After one listen, you'll be convinced there is such a place as a planet Ka-Spel out there; only it's not quite drawn of a Star Trek episode. Filled with an ocean of alluring hiss, tape loops, and starry feedback corners, the peculiarly woven quilt of Dream Logik Part Two feels as though it's a vehicle lurching (not exactly speeding) across the interstellar sky.

As a continuation of a previous effort, Dream Logik Part One, Edward Ka-Spel (songwriter and co-founder of the mythically prolific Legendary Pink Dots) turns the familiar rock underground into a dank medieval dungeon. While nothing on the record is anywhere near conventional, there are familiar dustings of Edwardian song forms throughout the seven-track CD. Its songs inhabit a distinctly English place, at a time associated with kings and dragons, dark torch-lit corners, and maidens. If all that hyperbole sounds terribly precious or geeky, perhaps it is; it is without question that Ka-Spel achieves a level of rarely beautiful eeriness on this record. Goth pariahs like Marilyn
Manson would actually kill (or sequester to a dungeon, to stay in metaphor) to have a song like As a Bird/A Missing Piece or The Modest Ambitions of Cedric The Centipede in their catalog; they'd kill for it, but then again, they wouldn't be so reviled if they had. These aren't exactly star-making songs, and that gives them a comfortable sprawl. There is a cool niche on Dream Logik Part Two, one that carries the sense of long-cultivated imagination.
Listening to it gives one the feeling they’ve been invited to something out of this world.

On a side note, the packaging of Dream Logik Part Two provides some of the coolest, most disturbing album art in a long time provided by Jesse Peper. While other labels are surrendering to the obviously dismal returns on investment in art and design, Beta-lactam Ring Records is putting on a full press effort. For those collecting CDs as art or holding on to unique design, this 10-panel book bound edition might be a must have addition to the collection.