Tattooed Dots Kimberly Knight

So Lonely in Heaven' is The Legendary Pink Dots' second album since the World stopped for a Global Pandemic. With members scattered across three countries and two continents, our guilty confession is that quite a few Air Miles were consumed in its creation. Ideas were spun across Cyberspace for months, but the magic happened collectively in small spaces with the tape running. THE MESSAGE The machine is everything we are. It sees everything, hears everything, knows everything and feeds, speeds, drinks us down, spits us out - we lost control of it at the instant of its conception. You may cough, curse and die, but the machine will resurrect you without the flaws, at your peak, smiling from a screen, bidding someone in a lonely room to join you. It's an invitation from Heaven, where anyone can be anything they want to be, but it's a Nation of One. You'll be everything we are. You'll be a shadow of yourself. You'll repeat yourself- endlessly. You'll be desperate for some kind of explanation . You'll be lonely. So very lonely… The Pink Dots are: Erik Drost- Acoustic and Electric Guitars, bass guitar; Randall Frazier- synthesisers, devices; Edward Ka-Spel - Voice, devices; Joep Hendrikx - live electronics, devices.

More cohesive than Island of Jewels and more streamlined than Asylum, Any Day Now stands as one of the Legendary Pink Dots' best albums of the '80s, ex aequo with The Tower. There is no specific unifying theme this time, although alienation and estrangement seem to permeate the whole project. The Dots' keyboard patches were starting to get old by 1988, but in retrospect, this gives the album a vaguely retro charm. Edward Ka-Spel is in top songwriting shape, with "Casting the Runes," "A Strychnine Kiss" and "Neon Mariners" standing out as particularly catchy songs.

Formed in London in 1980, the Legendary Pink Dots moved to Amsterdam in the middle of the decade. Members throughout the band's career have been Edward Ka-Spel (vocals, keyboards) and Phil Knight (keyboards), also known as the Silver Man, with a shifting supporting cast over the years. The Dots' music is by turns melodic pop and exotic psychedelia, with classical influences, sampling, and relentlessly dark, violent, apocalyptic lyrics. (AMG)

First released as a double-LP set and later reissued on a single CD, Asylum is the album that best represents the Legendary Pink Dots in the '80s, which does not mean that it is the group's best album or that it makes a good point of entry into its '80s production. Albums like The Tower or Any Day Now are melodically richer and more focused, but Asylum is the album that brings together the group's songwriting and experimental leanings with the most gusto. It also captures the band coming out of its stark, cold sound of the early '80s and evolving toward relatively lusher arrangements. The opening song "Echo Police" is a typically alienating LPD new wave song, strongly reminiscent of the material found on The Tower, but soon things take a bizarre twist with "Gorgon Zola's Baby."

Even on the darkest day. Even on the longest night. Even when there seems to be no hope left. Even when you surf the channels and see only monsters. Even little you, little me, pacing our way through a forest of dark menacing shadows wondering if the great creator had simply sneezed upon the candle we need to guide us through to kinder pastures. Even now my friends, there is an Angel In The Detail.

1988. Half of the 6 piece Pink Dots had quit after a long tour. EK and The Silverman were living in a caravan.It was never going to be a happy album…yet it remains a persnal favourite for the 2 survivors of LPDs class of '88. This 2016 Remaster may well be the definitive version of this album.