Freak Show 1991
A very enjoyable and interesting collection of nine songs,
sung in a variety of voices, about a freak show, its
inhabitants, and its visiting audience. As with Bad Day,
playing the CD-ROM really enhanced my appreciation of this
album, although, as each track here is a self-contained
portrait/profile of an individual character, you may find
that Freak Show is better able than Bad Day to stand alone
as an audio-only work. An elaborate exploration of digital
music, monotone and fairground atmospherics.
First it was an album, then a comic, then a CD-ROM, then a
CD-ROM soundtrack album … Freak Show has a track devoted to
each performer (plus one for Lillie, a member of the
audience so strange she freaks out the freaks). We get to
meet characters like Benny The Bouncing Bump, Jelly Jack
The Boneless Boy and so on. The music is much darker than
Cube E and tracks like Jelly Jack are positively
disturbing. Harry The Head is the easiest on the ear with
female vocals and an almost singalong chorus (there was a
superb Jim Ludkte computer animated video made for this
track). A sinister fairground atmosphere is evoked with Tex
the barker inviting us to come in and make our mundane
lives "seem like the kiss of bliss", but as we are informed
at the end "nobody laughs when they leave".