One trick pony riding on a west-country wave to stardom…
The toy instrument-wielding hero of Bristol, Kid Carpet, has released his debut album, 'Ideas and Oh Dears.' A short ride through an excess of snappy stuck-together DIY songs that charm in an odd and unusual way. A techno adventure which strips the big metallic body of the genre down to reveal the real inside controlling force is a thin little nerd with a west-cerrrnty accent banging a little Casio keyboard and pressing the 'demo' button every now and then…
The refrain "No-one gives a shit if you're not special" is basically all there is to 'Special', then 'Green and Pleasant Land' tells you what it's like to live in the countryside by utilizing a dreamy keyboard patch and inserting 'moos' every here and there… 'Bristol Carpet Factory' is a little hilarious take on a Bristolian advert jingle, quite a laugh…
There is a recurrent theme amongst the comic elements of the music and that is of a very serious dissatisfaction with modern life, discussing the 'pylons' that clog up the country in 'Green and Pleasant Land' and dedicating a whole song to the theme in the guise of 'Shiny Shiny New', in describing how he wrote the song, Kid Carpet says "I was surrounded by ugly concrete and chrome structures and it made me really unhappy." It's evident in the witty lyrics and the tune'll rock your socks off...
Single 'Your Love' plops and taps away with those memorable preset Casio drum sounds, everyone from that generation had one of those little keyboards, mine's under my bed. The lyrics innocently state the silly inevitable failings and disagreements that aren't easy to avoid in relationships. 'Carrier Bag' spins around with phat bassy sounds and '1 Trick Pony' comes and goes within the space of 20 seconds, written as a reply to a post on an internet forum that accused the artist of being a one-trick pony, which he agrees with, but there's no one he'd rather be and there's no one we'd rather see him be...
'Sick of the Future,' a technology-hating raver, comes across as a tad more hardcore than the other stuff with more fizzly synth sounds and a longer-lasting presence. 'Nelson Street Space Invaders' is a speedy classic, with a brilliant voice-patch riff, an absolutely awesome song, rocks and romps along, probably the best on here.
'The Traffic Warden and The Bouncer' is a fairly pissed off message to two people of certain professions, whereas 'The Whole of The World' is a peace offering, offering peace in the line 'I want to get along with the whole of the world' and ' Hip Hip Hooray' celebrates the fact there is nothing to say in the lyrics of the song. 'Granny's Message' is an answer-phone message from Carpet's grandmother, which provides a nice ender to the album, alike to the end of The Dresden Dolls LP, though the messages differ slightly.
All together, it's a cool album that is at times very funny, constantly quirky and every now and then really good music, you may have to be in the mood, but when you are there's no stopping the Carpet. Dragging things from all areas of music, from Ray Parker Jr.'s 'Ghostbusters' theme to Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' Kid Carpet has created an intelligent and highly humorous offering, a little repetitive at times, but a job well done, no one else has ever made music quite like this!