Kinetik Refined (Special Edition)

The sound quality of the album has been given a slight wash & brush up on a few tracks (including 'Haven's Lament' & 'Dance Machine' as a couple of examples) via some subtle compression & some reduced levels which bring all the tracks more into line with each other. You'd probably be hard pressed to tell the difference unless you were listening very very closely, but that matters not a jot. What does matter, however, is that the music still sounds fresh & invigorating, starting with the punchy opener 'Kinetik Energy' which still positively leaps from the speakers with it's insistent rhythms & infectious melodics & well integrated, slightly treated vocals from Colin Jordan, which suit the musical style well.

At the time the album was recorded (1995/96),the subject of power sources, fuels & refining was a subject close to the band's collective heart, due to the proposed burning of the allegedly carcinogenic fuel Orimulsion on the Pembrokeshire coastline, close to Colin Jordan's home at the time. Not only did this help to inspire the infectious title track, but also gave birth to the almost whimsical & light hearted 'Pipeline' & the slightly less obvious 'Generation', which is presented here as a totally different mix to that found on the original album. Moreover, it also gave them the chance to make their live debut at a concert organised to promote awareness of the problem, called 'The Burning Issue'. It's from this performance (& the subsequent limited edition CDR release of the same name) that the live rendition of 'Pipeline' is taken & what a powerful rendition it is, showing that even at that early stage they were a live force to be reckoned with. 'Orimulsion' (another track not on the original album) comes from the same show & is a chilling recitation, delivered via heavily treated voice, of the facts about Orimulsion & what the results could have been if the proposed refining ever went ahead (which, happily, it never did).

Tracks such as 'Industrial Technology' & 'Net Working' all deal with the tried & tested formula of technology & their effects on modern life. Mostly, Kinetik do not preach on the good or ill effects of the subject but remain impartial, although the semi-spoken/treated vocals of 'Net Working' paint a rosey picture of the computer age. Throughout, the band rely on a potent mix of solid, pacey rhythms & nifty synth motifs, interspersed with hi-tech light industrial sounds that perfectly illustrate the band's technological bent. 'Dance Machine' is probably a little too fast for all but the most athletic of us to dance to but does provide another dose of the racey Kinetik sound. Another piece not on the original, the short 'Father Of Invention' is another vocoded offering, this time with some complimentary ambient backing & this acts as a good introduction for the slow & brooding 'Sounds Of Industry', just as it did at the band's EMMA 4 gig, back in 1997.

No doubt you're all aware of the band's early years as a Kraftwerk covers band & their subsequent progress into a full fledged band in their own right. While it's obvious that the band were influenced by the famous Germans, it's equally clear that, even then, Kinetik had found their own take on rhythmic synth styles with a certain Englishness easily recognisable on Colin's vocals during 'Sounds Of Industry'.This helps to give the band a more human character at the same time, a facet explicitly stated during the ambient 'Haven's Lament' where ShirleyAnn Davies' Electronic Wind Instrument weaves a hauntingly lonesome lament against a backdrop of equally mournful synth waves. With this track in particular, it's clear that ShirleyAnn is a valuable addition to the band's armoury of musical possibilities.