The next entry draws even more upon the earliest history of the band. Formed sometime in 1980, we know they started out with the moniker One Day... and changed their name to the Legendary Pink Dots by September. We also know that some of the earliest Dots songs ("Voices," "Soma Bath," "Phallus Dei") carried over from frontman Edward Ka-Spel's teenage band, Vizzyen Laedyr. And finally we know that band's first cassette release was called Only Dreaming. At the same time, however, apparently the band also developed a sister cassette release that was less song-oriented, instead offering up an hour of trippy electronic noise pieces. While this cassette never saw the light of day in its original incarnation, remnants do exist. In fact, one of them shares its name: "The Chemical Playschool" (originally from Only Dreaming and now found on Ancient Daze).
The concept of Chemical Playschool quickly became something else entirely. From as early as 1981, the Dots had an extreme wealth of material, and rumor has it that they made an early vow to release everything they ever recorded. Thus, over their entire 30 year career, they have edited outtakes and alternate versions of recordings together into new packages, and have labeled these releases Chemical Playschool. These compilation releases ultimately—and perhaps ironically—have become absolutely essential entries in the Dots' canon and the mere invocation of the two words together will now fill your average Dots fan with excitement and enthusiasm over what the band has uncovered and/or resurrected.
As of early 2015, there are now 18 volumes in the series, counting 1989's triple-LP retrospective The Legendary Pink Box as volumes 5 through 7 (as it had a working title of Chemical Playschool: The Box in promotional pieces from 1988) and 2001's Synesthesia as volume 14. (While there is no volume 17 nominally, do note that there are two volume 16s packaged together with volume 18.)
Chemical Playschool Volumes 1 & 2
As with Only Dreaming, 1981's first entry in this series was only available on cassette directly from the band and severely limited, with a wider release finally occurring in the late '80s. The Dots themselves have always belittled this release somewhat, with Edward Ka-Spel describing it as "a simple best-of the first year of the Legendary Pink Dots." In fact, this is true, duplicating much of the material from Only Dreaming and adding numerous tracks that would appear on other releases of the time. Therefore, it's no real surprise that Chemical Playschool Volumes 1 & 2 never received an official CD release; in fact, it was relegated to its past incarnation as a set of two 90-minute cassettes until July 2013 when it finally appeared digitally intact for the very first time on the Legendary Pink Dots' Bandcamp site.
Examples of early Chemical Playschool cassettes (above) and insert (below)
* These 16 tracks appear on Chemical Playschool Edition 2 (below).
** These 5 tracks appear on Ancient Daze.
*** These 9 tracks appear on Kleine Krieg.
Some of these tracks have seen the light of day on other archive releases the band has put out, such as the eight that appear on 1996's Prayer for Aradia. The variations in track names noted above are due to the original names often being forgotten or confused between the time of the initial release in 1981 and the later releases that came out in 1988/89.
The one thing I can say about the original cassettes is that they are rather top heavy. The Dots at this point must have noticed that songs like "Defeated," "Voices," and "Black Highway" would go down in history as their earliest classics and thus they proudly sit at the top of the play order. In fact, it's not until the instrumental "Stand Firm, Damien" or the experimental "Peace Krime" tracks that any of this feels like filler; there are seven or eight solid songs in a row. The release as a whole contains early versions of eight of the nine tracks that would eventually appear on the band's debut LP.
[Discography footnote: Dots on the Eyes was another 1981 cassette release by the Dots that I have chosen not to discuss here because it was simply a 30-minute collection of eight tracks, all but one of which would appear on Chemical Playschool Volumes 1 & 2. The tracks are: "Onward," "Peace Krime #2," "Dolls' House," "Voices," "Stars on Sunday," "The Wedding," "Professional," and "March." The last track is a bleepy, uh, march, with vocoder that would eventually see re-release on 2004's archive CD Crushed Mementos.]
Chemical Playschool Edition 2
To make matters even more complicated, highlights of Chemical Playschool Volumes 1 & 2 were combined onto one cassette with additional outtakes in 1982 under the name Chemical Playschool Edition 2. Only a handful of copies of this cassette existed, but it was released in its entirety on vinyl as part of the 5-LP box set The Legendary Pink Dots from Vinyl-on-Demand in 2007.
[Attention Discography Geeks! This release was particularly well thought out, because none of these tracks overlap with the tracks that are on Ancient Daze, making it an ideal addition to a growing vinyl collection. "Voices" does appear on both releases, but this one is a later recording. "Break Day #2" is not actually the song "Break Day", but a devolved excerpt. In addition, this has "Frosty" and "Before the End", both of which go back to the original Only Dreaming cassette but did not appear on Ancient Daze.]
Chemical Playschool Edition 2 doesn't really work as an album in its own right, but I don't think any of these early collections are supposed to do anything but showcase the breadth of what the Dots were doing in their early years while filling in the gaps for fans and collectors. In its favor, this one has new remastering and is probably the best these tracks will ever sound. The sequencing can be jarring at times but otherwise offers some nice stretches of entertaining musicianship.
Kicking off the proceedings with "Trance" (unique to this release) is a very strange decision, as the track is five minutes of vocoded speech with a gentle lulling synth line behind it but not much of a song. The piece lives up to its name, but it is impossible to tell what is being said as the vocoding is so strong that the words primarily buzz together. A nice rubbery bass synth enters halfway through, giving the track a cartoonish boingy quality as if it is threatening to stretch apart. It is evident by this piece that the Dots were learning to experiment with construction and subtlety, rather than just throwing a bunch of noises together as they layered one racket on top of another.
