ALICE IN WONDERLAND PART 3

Another truly bizarre addition to the 'Alice in Wonderland' 5 CD set. Industrial percussion, despite being relegated to the background plays a big part in the opener 'Sneezing and Howling'. Huge reverberation is used in the instrumentation as the polite, clipped English vocals recite their lines on top.

'Speak Roughly To Your Little Boy' is one of the rare occasions where singing actually occurs. But it's not normal singing by any manner of means, where cat-like vocals screech and wail over some guy putting on a female persona.

'A Handsome Pig' delves further into the eccentric mind of Randy Greif. The grunting of the pig really makes you sit up with rigid back as Alice has a conversation with the creature. The swirling effects used on this track give a dream-like feeling throughout. Irish, Scottish and English accents are used but at all times sound alien, off kilter and unnatural. It's a ghastly sensation and is very difficult to describe.

Thudding drum machines are at the foreground of 'I'm Mad You're Mad' where electronic vocal experimentation takes place as 'Greif' focusses on one of the blackest parts of the tale - madness. He unrelentingly sticks with this part of the story, twisting, stretching and warping the vocals until you feel bludgeoned and believing you're part of his neurosis.

'Dog' utilises digital manipulation of vocals and looped electronics which will either leave you crying out for more or smashing the stop button on your Hi-Fi with a hammer.

'A Grin Without A Cat' makes me wonder if it's the same narrator I've been listening to. The tweakery involved on all vocals is so veiled and delicate that at times they sound like different characters. A good slab of queazy electronic doom plays fervently in the background during this track until slowly but surely manifests itself to the foreground as all vocals perish.

What sounds like a Tibetan singing bowl introduces 'I Sleep When I Breathe'. Deeply disturbing looped Alice vocals are underpinned by wolf-like growls. This is the 'Mad Hatters' part of the tale. It's also possibly the most disconcerting and perplexing part of this entire volume. Many voices are at play amongst the discussion between Alice, The March Hare, the Mouse and The Mad Hatter. A profoundly, disturbing sequence follows with mashed up black vocals as huge slabs of electronic noise batter from ear to ear.

Lots of chiming bells and non-acoustic percussion introduce 'Tea Tray In The Sky' as warped, malformed spoken words are squeezed through various electronic filters. Continuously morphing effects run riot throughout this track.

Some semblance of tune is restored with 'Treacle', where bouncy little chime-like bells dart around in a display of extreme panning.

Mutated bongo drums and odd wooden percussion make up the final 8 minutes of this seriously damaged reccording 'The Cool Fountains' has indecipherable lyrics that are so mashed and distorted that it's impossible to make out a single word. This may be slightly better than parts one and two but again its another solid four stars.