release date: Feb. 1, 1997
format: digital (11 x File, FLAC)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,42]
producer: Steve Kilbey
label: self-release - nationality: Australia
Track highlights: 1. "Somna" - 2. "Limbo" - 6. "The Egyptian" - 7. "Midnite in America" - 8. "Linda Wong" - 9. "Double Exposure"
5th studio album or 'only' an ep re-issue with bonus tracks? The Narcosis EP was already released Jan. '92 as a 5-track EP and was Kilbey's final release on Red Eye Records in Australia. In '97 the album was released on Vicious Sloth Collectables under the title Narcosis +, consisting of nine tracks, and then in 2004 released as Narcosis + More with twelve tracks, and at some point [unknown year] it became a digital self-release [this one] again under the name Narcosis + with eleven tracks, but with three new songs compared to the '97 CD version. In all cases, the first five tracks are identical to the tracks from the original ep, but with slightly varying content. The digital self-release has a playing running at 57 minutes.
The compositions are of experimental nature and fall relatively far from contemporary releases such as the solo album Remindlessness (Jul. 1990) and the three collaboration albums Charms & Blues (Sep. '90), Vast Halos (Sep. 1990), Jack Frost (Nov./Dec '90?) and Priest = Aura (Mar. '92) by The Church. Although the added extra tracks were probably composed later than the first five, the album is nevertheless a reasonably coherent volume. There is, however, a clearer electronic touch to the newer tracks, which in the end appear to be the most elaborate, but in terms of style they are quite a close extension of the other tracks. This is Kilbey all alone and as with his compositions they go in all directions but still maintain a distinct fingerprint, and Kilbey seems to have an inexhaustible well to dip into to come up with new tracks, which always contain quality and originality.
The fron cover is a detail of the original cd-cover of Kilbey with his and Karin Jansson's twin daughters, Elektra and Miranda.
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