Happy House mixed heavily processed guitar with the pulsing toms, chorused bass and full throated vocals. That's the formula for the next few albums and expresses the dependable sound of Siouxsie and the Banshees. For the song itself there is an icy riff, distant whistling and a shivery falsetto, all on different melodies. The verses themselves are controlled explosions, strident declamations of ironic protest. The happy house is a horror house. The wails, cries and force are bound but powerful, growling in chains.
Tenant brings in the hitherto unfamiliar sound of electronics to the band's sound. Budgie sets up a busy high hat ticking, occasionally run through a ring modulator. The bass guitar is so flanged that it sounds like a keyboard. The guitar is chorused and muted and distant. And there throughout, a frowning lower register synthesiser. Siouxsie comes in with sparse images of isolation in high density housing and paranoia. "The plaster falls and a body reels .... softly" Stops, starts, whispers and more falsetto coos. It's like putting your head into a Francis Bacon painting and listening to the sounds in the room.
Trophy starts with the more familiar attack of straightforward snare drums and spiky distorted guitars and Sioux alternating between a cold croon and a wail. But here the rhythmic pattern is a 4/4 with extra bars wedged in to stop it sounding too rock.
Hybrid has an insistent snare roll, ropey guitar figure, languid sax. It is a kind of hallucinatory account of exhausting touring. Everybody's weary but the thing is that this never drags. It wasn't just McKay and Morris that felt the strain of the previous year's touring. Severin and Sioux were ordered bed rest and tranquilisers by their doctors. Here the mix of grind and sweet jazzy sax melodies express the collision of physical wastage and sublime rewards of working for all that fame.
Clockface is a near instrumental with a forceful rock (thought the guitatr is still well distant). Siouxsie's insistent whoa whoas provide the riff. Perhaps continuing the exhaustion theme of the previous track, even the most energetic song on the side is too difficult for lyrics.
Lunar Camel starts with thick keyboards and drum machine like tones as Soiuxsie enters with a light and breathy whimsy about travel in a dreamlike landscape. This comes as close as the band would get for years to the pleasurable side of intoxication. A blend of childlike playfulness and a worrying darkness beneath. It and the side end on a deep bass drone, chunky muted flanged guitars.
Side two kicks off with the understated acoustic strum and murmur of Christine, a deceptively gentle response to a reading of The Three Faces of Eve about multiple personality disorder. "She tries not to shatter kaleidoscope style ..." "Now she's in purple, now she's a turtle, disintegrating." It's the lightness, the ease of the vocal and the false laid-back bed track that push the disturbance forward, here. Christine's swings and changes happen in the space of a breath. This was a hit single (backed by the decidedly less restrained Eve White) and those were the days.
Desert Kisses rises like a wave of subdubed guitar and forward keyboards. Budgie is keeping time with an off/on approach to high hat figure. Siouxsie's vocal follows the rise through the minor scale with images of isolation, a troubled affair between sand and sea that ends in a letting go or resignation as she sinks down to a personal oblivion. The blend of sexy minor key and pitiable middle eight creates a sense of hopelessness on an epic scale.
Red Light uses a similar minor figure on the synth as Desert Kisses but it's more circular, inescapable. A pornographic photo studio during a shoot. "as the aperture shuts, too much exposure."
The riff keeps circling. Siouxsie comes in with a variously tired groan or wild wail until the final repetition of "when you see the red light wincing" when she gets mixed to the back and the march of the riff gains strength. Light and heavy all at once.
Paradise Place kicks off at full speed with a tide of fuzzed guitar, vocal wail and the now signature falsetto coos. Cut rate cosmetic surgery. Lots of bad things sliced and reformed in the Hollywood Hills. The guitar of this one reminds me of Keith Levene's playing on the first two PiL albums, down in the mix but razor sharp and gnashing. It's Steve Jones ex Sex Pistol, in fact. The progression plays out sharply to the fade under coos that now sound tragic.
Skin begins with hesitant beeps and clinks but soon takes on a paranoid wail and cacophony as Sioux rails at fur wearing. More Jones guitar, this time a subdued palm muted chord progression. After a final vocal assault the track deconstructs, one part at a time until only the beeps and trills remain. Album over.
Kaleidoscope saw a punk band adapt to losing half its limbs and emerging as a more adventurous and cinematic unit. The songs still have a bratty edge to them but in every case are more refined as new power is discovered in the quieter corners of invention. During the stress hiatus Severin and Sioux extended their pallets by taking up synthesisers and guitar, finding new musical expression in unfamiliar territory. This is to be expected in young artists when forced into invention from necessity: things out of your control? Pick something up and find the notes. This makes the album much better than a resumption: it doesn't sound like a broken original patched up with session players, it sounds like a new band.
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