FRAMES OF MIND (WITH BRAD ALLEN)

This album displays some of the worst tendencies of the New Wave era. Here we have Kit Watkins, the superb keyboardist that most of us know from Happy the Man, team up with a singer/guitarist named Brad Allen. Together, they appear to be serving up an imitation of New Wave electronic pop. Allen even goes out of his way to imitate the thin, off-key vocals of New Wave darlings Ric Ocasik and David Byrne.

The songs are highly forgettable, and even Watkins' keyboards aren't enough to save the album. On the last few tracks of the album, the style trends toward the acid dance music of the day: upbeat, beat heavy, highly repetitive rhythms with not much inside.

This one is really for the Watkins' collectors. Available for free download from his web site.

A frame of mind I'd rather not be in

After having played with American Prog band Happy The Man and then briefly in the legendary Camel in the late 70's, Kit Watkins recorded his first solo album Labyrinth in 1980. While continuing to tour with Camel in the early 80's, Watkins teamed up with someone called Brad Allen to create the present album. Unlike the wholly instrumental, light Prog of Labyrinth, 1982's Frames Of Mind is a vocally dominated, quirky Pop album. This music is actually not very far away from the least good, least memorable, and most poppy songs from Camel's 1979 album I Can See Your House From Here (on which Watkins played). There is absolutely no sign of Prog here, but instead a rather eclectic and quirky mixture of New Wave, Synth Pop, and World-Music. Not really my cup of tea.

The first two tracks are absolute embarrassments and the worst of the lot. What follows is rather incoherent and disjointed, but with occasional decent moments. Watkins is a good musician and I'm sure he would have been capable of making a better album, but as it stands Frames Of Mind is aimless and occasionally even downright tedious.