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| Type 'HK119' into Google and one of the first things to pop up is a TinyVoices single review. I think we can take that as an indication that we’re unlikely to see her namechecked as a 'shockingly skinny celeb' on the front page of Heat any time soon. |
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I say 'her' because HK119 is in fact the stage name of one Heidi Kilpelainen. No, my mistake, nothing as mundane as a stage name: rather an alter ego, through the medium of which Kilpelainen 'explores the twisted side-effects of a hyper-consumerist society'. Are the alarm bells ringing, readers? Well, they should be.
Yes, HK119 (the record – do try and keep up) is a concept album, and a science fiction-themed concept album at that. Each song deals with a different 'apocalyptic' subject, including food scares (‘Friend for Dinner’ – geddit?), computers taking over the world (both ‘Malfunction’ and ‘Power Cut’), black-market consumerism (‘Buy Me’) and the dangerous side-effects of mobile phones (‘Pick Me Up’). In fact, all we really need is a couple of tunes dealing with such similarly edgy ideas as gypsy invasions and the cancer-curing properties of green tea and we’d have a ready-made soundtrack for Daily Express: The Musical!
It comes across as a rather wrong-footed and cack-handed attempt to 'do' futuristic, something which is reflected by the music: a sprawling, haphazard mess of synths, erratic drum loops and heavily processed vocals. Stylistically, it’s not a million miles away from Goldfrapp (or, particularly considering the subject-matter of the album, the last Princess Superstar album), except that you’d have to search hard to identify anything approaching a tune, much less anything as brilliant as ‘Ride A White Horse’.
It’s all rather strangely dated, something that would have seemed shocking and visionary about 10 years ago: tellingly, one brilliant motif applied liberally throughout the album is the rasping sound of an internet dial-up connection, at a time when the only people in the world still using dial-up are undiscovered tribes in the Amazon basin, and me. Maybe that’s the point, maybe it’s supposed to be retro-futurism or something. I don’t know and neither, frankly, do I care.
In the bin! |
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| Mat Beal - 4/10 |
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