Caned & Able - Smoke

Smoke! smoke! smoke! (that jazz cigarette)

Having impressed with their Beats For Bars project, Trickster and Martyn Savigar now expand their often-audacious mash-up concept and range of fantasy collaborators to weird, wonderful and often startling effect. In the immediate vicinity, there’s former Specimen and Banshees guitarist Jon Klein and drummer Chris Bell (also Specimen, along with many 80s giants), but also showing up in this captivating, hallucinogenic journey are Billie Holiday, Lou Reed, Catatonia, Marc Bolan and even the young John Peel, whose unmistakeable tones enthuse about woodland creatures on the intoxicating space-shuffle of Deaf Aid, before singer Anna Jacyszyn wafts in.

The mood throughout is deep, dubbed and drenched in ghosts, slow-motion symphonies planting familiar voices in fields of dreams. Billie Holiday looms in Trav’lin Light to spine-melting effect before Wild On The Sidewalk shows what might have happened if Lou Reed had taken acid instead of speed. Soul Clapp creates a warped new hip-hop hybrid, White Space is Specimen played by orchestra, while tracks such as Deuteronomy see the players stretching out after the guests have left. An opiated aural delight with more free parts available to download, and second part, the uptempo, download-only Mirrors, to follow. Feed your head.

Malicious Damage | MD 631

Reviewed by Kris Needs
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