Down In the City of Heartbreak and Needles Volume 2

Like its similarly titled predecessor a collection of unreleased songs and rarities from out-of-print efforts, Down in the City of Heartbreak and Needles provides a handy peek at some of the dustier corners in Ka-Spel's solo career. The tracks are more or less split between 1984 and 1993 releases, with three otherwise unavailable songs lacking an exact recording date. All have the usual mix of defiantly strange, psychedelic-inspired whimsy crossed with restrained violence that has made Ka-Spel's work both in and out of the Legendary Pink Dots so weirdly compelling. A few collaborators assist, notably Pink Dots partner the Silver Man, helping Ka-Spel in bringing his strange, wonderful visions to life. The first volume having collected much of his first solo album Dance China Doll, this compilation offers up four more tracks from it, highlights including the unsettingly wistful "Lady Sunshine" and "Paradise Then." "Even Now," the other 1984-era number, is simply wonderful, Ka-Spel in a captivating near-duet with Lilly Ak over a keyboard/beat combination that perfectly balances darkness with a sweet, fragile melody. Both sides of a limited-edition single, "Inferno" and "Illusion," take a bow; the former starts off in the shadows before letting what sounds like a slightly off-key harpsichord emerge from the murk, setting the rhythm for Ka-Spel's medieval sounding effort before shearing off into drone/sample experiments. "Illusion" sounds like a further treated and distorted version of the same song, vocal snippets stretched through the murky mix. "The Man Who Never Was," also from a single, is comparatively much more focused, a Ka-Spel recitation over a combination of tolling bells, keyboard notes and whirring machinery. Of the otherwise unavailable songs, "A Crack in Melancholy Time" plays the slow slide to chaos card well, while "Number Nine Number Nine Number Nine Number Nine" isn't quite a "Revolution No. 9" homage — but it has its connections.