Search - cEvin Key :: The Ghost of Each Room

Skinny Puppy redux

Shantell Powell | Kitchener, ON, Canada | 08/19/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Cevin Key's newest offering, The Ghost of Each Room is not easy listening. If you like to listen strictly to 4/4 time music, this album will most likely appall you. There are some tunes that leave me with a sour feeling in my head. "Horopter" is one of these, with its repetitious sick-making basslines. However, if you like to hear what deconstructed electronica mixed with a bit of jazz sounds like, this is the album for you. Despite its experimental nature, or maybe even because of it, Cevin Key retains a bit of the old Skinny Puppy sound. Some of those synth sounds seem familiar. The opening track, "Bob's Shadow," mixes theremin (courtesy of Frank Verschuuren) with a more modern sound. There's just something about the theremin that makes me think creepy black-and-white movie, and its juxtaposition with trippy drums makes me think something bizarre is about to happen to me any time now.Cevin plays with sounds in a disconcerting manner. In "Sklang," he incorporates sounds that, if I didn't know better, would make me think I was listening to a slightly corrupted mp3 file. The vox of Edward Ka-Spel and Nivek Ogre are welcome additions to other tracks. Ka-Spel appears on "15th Shade," making it sound for all the world like a new Tear Garden track. "Frozen Sky," featuring Nivek Ogre, will mostly likely receive the most airplay on alternative radio stations. After all, this song is basically a new Skinny Puppy release."

Not to reveal my age, but...

brigid o'shaughnessy | San Francisco, California United States | 10/31/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"i was seeing skinny puppy shows when they were still in seedy abandoned warehouses (if it rained we all feared electroshock, and not from the music). this cd doesn't bring all that back, but made me realize just how important cEvin Key is as a musician. So many industrialists are dismissed as "noisemakers", but this cd blends jazz, symphonic melodies, and a mixture of sounds that are the architecture of the overall song. there is no "noise" here, but instead a sensation of water slowing draining down the sink backwards. you just have to go with the flow."

Definetely the next logical step for mr. key

epsy | Turner, ME United States | 08/27/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have always liked Skinny Puppy but I never knew Cevin was capable of something this good. I would imagine that whether someone would enjoy this album or not depends completely on what they look for in the music they enjoy. It's the difference between people who enjoy hearing things sounds they havent heard before and enjoy the atmosphere of music above all else vs people who pass it off as noisy garbage. the album almost sounds like a skinny puppy and autechre doing a collab. Lots of very intricate layering of drum patterns and sounds mixed with a very eerie atmosphere."