CARDIACS
CARDIACS LIVE
Melody Maker 1988
An example of true Cardiacs’ logic. Wait ten years fior rour first album, then put three out in the space of a year. Well, this is only the second, but the third one is only a swing on the magic roundabout away…
Nothing could really create the full effect of a Cardiacs gig in your front room - unless you have a spare bucket of confetti, bottle of champagne and a few demented friends handy - but this comes close.
Recorded in Amsterdams infamous Paradiso club, Cardiacs Live has lost none of the bands unique live decadence despite the fact that it was recorded direct off the live mixing desk.
It also contains all those tracks that were only available on the CD version of the ‘A Little Man…’ album - their first brilliant single ‘There’s Too Many Irons In The Fire’, Gina Lollobrigida’, ‘Goosegash’ and a glorious thrash through ‘To Go Off And Things’. There’s also an appearance from perhaps the most idiosyncratic of the lot, ‘Tarred And Feathered’.
Sarah’s sax honks like an angry sea bird, the keyboards scuttle madly in circles, the drums thrash and Tim rants. Then the kink unfurls into the lavish., symphonic grace of ‘Is This The Life’. The two mediums come nicely together on ‘The Whole World Window’.
Syd Barrett would have been proud.
Cathy Unsworth