The Gingerbread Man is a figure of death who appears to
claim people who doom themselves by their selfishness,
foolishness, cynicism, jealousy etc.; people who are stuck
in a rut. Each track here is devoted to one of nine
characters, all victims of their nature; The Dying Oilman,
The Aging Musician, The Sold-Out Artist. Is this an album
about doubt? Regret?
Though I realise the music was conceived first I still find
it tends to play second fiddle to the fantastic graphics
the listener is able to trigger off in the expanded CD-ROM
version (see multimedia section). The Aging Musician is
great though; "Maybe if I put a bullet in my brain, they'd
remember me like Kurt Cobain".
Musically, you may call this "Variations on One Theme",
which might be a bit boring, when listening for the first
time. As a real gingerbread man should be, this is rather
short (36 mins) and rather sweet. Well, as sweet as nine
studies of the psychology of despair can be, once set to
music. Nicely packaged, but the booklet really should have
been in colour. The CD-ROM version is nice to play with,
too, but not essential.