Curiosity Killed the Cat
Keep Your Distance

THE REVIEW

It was Andy Warhol who encouraged. To recommend. Come on, come on, they're good.

A bit of arrogance (“Keep Your Distance”, the title of the first work), a decent approach to the instruments, a not too syrupy pop tinged with funk, the alluring voice of the charismatic leader, Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot. Life, death, and miracles of the CKTC.

Two successful singles, the pleasant and spring-like “Misfit”, the pragmatic and sober “Down To Earth”; a third moderately received, the rocking “Ordinary Day” and the last, the most beautiful, “Free”, ended up forgotten.

The mixing, arriving at our days, bothers the listener. Too bare, dry, little revised. The trademark of the producer, the multi-awarded Stewart Levine, makes the ensemble plausible.

The album went straight to number one. It was a swan song anticipated. The subsequent “Getahead” (1989) left no trace except for the launch single “Name And Number”.

Special mention for the third album, so far from the spotlight and the interest of major labels that it was only released in Japan. The writer set out to review this very last one, but already, good heavens, you're caught off guard, Curiosity that?, it was just missing that I served you “Back To Front” (1994), small great dispersed pearl. So it is.

“Keep Your Distance” is the definitive imprinting of CKTC. The best episodes are “Free”, a hybrid that accelerates and decelerates gracefully, “Know What You Know” also for the exquisite work of the backing vocalists, and “Red Light”, the ultimate love song, potential single, whose outro could never finish/tire.

Why did CKTC die so soon? Surely, in the hectic 80s, two years between debut and following albums were decidedly too many. The second album, it has been said, did not rise to the occasion. Well played, but with too many eddies and rivulets, without personality. It was then that the record label, Mercury, terminated the contract. Move aside, we have a need to fill the top ten, that sort of thing.

Ben, the frontman, a pleasant person even on social media, open to dialogue, ironic and proactive, made a living in the years that followed, often making appearances in the beautiful country. Always present in the 2 Men 4 Souls project with Danny Losito of the Double Dee, occasional vocalist for the Datura, great support of Daniele Stefani in “People And Places”.

Always with dignity, always with the inevitable cat fur cap...oops.