Search - Genesis P-Orridge, Splinter Test :: Thee Fractured Garden

Engrossing and enlightening.

Rob O | AR United States | 09/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's a shame that the musical category "psychedlic" is so crassly overpacked with tripe like Strawberry Alarm Clock, Iron Butterfly or whatever Austin Powers 60's-flavored K-tel classic you care to name. THIS album is what, to me, the category of psychedelic music really promises--the music honestly creates an internal mood and environment for reflection, thought, or simply unbridled creativity.



I have a small collection of Genesis P-Orridge discs (which probably isn't destined to grow much bigger, with his albums seeming to go out of print by the day) and this one is the best I've heard so far. The subtitle of this album is "Discourses ov Innocence Devoured," and really it's sort of a vague spoken word project by P-Orridge. Yet, unlike the monolithic "Hollow Cost" disc, the focus is more evenly mixed between the music and the spoken word elements. On "A Hollow Cost" the music felt like more decorative to Gen's spoken word piece on it (which doesn't make "A Hollow Cost" a bad disc by far--it's still well worth the investment), here it strikes a good balance between house, industrial and ambient styles, and is just as gratifying as a casual listen as with intent, focused analysis.



P-Orridge really has a remarkably spiritual feel on this album, which helps to transcend the album to much more than the sum of it's parts. Probably the only thing I've heard that's much like it is Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's amazing album Ecstasy. Well worth grabbing before all the copies evaporate off ov thee surface ov thee global biosphere."