On So Lonely in Heaven, the latest album from Legendary Pink Dots, the long-running psychedelic band leads listeners deeper into a tech dystopian landscape that doesn’t quite feel like fiction. A deleted file leads to disaster where all you can do is “pray to the server, pray to the cloud” on “The Sound of the Bell.” A persona lives on after the body dies and the organs have been donated in “Pass the Accident.” It’s all very much within the universe that singer and lyricist Edward Ka-Spel has been building across the band’s vast catalog for the past 45 years, where scenarios that blur the line between sci-fi, fantasy and reality are told with a good dose of dark humor.
Where the band’s 2022 album, The Museum of Human Happiness, essentially documented the COVID-19 pandemic, this time around, Ka-Spel drew inspiration from AI. “My experience of artificial intelligence isn’t all that great,” he admits on a recent call from his home outside of London.
However, Ka-Spel had caught wind of AI-generated lyrics produced in the style of his own. “It was passable in that it was eloquent,” he says. “It was, I guess, coherent.”
But style is a hard thing to replicate and Ka-Spel had noticed what was off about the AI lyrics. “It lacked humor,” he says, “because there’s still a lot of humor in what I write. You need that just to be able to survive in the world right now.”
There are, of course, a lot of issues that come up with this kind of mimicry, even if it doesn’t quite match that of the artist that the AI is tasked with imitating. “It was a little frightening because obviously somebody could read this and actually believe that I wrote this and I did not write this,” says Ka-Spel of the AI lyrics.
“Now, we’re at the point where, basically, artificial intelligence could actually mimic my voice and sing that too. Orchestrate it. Do everything. And to somebody who doesn’t know, it could be me. The implications of that, that’s huge,” he continues. “That’s just me, a little band in there making obscure music to a few thousand people. Take that to its ultimate place. If it’s capable of that, it’s capable of a whole lot more. Where does this actually end?”
Considering how easy it has become for fiction to travel as fact, there isn’t a real limit to the damage AI could cause. “This is a planet where as soon as any utterance is made by certain people, however much of a fiction it may be, however much of a lie it may be, suddenly it becomes the truth for thousands and thousands and they will swear that it’s the truth,” says Ka-Spel. “You know, of course, it is not. It is the truth simply because it is said. That’s where we are right now. Not a good place.”
The world itself is what influences Ka-Spel, he says. “Musical influences, I can’t really say. I like a lot of new music that’s around now, but I can’t say it’s an influence. We basically just do what we do and I’m happy to say that we’re part of a very interesting musical landscape at the moment,” he says. “Lots of people are doing what they do. It’s a good time for music. It’s funny, when the world is panicking and in a bad place, the quality of what comes out from all over the globe, musically, goes up massively. I’m just happy to be a part of that.”
In 2022, Legendary Pink Dots released The Museum of Human Happiness, the band’s pandemic album. In a similar fashion to So Lonely in Heaven, Ka-Spel’s knack for cheeky lyrics helps capture the anxiety and absurdity of a very specific moment in time.
“The Museum was definitely all about the pandemic. It was recorded during it and it was such a weird time, that whole pandemic period,” says Ka-Spel. “We had days like this— beautiful, sunny days— but you technically weren’t allowed out. We did a bit, of course, but you just felt this feeling like will things ever go back to how they were.”
Ka-Spel holed himself up in his studio, estimating now that he had recorded one solo album a month during this period. “There was just this need, like I have to do this because I really did fear that, well, I’ll never get on a plane again or so much will never come back to normal,” he says. “Somehow, I didn’t see the end of it and indeed, it did seem to take a long time.”
Right before lockdown, Legendary Pink Dots finished their 40th anniversary tour.
Throughout their history, the band has gone through a number of lineup changes and, typically, those lineup changes led to evolutions in their sound. This happened again coming out of the pandemic. Founding member Phil Knight, aka the Silverman, left the fold in 2022. “I didn’t see it coming in a way, although he had communicated that he had wanted to in a way, retire for a while,” says Ka-Spel. “I guess I wasn’t ready to accept it for a while, but, you know, I wish him well.”
Meanwhile, Randall Frazier joined the fold. “Randall coming in was a new energy, which is wonderful,” says Ka-Spel. “The three of us together really went for it full steam ahead.”
With The Museum of Human Happiness and So Lonely in Heaven, Legendary Pink Dots have released two of the strongest albums of their career. If you have yet to start digging through the band’s catalog, these are an excellent entry point.
Legendary Pink Dots have also maintained their reputation as a very prolific band. In between The Museum of Human Happiness and So Lonely in Heaven, they’ve released multiple singles, plus volumes 23 and 24 in the Chemical Playschool series.
With a North American jaunt scheduled for this fall, where they will stop at Zebulon in Los Angeles on calendar for October 3, Legendary Pink Dots are at work on a tour release. (Ka-Spel also noted that there’s a new album coming soon from The Tear Garden, his side project with cEvin Key.)
“There’s always a fire in the band,” says Ka-Spel. “However long we’ve been going, there has to be joy in it. You always want to go further than where you were before. Otherwise, there would be no real point in doing it. As soon as you feel we’re all going through the motions or something like that happens, this is what we do, then it’s time to stop.”
He adds, “I know that time will never come because there is passion and fire in the band, especially now. The Pink Dots as it is right now is a very fiery, passionate band.”
Get So Lonely in Heaven by Legendary Pink Dots. Check the band’s website for tour dates and follow them on Instagram or Facebook.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs or listen to the latest Beatique Mix. Follow on Instagram or Bluesky for more updates.
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