AR Kane

 

Last week I grabbed AR Kane's debut album 69 from 1988 out of my rack to listen to it once again. While listening to this record I thought it will be a good idea to write about this underrated band. A few days ago Adam made a superb piece of writing about them and with his 40 Minutes Of AR Kane the most is said. I discovered this record in our local record shop and and was fascinated by the cover. The plate cover is emerging as also on white background a dark circle in the middle of which we can faintly make out the number 69, which is shaped like two dark, undulating spirals. Inner-case's intricate shading shows the blue background and more clearly six-figure as a pregnant woman and nine-figure as a man, both swimming, in harmonious movements. After a few minutes watching the cover I bought this record without listening to any sons because I thought artist, that are able to create a cover like this couldn't make a bad record. When I came home I put the record on the turntable and started to listen. It seldom happened that I was so confused about what I heard. Not that I didn't liked what I heard but I was unprepared about the facets of their music. It started with a jazzy scat intro on Crazy Blue to turn into one the best pop songs of this era (they described it as dreampop later). Rudy Tambala once joked years later that AR Kane sound like a band with a bit of Velvet Underground and a bit of Cocteau Twins, Miles Davis and Joni Mitchel. And this describes their sound very good. A lot of everything good and always the ability to combine their influences with a massive pop attitude. An outstanding band and an outstanding album and the blueprint for a new generation in music.

AR Kane - Crazy Blue

AR Kane - Suicide Kiss

AR Kane - Baby Milk Snatcher

Their roots are certainly on bands like JAMC and noisy feedbacked guitar sounds. Best shown on their debut single.

AR Kane - When You're Sad (Long Version)