REVIEW: Lords of Acid, Expand Your Head / Praga Kahn, Twenty
First Century Skin
- Jon Steltenpohl
"Okay Alex, I'll take Famous Techno Phrases for $400 please..."
"Alright Dirk, the phrase is: 'Darling come here and...'"
If you know how to finish this phrase (in the form of a question, please), you are certainly a fan of Lords of Acid and their classic track "I Sit On Acid." In fact, you probably also really like "Rough Sex," another classic track. And, if you don't have enough copies and remixes of them by now, you can find two more of each on the Lords of Acid's new album, Expand Your Head. (There is, uncharacteristically, only one remix of their classic "I Must Increase My Bust.") Expand Your Head is really nothing more than a remix collection with a few new tracks including "Am I Sexy" from this summer's blockbuster "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me." Neither of the two other new tracks are of any real value, and, for new material, you'll have to flip the switch to find Praga and his crew on Praga Kahn's latest "solo" album, Twenty First Century Skin. It's a denser, darker collection of songs that predictably alternate between drugs, alcohol, and sex. In other words, lather, rinse, repeat.
In the years since Lords of Acid invaded the musical consciousness of both dance freaks and bondage freaks around the world, there has been a change in the musical landscape. Where the original Lords of Acid tracks came out as shocking, teasing, deliciously naughty, and decidedly hardcore, the band has transformed over the years into bubble gum bondage and lollipop dance. No longer is it a band that shocks. Like the goofiness of Austin Powers, it's schlock. They might as well be singing, "Darling come here and ... shag me till I'm horny, baby! Grrr!" Despite the initial tease of a mixmaster mistress in drag who's got a masked slave by a chain, even the cover of Expand Your Head features fruity pink and purple for its lettering. For some, this could still be naughty fun. But, it's more like Disney overhauling midtown New York: you know something's wrong when the strippers and the winos start breaking into their own renditions of "It's a Small World After All."
Fortunately, Praga Kahn and his friends are kind enough to appease us and split their various personalities among various subtitles and alternate headings. Praga Kahn's "solo" release of Twenty First Century Skin is probably closer to the original Lords of Acid than any of the subsequent Lords of Acid releases since Lust. Kahn's view of the world has been remarkably full of debauchery for over a decade, but like Ministry, he somehow keeps going and going. (Watch out boys, you know what Keith and Mick look like today.) Still, Twenty First Century Skin is one of the few albums since Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral to adequately capture a dark world of demons sparked by rhythm from first beat to last.
Yet where NIN focuses on the fragile failings in relationships and in the hypocrites in the world, Praga Kahn is content on describing his own slow slide into a personal purgatory. Whether the album is autobiographical or not, you get the idea that the central figure is at the end of a wild ride where everything is falling apart, cybersex is the only, lonely way to make love and separation is the name of the game. A sampling of the song titles says it all: "Isolation"; "Lonely"; "What's Wrong With Me"; "Bored Out of My Mind"; "One Foot in the Grave."
Unlike the pathetic poseur boy known as Marilyn Manson, Praga Khan seems much more likely to really be living this life (at least on his bad days, when he isn't mixing Lords of Acid tracks). Like NIN, this isn't darkness and mystery for the sake of getting kids with black hair, black lipstick, and black nails to buy the album. Instead, Twenty First Century Skin is a dog days album meant for black moods and mirroring your feelings of being alone and isolated. It's one part gothic, one part The Cure and one part techno, and it's dutifully mixed to launch the millennium. The fact that most of the tracks have a decent beat doesn't hurt either.
With their split personalities, Praga Khan and friends are basically giving you the choice of cheese with your deprivation. Pick the Lords of Acid platter, and you get sex and drugs with a large dose of hilarity. Choose the Praga Kahn special, and you get sex and drugs with a heavy dose of depressing reality. Both are done well, but the Lords of Acid album is mainly just a bunch of rehashed tracks. Expand Your Head is an album either for Lords of Acid beginners or completists. If you're in between, it's a tough sell, since some of the remixes aren't as good as the originals. Praga Kahn's Twenty First Century Skin has an equally qualified recommendation. If you're looking for dark and debauched, it's a great album. But if not, don't even go there.
Those of you who can appreciate both Praga Khan and Lords of Acid at the same time will be pleased by going both ways. And you know who you are, you sick, sick bastards.
