The Concrete Twin [CD]

Mick Karn sadly has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Oddly for someone with such a huge devoted fanbase the world over, he isnt as financially secure as some of his former bandmates.
Maybe his more "cult" appeal , as opposed to the works of DS has affected his earning potential over the years.
I have all his solo albums along with the JBK stuff and it all has merit.
This is his strongest work in years.
Haunting, beautiful and superbly produced.
Of course, being Karn it majors on soundscape and rhythm , rather than song structure and melody.
Thats my only criticism of his solo work.
His strength is in his sense of rhythm, and I always felt this was most obvious when paired with a good songwriter.
See recent collaborations on Stefano Pannuzi`s first album as a good example of this.
Nonetheless, this is a superb album.
One for late at night , with a glass of something special.

If you ever were going to buy a MK album now is the time.
The bloke could do with the support.
While you are at it, buy the whole back catalogue on Amazon, along with the JBK albums.
Midge Ure is trying to organise a benefit gig for Mick.
It remains to be seen if David Sylvian is prepared to bury the hatchet with a guy who was responsible for a large measure of "that" sound on Japan`s albums and the Rain Tree Crow album.
I do home he magnanamous enough to do so.

I've been a fan of this guy since I was 16 in 1989. My first bass guitar was a fretless one because of him. So what can I say about "The Concrete Twin"? After listening to it for about a month, I can tell you I will be listening to this for years to come. Just like all his previous stuff. But I'm a fan and a bass player, and I can play fretless too so it's hard for me not to like it. However this isn't a bass centric record, no. I would define this more as a soundscapes for altered conscience states kind of thing. Mick lays down his strange bass lines but also builds awesome environments for us to let go of the past day's drudgeries and daydream a little.
If you are musically open minded and want to hear something fresh give it a try, and the previous five albums as well...

This album is a remarkable piece of craftsmanship with incredible presence and vibrant etherial tones...

Overall this music is atmospheric, moody, evocative, thoughtfully and spontaneously sculpted and in control of it's own destiny and despite references to surrealism it isn't by any means random or confusing. The underlying form of these pieces are pretty solidly set in place in the rhythms of the interlocking bass and drums which complement each other in a fractious and sometimes frictious manner allowing a lot of tension and release in carefully measured doses.

Mick Karn's style of bass playing and his music are almost uncategorisingly and uncompromisingly unique. In fact I think the word unique doesn't really say anything enlightening and isn't original enough a word to describe The Concrete Twin.
I write with a certain sense of reverence having absorbed a lot of Mick's music since the pioneering days of the chart topping group Japan. His idiosynchratic bass playing style has been (inappropriately in my humble opinion) aligned with Jaco Pastorius. Granted they both are reknowned for playing fretless basses and each have a trademark style that is instantly recognisable. Thereafter the comparison ends for me. Jaco created a commercial bass sound that has since been plageorised to the point of oblivion and used on countless recordings including radio jingles. If you go into any bass guitar shop in London on a busy day you are likely to encounter another parrot fashion Jaco replica. Mick's sound however is so unusual and personalised that anyone attempting to mimic his twitchy hand moves would probably get a citizen's arrest firstly for identity theft and secondly for playing outside of convension's tried and tested tramlines (or fretlines). Although the unmistakable sound of his fretless Wal bass have graced many a green eyed rhythm section perhaps more subtley paying homage to Mr Karn's mutli-linguistical bass tones for a great many years.

Mick never fails to play the unexpected (this recording is no exception) and to some uneducated in the ways of MK, the 'wrong' notes but like Picasso's cubist paintings there is always an underlying structure in his creations (which is somewhat disguised on occasion), the form and boundaries of which are being pulled about, played with, defragmented and rearranged before being presented back to you inside out and then familiarised again. Are there any set rules in music? If so Mick ignores most of them and follows his own. I guess you could say that his music is surreal but there again that is another limiting category.

For those not in the know MK, plays a variety of instruments apart from bass, including saxophone, bassoon, keyboards, dida and ocarina which all add a very interesting cultural flavour to these compositions. Tracks of note for me are Presence which is for me like a meditation. It feels to me like observing the cyclic nature of thoughts rising and falling, each momentarily vying for attention... TV WOO with it's stabbing brass and the intricately pulsing CONFABULATION with some very complex and funky Karnisms. Some delicate brush drumming from Pete Lockett with a swing lilt in the playful perhaps sarcastic YES IVE BEEN TO FRANCE along with some conversational bass playing and organ suggestive of Notre Dame with an ambient cascade of harmonics on guitar and bass. The bass is almost like a story being recounted by the voice of a Wal being. Though you don't understand the actual words you kind of understand something of it's experience (you hope). Also worthy of note the tight delicate expressive drumming with some vibrant hi-hat work on TENDER POISON...

Once again Mick has crafted an album of pioneering intensity and diverse expression.