The Legendary Pink Dots
Any Day Now

THE REVIEW

In the lively and diverse landscape of the late '80s, when the post-punk scene in its most categorical forms (dark, new wave, gothic punk, synthpop) was blending with more radical currents, contaminated by industrial and neofolk sounds, dozens of independent labels churned out high-level artists and records at an incredible pace. The hunger for new things was always strong, and the ground on which music was sprouting in Europe was fertile with ideas and an extremely rich cultural background.

The Legendary Pink Dots were an Anglo-Dutch project active since 1980, with a prolific and eclectic discography drawing from the Dadaism of krautrock and the renewal of rock stylistics (think Magazine style), mixing a variety of instruments that made their music unorthodox even when shaped into song form. In 1988, thanks to the refinement of a dense and never-satiated journey of experimentation, Edward Ka-Spel's band released what remains to this day their most loved and celebrated album: Any Day Now.

The red and vaguely diabolical cover of this LP cannot fully synthesize the contents of a work that puts into play all the facets of its creators; who, moreover, chose a title as enigmatic as it is open to personal interpretation. The fact remains that the tracks on the album represent a kind of refined summa of what had already been done in previous records (Asylum above all), now polished with a seriousness that Ka-Spel and company sometimes kept on the sidelines. Even though there are still bizarre moments here—especially in the lyrics—the general atmosphere that pervades the work is marked by apocalyptic shadows, prophecies, dreamlike visions, and hints of mysterious events.

The obsessive opening of Casting the runes serves as the calling card for what the listener will discover throughout the rest of the record. A mix of electronic and acoustic sounds and enveloping vocals that hover between singing and narration, punctuated by violin insertions that seem to sizzle, stroked by some demon. Following are the mocking A strychnine Kiss and the paradisiacal, dreamy Laguna Beach, brief and the only emotional repose before a long series of tracks shrouded in smoky and unsettling contours. The bouncy, cabaret-circus The Gallery, the pounding Neon Mariner that seems to emerge from a Berlin Depeche Mode session—but much more dramatic because inspired by an actual maritime disaster—the biting, acidic True Love, leading up to the album's masterpiece with the very short noise divertissement The peculiar fun fair, characterized by a hypnotic, Faust-style barrel organ.

The masterpiece, precisely. Waiting for the cloud, a suite of over 10 minutes which, in both lyrics and atmosphere, encapsulates with a special pathos the entire sense of the work and the forma mentis of the Legendary Pink Dots. Artists who have always avoided giving the impression of taking themselves too seriously, but at the same time have always laid down, with a blend of irony and wisdom, various pearls not accessible to all. Waiting for the clouds is a prophetic and cryptic vision of the future of mankind, a beautiful song with alternating rhythms that reprises its initial theme after a central section worthy of the best prog-rock tradition. The arrangement and production of the piece are of the highest quality without ever going overboard in terms of budget, because this band has always worked on a shoestring and independently; using ingenuity and talent without preaching.

E ai coccodrilli spuntavano le ali. Le pecore morte riempivano i campi.
I bambini cavalcavano le locuste e lanciavano fionde contro qualsiasi cosa potesse essere uccisa e mangiata cruda.
Niente piaghe purulente, niente artigli, niente palle...
Abbiamo visto tutto a colori, ora aspettiamo la nuvola.

Ci hanno detto che potrebbero volerci 15 giorni, siamo impegnati a scavare buche...
Quelle profonde per i puri, i prescelti, quelle poco profonde per i vecchi e i malati.
I diseredati, i poveri, i tossicodipendenti, i criminali, le prostitute.
C'è di più, c'è il rosso e il giallo, il nero e il blu.
Ci sono io, ci sei tu (in attesa della nuvola)...

I have always loved this song, capable every time of triggering an ancestral shiver and generating in the mind surreal yet vivid, tangible images.

The closing of the album is entrusted to Cloud Zero, a laconic and sinister ballad centered on voice and piano, which ideally acts as a counterweight to the previous track.

You spent all your money
You lost all your friends. You're so far from home
You watch the planes high in the sky and you cry
You wish you could fly, but you're too high
And you're going nowhere

Ka-Spel's prophecies seem to come true; those who ignored them are destined to lose themselves in the transparent void of a future that is already over.

Any Day Now is a highly enjoyable album regardless of genres and eras, it always sounds current and has a palette of registers that can capture the emotional attention of listeners from various backgrounds. Especially if, while listening to the music, one accompanies it with the reading and translation of the lyrics.