PERFECT BEINGS

This beautiful album took me completely by surprise. It's not often you're confronted with such an odd amalgam of familiar elements, that, together, transcend every attempt at classification. Well, put this one down for "unclassifiable". Never heard anything like it, and, again, heard it many times before. A Jungian unconscious collectivity. According to the credits, this album is loosely based on/inspired by TJ&TOSC, a novel by Suhail Rafidi (check out his website), telling a story against the background of an Orwellian post-apocalyptic cyberworld. Quote: "Some people say that he end of the world is nigh. Consider instead, for a moment, that the world already ended. And today is what remains. A new world, unfamiliar, emerging from the detritus of the old." Just listen to the lyrics, and it will start to make perfect sense. The PA classification is "crossover prog", but you certainly don't need to be a die-hard proggy to love this album. Even my wife turned her head when i put the record on, and asked "Who's this?". That's her way of saying she likes it (and she certainly doesn't like prog ;-) It all starts off with a Beatlesque/ELOesque new-wavy ditty called "Canyon Hill", very likable, getting your attention, waiting for whatever will be next ... sliding into the equally new-wavy "Helicopter", I guess the title song of the album. Ending in the lovely lyrics: "perfect beings, immaculate ... good will recruited you, why do you worry?". Grappling for comparisons, the next one, "Bees And Wasps" gave me a clue. I would have sworn that's Barry Adamson (Magazine) playing the bass. This one's certainly one of my favorites, ending in proggy harmonies ... seamlessly crossing over into the folky "Walkabout", soothing, hard not to like, until there's this transition into very odd drum rolling. Then it gets extremely "what the hell is this?", have to listen to it again. The only other comparison I would dare to make is Radiohead, impression-wise, remembering how OK Computer took me by the same surprise. "Removal Of Identity Chip" certainly is another point in case of Thom Yorkian phrasing. Fifteen, fifteen. Lovely Luley guitar playing. This is really impressive stuff! "Program Kid" starts off again like a Beatles' one, although I feel an affinity with Sparklehorse, halfway through getting into some mean rocky stuff, hahahaha (evil laughing). Did I already say I love the voice?! Now I did! Listen to the love song for Appalachia called "Remnants Of Shields" with all jangly guitar strumming. Opening to the far-out, far-away "Fictions", glissando's and what have you. "Primary Colors" starts with an interesting play on rhythm between drums, piano and voice. Gives me an eighties feel (in a good sense). How do you end a perfect album? With a perfect song, I guess. "One Of Your Kind" starts like an easy soft-jazzy interplay ending in a Spanish mood, until, at the 3-and-a-half minute mark, there's an abrupt transition, and I mean really abrupt. Synths washing all over the place. I'm not sure yet, but it feels like a summing up of the whole album (lyrically and musically). Leaving you in bewilderment "what happened here?". Let's play it again. That's what I have been doing anyway since the CD arrived, act and react and react act act and react. Da capo ad infinitum. I know you have to use 5 stars scores sparingly. But really, a perfect album deserves a perfect score. Perfectly composed, perfectly played, perfectly disturbing, perfectly awkward, perfectly beautiful. "Oh brave new world, that has such perfect beings in it".