David Toop & Max Eastley – Doll Creature

The music on this CD is apparently based on a short story by David Toop about – you guessed it right – a doll creature. The story is a kind of bizarre tale of a sexless creature of which I do not know what to tell, except that it is kind of a sad freak. I never liked dolls very much, in fact they always used to scare me (just as clowns and old ladies with too much make-up did).

The music on this CD kind of reflects my uncomfortable feelings with a concept such as a doll-creature. Toop and Eastley create a kind of unnerving soundscape using guitars, percussion, flutes, self-built instruments, recorded sounds of anything you might think of such as book pages, sculptures, purple ray vitalators (whatever those are) etc. Of course there is the usual computer manipulation and the result of all these sounds and treatments is a murky soundscape that is vague in most senses of the word ?vague?. This might be interpreted as ?bad?, but that is certainly not what I mean. I really mean vague, unclear, undefined. The music fits the short story very well, in that it creates the same kinds of feelings I have with it.

This CD will certainly appeal to those familiar with Toop?s previous releases although the spoken word element is lacking. Recommended for those into Scanner, David Shea or the more obscure Sub Rosa releases such as Lilith and Jardin d?usure.

artist: David Toop & Max Eastley
label: Bip-Hop
details: [bleep 25]