The Legendary Pink Dots — Alchemical Playschool
Alchemical Playschool is one of the more ltd albums in The Legendary Pink Dots discography which was released first in a pressing of 400 in soapstone box in 2006, then in Double 10” Lp version ltd to 250 copies in 2007. Now it comes in a less ltd pressing of 2000 in a rather nice soft touch full colour mini gatefold with a glossy 8 page booklet of pictures of Indians colour and eastern exoticness. The albums four tracks and around 40 minute worth of playing time is a pretty constantly shifting, exotic and often quirky mixture of: Indian chatter, vocalising and hum. Spiritual eastern drone matter, sitar and Indian stringed twang, synth purr ‘n’ ebb and all manner of eastern tinged and psychedelic texturing. With the odd dab of Edward Ka-Spel distinctive and nasally spoken and cryptic texts here and there too. Really it works best as one long evolving and shifting soundscape that goes from been hectic, to soothing to strange and unhinged.
Certainly of interest of course to those who have enjoyed the works of both The Legendary Pink Dots/ Edward Ka-Spel in the past. But also of interest to those who enjoy general heady and shifting mixtures of field recordings and psychedelic matter.