird and doomy, but its uncanny and inadvertent representation of what both the Dots' and Ka-Spel's solo material would sound like in ten years makes it ahead of its time and absolutely worth hearing. "Spontaneous Human Combustion" is nowhere near as explosive as it sounds; simple crowd sounds give way to bubbly electronics in an interstitial snippet that contains no percussive elements whatsoever. Much scarier is "The Blessing," an extended analogy between an unwanted sexual experience and, well, a blessing. ("Don't worry, dear, he likes you, it's the way he shows affection, don't you think those rolling eyes are cute?") This is mostly vocals with some minimal synth backing until the narrative of the song is overcome by a sort of incoherent ambience that could easily represent the sound of someone mentally checking out. It's chilling. "I'm in the Drill" thankfully doesn't raise the energy level too much; it melds a stoned '70s rock feel with elements of Russian dance, including what might be the first true appearance of violin on a Dots record, and ties it all up with a jazzy outro. The schizophrenic aspects of the song are a testament to the band's disparate influences."Powder Crowd" launches the final stretch with a blast of energy, including a great live drum track that is too low in the mix and an ascending hook that brings the drama. "Strychnene Chaser" offers creepy gray fields of garbled vocals and calls to mind the early gothic soundscrapes of Current 93. A more typically Dotsian string snippet finishes it off. "Alive!" and "Believe!" may be the same song: the former is radically pitch-shifted into chipmunk levels so that the high notes of the chorus reach comically manic levels, while the latter is an unspectacular band track that simply sounds undeveloped and doesn't work. The novelty carries on... "The Plague" begins with a self-described "funky" bassline and could be somewhat danceable in another form but here the performance is so loose and unkempt that it barely masks the insanity around the edges. Ka-Spel's voice at times recalls Genesis P-Orridge's great unbridled passion in Throbbing Gristle's "Subhuman." Finally, the program concludes with "Premonition 3," a shorter installment in the series of numbered mood pieces. This one shares a similarly dubby and percussive track as its starting point, possibly played back at an altered speed, but it's too short to actually go anywhere.
[Discography note: These two tapes were first coupled together as part of the ambitious Traumstadt cassette retrospective series in 1988/89. At this time the band were enjoying newfound popularity and their tenth anniversary was right around the corner. The first in the series contained the full contents of the two earlier cassettes, one on each side, with a couple of extra archival tracks thrown in to pad out the shorter Apparition. Oddly enough, this pairing was preserved when released on CD in 2003 (only with different bonus material). The artwork for the Traumstadt 1 cassette was essentially the same artwork that appears on the CD, reworked to fit the new medium. None of the other four haphazardly compiled Traumstadt releases have been officially issued on CD, but much of their content did originally see the light of day in the digital format in various bits and pieces released between 1996 and 2003. Traumstadt 2 through Traumstadt 4 are all currently available via the Legendary Pink Dots' Bandcamp site.]
Traumstadt 1
Despite some minor annoyances, Traumstadt 1 is a fantastic release and well worth having. That being said, the mastering does leave a lot to be desired. "Sound enhancement" is credited to a Bernard, who did not do the overall excellent job that primary Dots engineer and technician Raymond Steeg did so successfully for Ancient Daze. The sound here is super clean and listenable but the spectrum is limited, demonstrating treble and midrange with almost no bottom end whatsoever. In fact, this is almost the exact opposite from Under Triple Moons, where some fidelity was deliberately traded for fuller bass and an attempt at a more organic sound. The end result is that these recordings sound harsher and more electronic than they probably were meant to be.
Traumstadt 1 back cover (above) and disc (below)
The last track on the CD is a bonus track rescued from a various artists compilation and doesn't belong here. The standard version of "No Bell No Prize" can be found on the 1997 double-CD archive release Stained Glass Soma Fountains, which contains several songs from the other Traumstadt releases as well.
Traumstadt 2
The second cassette in the Traumstadt series, from 1988, was primarily a selection of tracks that had been previously licensed to various artists compilation albums as well as unreleased versions and outtakes. 13 of its 18 tracks were officially released on CD in 1996 and 1997, primarily on Under Triple Moons and Stained Glass Soma Fountains.
Traumstadt 3
The third cassette in the series, also from 1988, was a selection of live tracks recorded between 1985 and 1988 in various European cities. These have not been released on CD.
Traumstadt 4
Unlike other cassettes in the series, the fourth entry contained two side-long tracks, both of which were unreleased elsewhere. They have since been released on separate CD compilations, namely Stained Glass Soma Fountains and Crushed Mementos.
Traumstadt 5
The last cassette in the series was released in 1989. LIke Traumstadt 2, it contained tracks primarily salvaged from various artist comps and other outtakes. 8 of its 13 tracks were officially released on CD in 1996 and 1997, primarily on Stained Glass Soma Fountains and Prayer for Aradia.
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