We first came across Cosmic Dreams
through The Big Backyard's "Midem
Cannes sampler 1999". Their contribution to that CD was Jealousy,
an upbeat retro-electronica rock piece on the evils of the green Deadly Sin. "Future
Renaissance" doesn't get better than that (fortunately or
unfortunately, depending upon your personal view-point). The CD's saving grace,
however, is the instrumentation, especially on Mr Steak (the best song
on the record), Being Natural, Cassandra, the musical closer Welcome,
We've Been Expecting You and the opener Daydreamer. I actually found
myself listening not to the pained/painful vocals, nor to the lyrics that
seemed not to worry about working or rhyming, but to the instrumentation. There
is an early-80s retro feel to this collection, which would do soo-oo much more
with a different vocalist and lyrical reworking.
After the music is gone, there's four very
short spoken-word pieces. Again, another voice would work better, but I
actually enjoyed them, and that's from one not normally taken by poetry
readings. Your Best Friend is actually a cute riddle, but the other
three works carry on the feel of the rest of the CD.