Murder, Incorporated

KALEIDOSCOPE

The Murder of Lewis Tollani

One of the more neglected 60'’s UK pop bands, Kaleidoscope put out one great album, Tangerine Dream, before dirtying their hands with prog on their second LP, Faintly Blowing. A dramatic, grandiose showcase, that material has not aged as well as their ebullient psych-pop origins. Overshadowed in their time, the band splintered and reformed as Fairfield Parlour, which suffered the ignominy of not having their best album released until twenty years after their breakup. Screwed over by a hit-seeking label, it's doubly disappointing to see them denied from charting singles off Tangerine Dream. They had energy, a strong vocalist, and an inventive but raw approach to instrumentation. They deftly avoided the plague of twee with a dark sensibility that comes to the fore on this track. On "The Murder of Lewis Tollani," there's a definite hint of fall in the air, a chill wind rusting the leaves, someone on somebody'’s heels in the night. It'’s deliciously creepy the way singer Peter Daltry stumbles over his words, making his appeal to innocence not at all convincing. It's only a matter of time before someone'll stick a song on a soundtrack (paging Wes Anderson) and the reissue campaign will begin in earnest. Until then, Dive Into Yesterday contains most of their recorded output (and all of Tangerine Dream but two tracks); but for that you'll have to get your import on.

EDAN

Murder Mystery

I have given up trying to read the face of the hip hop times; online, it isn't too hard to find incidental images of the game. Just know that Boston, like most American metropolis in 2005, has a vibrant hip-hop scene. Mr. Lif has the highest profile, with product on the critically-acclaimed Def Jux imprint. Edan's latest, Beauty and the Beat, mixes old-school rapping with even older-school psych-pop sampling. I can't say he comes off an Elephant 6 rapper (shudder at the thought), but the backing tracks do pleasantly dislocate the proceedings, going easy on the standard sources to unearth some still-potent faerie dust. Edan gets enough of a whiff to spin out some serious daydreams, travelling the spaceways like Kool Keith on "Promised Land." For "Murder Mystery," though, the focus is on the street. It's pretty much one straight verse, with spooky sound effects and striking tape-effected feedback, with some big band horns thrown in for effect. The story eschews narrative arc and gives the lie to the entitled mystery. Any aspiring gumshoe would get quickly lost in this maze. There are some cinematic, evocative lyrics -- "The chauffeur in the van with the globe in his hand" -- leading to less clear impressionism -- "The author was typing / The water was icy" -- to simple declaratory -- "“His father'’s name was Michael / He shot him with a rifle."” The mystery is less whodunit than framing a random sequence of events, with shadowy characters and even less coherent motivation. The flow ends when it hits its target, gang affiliation given credence to the cause. The apparent senselessness of the crime is treated as just another fact in the recurrent violence of modern urban reality. Who did it doesn't solve anything, providing no good answer to the bigger questions that loom. Crime goes on; the forces involved are bigger than the individuals in thrall to it. Unconscious society cannot speak to this, except to move on to the next case -- the next track -- in a search for the satisfying click of an easy solution. Edan's brief attempt at holding up a mirror reveals fragments shattering edges, reforming into new wholes, broken apart as the world turns, a kaleidoscopic vision of a world on the brink.