£10.00
(Pickled Egg Records, Egg68CD)
'Black and White Mass' sets a new standard in home entertainment, featuring some of a.P.A.t.T.'s most accessible compositions to date, whilst still retaining an element of surprise.
"aPAtT are the Willy Wonka of the musical world: part Gene Wilder, part Johnny Depp. And I am Veruca Salt, selfishly cramming every note into my brain as hard as possible, headphones stuck so far down my ear canal I'll have to crawl in to open the lock soon. There is no frequency left unturned, no genre left unwrapped or ignored. A confident, twisted skip through all that is good and fun, like an end-of-century review that leaves out all the crap bits. And so wondrously crafted! Each tinkling, each scrape of a cymbal, each deathly metal blast is crystallised and seemingly separated to ease the aural digestion. Indeed, to labour a lame analogy, they could well be the Heston Blumenthal of the modern music world, boiling down the elements and presenting us with twenty-seven small but exquisitely sensational courses to feast upon. a.P.A.t.T. is deft and skilful; talented and precocious. a.P.A.t.T. is Fun. Fun. Fun!" [Plan B]
"Apatt engage in moments of freeform jazz assaults, light-hearted ritualistic wig flippers, mini progressive operas, music hall oddness, acid dipped shanties, sand dusted serenades, Soviet regality, noire-ish folk standards from the dark side, and white hot sonic meltdowns - the sounds trip out in unrelated fashion, causing you to teeter on the back foot, an impish lucky bag of sorts with the band doling out the occasional curveball just when you are beginning to think you have their measure. 'Black and White Mass' is THE first crucial full length of the year. Somehow I don't reckon it'll be topped in our affections - though be warned, it'll do your f**kin head in" [Mark Barton, Losing Today]
"The ridiculously schizophrenic aPAtT manage to squeeze 27 songs into an hour. After a while you will find it best just to lie back and enjoy the ride - jazz, tapes going backwards, woozy dub skronking, electro funk circus music, Cozy Powell drum riffs, 70’s porn music, phones, and the spirit of Zappa stoned for the first time in his life. All in all it is magnificent stuff, play it to your friend and watch them reel about in confusion" [Ptolemaic Terrascope]
"Oh I don't know, there are no words for this. a.P.A.t.T are so easy to listen to when they really shouldn't be; it should just be a mess. They're a band - don't go thinking this is some wise-ass cut-up studio nerd; a whole gang of them in masks and anti-radiation suits or something like that. Hey look, if you want something challenging, something beautiful, something different, something violent, something soothing, something like you never heard before then this is where you need to go this week" [Sean Organ, organ.com - Eclectic Music Magazine/webzine]
"a.P.A.t.T. are a motherfucking experience. Probably the only UK band i can think of to come up with their vision of the dark, vicious and fuck me, rather scary vision of the ACID PUNK dropped onto us from the visions of Gibby from the Butthole Surfers. We love them. You need to hear this. It's insane" [Alan Mcgee - Creation/Poptones]