With close to a decade of music absence, The New Citizen Kane has made a comeback with something unusual. PSYCHEDELIKA Pt.1 is not a collection of songs, but an organism, seventeen songs that take you to the love, the fear, the philosophy, the nights of adventure, and the battlefields of pure power with harsh straightforwardness.
The album opens its door with Welcome to Psychedelika, a chant style of calling which sets the mood about the next experience. At that point, Kane takes us on an emotional labyrinth. My Muse reflects the bare nerve-endings of artistic rebirth after years of the wilderness, and Afterglow gazes with a courage which is really stimulating. These are not pieces that are designed to work on streaming measurements--they are there because the absence of sound would not have been possible.
The thoughtful Heads Are Round, devoted to Francis Picabia, spins through the current mental storm of the time like a prism who philtres discoloured light. Ratbag Joy hides serious poetic content under the disorienting beats and represents the beautiful contradiction of post-midnight culture. Bite the Bullet rips away all the defences, and unleashes a vulnerable chronicle of love that just fades away without transformation.
More than these, Push The Fear Out is filled with obstinate hope against bigotry, Well, Damn! Here You Are vibes with temptation and remorse and Subconscious explores the desire that comes as an unwanted guest. Songs like San Diego, Cafe Life and Whispering Tango paint pictures of human relationships that are created and ruined in the same measure.
The emotional depth of PSYCHEDELIKA Pt.1 is what makes it impressive. Kane alternates mumbled secrets with nightmarish ridicule with no loss of authenticity. It is an artist, who on this occasion has re-emerged not to be commercially vindicated, but to breath--and that fact resonates in every second. We are witnessing the beginning of the something really extraordinary with Part 2 nearing.