The Dots have a reputation for writing unsophisticated synth waltzes in their early days and though we haven't seen much of that yet, "Professional" is perhaps the first example. While some bands default to a generic 4/4 beat, the Dots begin to default to a 3/4 beat here, which gives their sound a much more stereotypically classical European feel. "Professional" is kind of sluggish and still contains some manic keyboard work that agitates rather than enhances the song. The immediate switch to the upbeat super-pop of "Frosty" is jarring, but the song is not unwelcome and it demonstrates Ka-Spel's flair for the macabre underneath a happy facade. Again showcasing the band format, the song includes a pretty backing vocal by April Iliffe, plus evidence of real drums, bass, and even tambourine in the mix. The last time I saw the Dots in concert was 2002, and at a point later in the show when the band seemed to be on the verge of taking requests, someone shouted out, "Frosty!" Ka-Spel's expression was sheer disdain, but the audience broke out into laughter, indicating how everyone recognized the ridiculousness of it.
The encore presentation of "Voices" makes a strong follow up. At this point, the song is their most fully developed, and this re-recording sticks to the structure of the first. The vocal is a bit lower and less manic but otherwise there aren't obvious differences. The instrumental coda that closes the song is actually quite lovely, one of the first times where the band truly gets it right. If the modern indie band Of Montreal were to write a song about witchcraft, it might sound like this. The slight "Donna's Blitzed Again" is an extended instrumental, layers of keyboard washes and a repetitive blip that recalls the earlier experiments from Only Dreaming yet is more languid and considered. There is definitely a drunkenness to it.
"The Wedding" is surprising. Clearly written on a piano, the song is a conventional ballad with Edward singing his heart out. The lyrics are still a little too written rather than felt, but it's a change of pace that shows how willing to perform in different styles the band were when they started. As if to prove my point, next up is "Sensory Deprivation," literally a boogie with funk stylings including wah-wah guitar and double-tracked vocals, plus a series of calls to "Get down!" in the lyrics. The retreat to bleepy amateurishness is disappointing after all that, but "Dying for the Emperor" is a catchy song with a slight East Asian feel about... playing Space Invaders? ("Gotta destroy those aliens, gotta destroy the aliens, it's painful when he's doing well but they keep coming back.") Remember, this was 1981. The song slows down into a vocoded funereal bit that must indicate the game is over, and is followed by two experimental pieces. "Amphitheatre Stomp" follows the chord progression of "Amphitheatre" but is lacking a vocal and has choppy effects added; "War Krime" is a short blast of Ka-Spel lamenting about being burned at the stake.
Opening up the second record, "Peace Krime #1" is an interesting montage of British citizens talking to journalists about the royal family. Amusingly, one woman suggests that Elizabeth should retire and let Charles take over; of course, 30 years have passed and this still hasn't changed. The track closes with Margaret Thatcher's famous declaration that IRA convicts undergoing a hunger strike must continue to suffer because the men committed a crime, and "Crime is crime is crime; it is not political." The ballad "Brighter Now" follows, and it is a full band performance where everyone is playing a little too much, but the melody itself has a slight medieval feel that the Dots would use to better effect later in their career. The guitar-based song "City Ghosts" is almost rock, a straight up hippie number complete with references to paganry and magic mushrooms. "Who? Me!" is a noise piece based on an extended dialogue sample, which isn't particularly interesting, interspersed with shards of synthesizer. "Temper Temper" is the kind of cloying pop song that benefits from amateurish performance and lo-fi production; it would be unbearable if it actually sounded like anything other than a pisstake. It also includes a racist verse about Mexicans who get angry when you mash their sombreros and jumping beans, but it's cartoonish enough not to be altogether offensive.
The final stretch includes three of the band's best early pop experiments and some instrumental filler that is unique to this release. "Strolling Along Another Promenade" is an instrumental keyboard piece with an Eastern European folk feel. "Misfortunes" is another surprisingly conventional pop ballad, though this one has more overt and poppy melodies than any thus far. It would be an ideal track for the Dots to resurrect three decades later. "Before the End" is the band's quintessential early synth waltz, with an easy arrangement, a memorable melody, and such cute lines as, "Before the end, in a crowded store, Miss Demeanor broke the law." The Russian (?) titled "MPNMEP CTPAHA" is another attempt at a modern rock song that only sabotages itself halfway through when Ka-Spel repeats a bratty "Nyet!" one too many times. It ends with hypnotic pitch-shifted chanting. "It's Biological" is a textured and sculpted bleepy track unique to this release, but it is obviously an outtake. Likewise with "Brighter Now #2," an instrumental version of the messy ballad that benefits from a more minimal approach.
After this point, the Legendary Pink Dots began sculpting their collections into bonafide thematic works, so hopefully my analysis will be less about running through track descriptions and more about overall artistic accomplishment. The haphazard placement of all these early tracks really is rather exhausting and has always been one of the most overwhelming aspects of LPD fandom.
<----- GO BACKWARD to Ancient Daze
[An aside for those of you obsessing over discography details: Ancient Daze begins with the entirety of Side B of Only Dreaming, minus one song, and then continues with Side A, minus four others. Four additional tracks from the era were added to the end of Ancient Daze's first incarnation in 1997, and the album gained three more when it was remastered and professionally released on standard CD by Beta-lactam Ring Records in 2006. Of the songs from Only Dreaming left off this release, one of each appears on the three archive compilations released on CD in 1996/97 and two have only been released in alternate versions. These songs will undoubtedly be called out in the entries for these other compilations and linked back to here, when I get to them, if I get to them.]
