Pardon me as I've been taking a short break from this evolving documentary; I've got a long way to go and need to make sure not to burn out.
This next entry is an absolute beast to conquer... maybe even a basilisk! This is because my ongoing examination of the music of the Legendary Pink Dots has led us to one of the cornerstones of the band's earliest years; it is essentially the end-all, be-all of their cassette efforts and one of the band's most treasured accomplishments. I can't describe it any better than Edward Ka-Spel does here, from the liner notes of the 1998 CD edition:
"Unlike Chemical Playschool 1+2 which was a simple 'best of' the first year of The Legendary Pink Dots, Volumes 3 and 4 was a special, utterly private project. It first saw the light of day as a double C90 cassette project on The Dots' own Mirrordot label. Released in 1983, the idea was to make just 83 copies available through the mail each with hand-made covers. The demand surprised the band, some people ordered 5 or 10 copies at once, and in typical Dots' fashion they simply lost count of how many were made at one point. It is estimated that around 110 were created from this initial edition. Since then the double cassette has been re-issued 4 times, always on cassette-only and licensed to both Staalplaat and Germany's Jarmusic. However, it's a few years since this work was generally available and The Dots' felt it was high time to reissue it on CD. Both volumes have been abridged a little to fit the music into the digital format and some work went in to making the sound clearer. Perhaps it's lo-fi, but it was recorded with loving care on very primitive equipment. In fact The Pink Dots themselves considered CP3/4 to be the pinnacle of their creations for around 5 years. We still feel very close to it now... light a candle when you listen to it."
Chemical Playschool Volumes 3 & 4
BLUEPRINT FOR THE TOWER
THE APOCALYPSE DISCO
For me, this release represents a landmark transition in the band's development and it crosses that threshold between (a) the somewhat amateurish band that produced an overwhelming amount of varied material, not all of it good, just to see what would stick, and (b) a fully formed band that knew what they wanted to do, with a challenging edge and a gift for nuance and restraint. Beginning in 1984, the Dots would grow up. The progressive and avant-garde elements of their music would take a major step forward. The albums would become of greater interest to an international audience and fans of dark, experimental music. The
"industrial" aspect to their sound would come to the fore. After all, by 1984 the band was only about four years away from having their LPs available in suburban American malls, and that momentum was about to begin. But first, there is Chemical Playschool Volumes 3 & 4, the Dots' own love letter to their newly honed sound and a brilliant representation of how refined and sophisticated they had become in just a few short years.
Reviewing the artistic achievement of this release in chronology before the next two official Dots LPs is going to prove difficult, as much of what makes those releases work is first assembled here, but for the sake of this blog I will just have to treat each of these releases with a fresh ear as if I haven't come to them with a greater knowledge already. My goal is to put each release in the context of what came immediately before, not what immediately follows, and I apologize for occasionally neglecting this approach.
A LOT MORE TO COME...
Chemical Playschool Volumes 3 & 4 CD tray card (above) and discs (below)
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