SPIRO – Kaleidophonica (REAL WORLD CDRW188)

With this new album Spiro have moved their music to the next stage. Rather than beginning with traditional themes and taking them to strange places, their new compositions are all original but incorporate some traditional tunes. Having said that, the traditional tunes are so obscure that the layman would be hard put to name a single one although ‘Softly Robin’ clearly stands out as being different.

The result is fourteen new compositions with names seeming drawn from early episodes of The Twilight Zone (actually one is taken from Arthur C Clarke) which are closer to modern minimalist classical music than anything else – electronica without electronics if you will. The playing is immaculate and it has to be.

Kaleidophonica was recorded live in the studio with no overdubs so get something wrong and everybody has to start again. The precise repetition and building of patterns puts the band into Penguin Café Orchestra territory without the sparseness that characterised some of Simon Jeffes’ work.

Having enjoyed both Pole Star and Lightbox I initially found this album rather cold and it’s true that on stage Spiro never really learned the art of communication. This is a record to enjoy intellectually but it isn’t rock’n’roll.

Dai Jeffries

Artist Web link: www.spiromusic.com


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