Right at the end of the 28th minute of "The Misprint in the Gutenburg Print Shop", the ambient sprawl that forms the axis of Kinski's third full-length, you can hear some overenthusiastic audience member shout "fuck yeah!" amid assorted cheers and applause. It's not terribly audible, but it's a jarring contrast to the diminutive, steadily tolling bell that brings the piece to a near-silent, plaintive close, and it's also something of a surprise if you haven't yet scoped the album liners, as it reveals the live setting in which the song was recorded. The track certainly sounds studio-crafted, with its layers of guitar effects, flute, oscillator and juno synth, but more to the point, it just doesn't sound like something a band in their right mind would play to an audience-- it's slowly unfolding head music, even as it reaches its bizarre climax with heavily processed vocal whooping and guitars that sound like they're being hurled from balconies.
Even stranger, the recording was made at a September 2002 show that didn't even feature Kinski on the bill-- Kinski's frontline of bassist Lucy Atkinson and guitarists Chris Martin and Matthew Reid-Schwartz were moonlighting that night as Herzog, and in fact, all of the recordings on this album were made under that name. Why release it as a Kinski album, then? Well, why not? Kinski's discography was wanting for a bit of variety, as the sound they shaped so nicely on their debut album was already going a bit stale by their sophomore outing, and this certainly fits that bill with its focus on percussionless drift and sound sculpture.
By and large, the band works well in this context, but the first two pieces on the album absolutely dominate the last three, making them feel essentially superfluous. "Never Compete with Small Girls" is a soft guitar drone that shrinks from the daylight, while the aforementioned "Misprint" is unquestionably the band's most substantial piece to date, and not just for its breadth. Over the song's half-hour span, the band meditates on dread and apprehension, rising gradually through tense half-melodies (check the subtle references to "The Little Drummer Boy" at around 14:45) to the final freakout. There are unmistakable shades of everything from Can, Klaus Schulze and early Pink Floyd to Mogwai, and pretty much anything ever released on Kranky.
It may not be fair to describe them as such on their own accounts, but the remaining three compositions feel like afterthoughts coming in the wake of all that. I've tried listening to the three of them on their own, away from their bigger brothers' shadows, but it only makes them feel incomplete, and even more like sketches for something larger. "Bulky Knit Cheerleader Sweater", in particular, is little more than a jumble of politely churning noises, with little-to-no contour. These late letdowns do little to blunt the overall impact of the album's centerpiece, though, and given that they constitute far less than half of the runtime, it's easy to overlook their shapelessness and focus on the good stuff upfront.
