Pieces of 8 is not only better than Styx's album of similar name; it is most certainly one of Ka-Spel's strongest musical statements ever! So there!! A journey through a body! A masterpiece! It's the sort of record that doesn't offer up all its secrets on the first pass, but is nonetheless absolutely compelling during that first, mystical, aural unwrapping. It reminds me of that time I first heard Asylum. I thought "who needs marijuana when there's this?!" Not that I threw out my marijuana; or my diazepam; or my amphetamines; or my LSD; or my banana peels; or my turpentine. The point is, that I listen to a lot, a lot, a lot, A LOT of music. Much of it is amazing, but truly rare is that first listening where a kundalini experience is had. The album starts out with a sort of Dick Contino/pre-war French street accordionist on the dark side of the moon motif & then, well, where DOESN'T Ed go from there? A dark, meticulously drawn out cosmosphere that sounds like outtakes from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which then, quite simply, BECOMES something altogether other. Throbbing electro sequences follow, gouging out the gorgeous, & then back into the mire. Everywhere prog rock influenced with nary a guitar in sight. There is even a thematic restatement. As if the music were not reason enough to sign on board, the dynamic use of the studio as an instrument is perhaps the most stunning since the collaboration with Stapleton on Malachai. Completely psychedelic & utterly sensational!!! Awesome from start to finish. & by awesome I mean, like, totally! To say too much would be to spoil the experience. Best album of 2004?! -Else Teicher