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From the evidence of the sleeve alone, singer Heidi Kilpelainen's
alter ego, HK119, is quite a character - literally. With panda black
eyes and a terrifying grimace, she looks like she could hold her own in
a cat fight with Grace Jones.
On further investigation, the initial impression is confirmed. With
histrionic twists of Lene Lovich, Siouxsie Sioux and David Byrne,
Kilpelainen's vocals perfectly match her futuristic, comic book stage
incarnation. With a penchant for wearing black catsuits and plenty of
bacofoil onstage, the image is decidedly space opera. "Instead of
making it to Mars I feel I get stuck on Earth," she sings in In-Valid,
and it's easy to imagine her starring in a B-movie sci-fi thriller
starring the bloke out of Quantum Leap. HK119 would play the vampish
alien seductress who tried to claw his eyes out before he blows her up
with a laser gun, of course.
Okay, back to the album. Opening with what sounds like a botched
space announcement and a computer's modem connecting itself to the
internet, it segues into a understated funk number about a lady "having
a friend for dinner". To eat alive, that is. Malfunction and Pick Me
Up are stripped-down Numan-esque servings of electro pop designed for
robot dancing. But it's not all aimed at the disco. Censor Me is a
pretty ballad and hidden track, Taysikuu is an Eastern-European
sounding waltz (albeit played on synth and drum machine).
At best, HK119's sound is Bjork's Army of Me crossed with
Hazel O'Connor's Eighth Day, or Alison Goldfrapp's
scarier, older sister picking up a synthesizer on her way to a fetish
club. But not all the album lives up to that standard - the second half
(and at 17 tracks you certainly get your money's worth) loses its pop
edge and verges on fairly (sub)standard electro-industrial punk. Which
in this day and age, sounds a little dated.
Apparently an arts graduate from Central St Martins, Kilpelainen has
clearly invented HK119 as the persona of a performance artist of which
music is part, but not the whole. I can well imagine that this might
have been part of her final art project. With this in mind, it's
probably the case that the album makes more sense and impact when
viewed live where you'd get to see her perform the numbers in
character.
Patchy though this debut album is, HK119 certainly brings a bit of
space glitter and humour to a world where insipid schmatlz (mentioning
no names... oh alright then, Coldplay and James Blunt) is
considered music par excellance. It's a shame she's unlikely to set the
charts alight any time soon; nevertheless, it's good to have her
around.
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