C.KEY & K.H. MARSHALL – The Dragon Experience


Can you name all cEvin Key’s projects? Can you define all styles and genres he’s been experimenting with? Tough, huh? Even with promo-guidelines from Metropolis that accompanied “The Dragon Experience”, I was still far from understanding his music.
Ten ‘listenings’ of complete album plus snippets and ‘random track play mode’ combinations (that is why this review is somewhat late) haven’t moved me away from the starting point.

So I guess I’ll just turn the ratio off and use senses.

Weird(ness). Feels kind of there-is-something-strange-going-on music. It’s filled with everyday life conversation samples. Sometimes repeated. Scary. First time I listened to the album, I thought I am hearing some people on the street talking – production is magnificent. Scary. ‘Is my TV on?’ I asked myself couple of times as well. Whistles. Under repeated electro-symphonic melodies. That’s scary. ‘Diagnosis’ – veeery scary. Troubling part of it is that the music is not muffled, you can clearly hear the melody, beats are on, samples are there – no mystery, but still, it’s chilling. Worse thing is, ‘Dr. Seymour’ for instance, is even a catchable little tune, nice rhythmic exercise. When you use tranceoid loops and music is still complicated, you sense something is just a bit out of the ordinary –and it’s called ‘Running <back & forth>’. ‘Maniac Shuffle’ seems like my favourite, maybe because it is less complicated than the other ten songs. Compared to ‘The Chamber’ it is sweet and cheerful as an opening theme of a show for pre-school children…

I could have made a nice track-by-track retelling, never liked that, it’s boring. In this case it is useless as well, it cannot depict the true feeling of “The Dragon Experience”. Dark- ambient, soundscapade, gothtronica? No. Un–cathegorise-able. Not even comparable to Download and light years far from Skinny Puppy. But still cEvin Key signed. A cold trip into the non-defineable. This music is beyond me. Difficult. And scary too.

This review is a disaster <smile>. But honest. And now I am suppose to rate this release? No way. People who are fans of Mr. Key’s creations certainly don’t need my judgment, and I am not qualified to give it. So, let’s part in friendly terms. One thing is certain – it’s weird. In it’s special scary way.