Oh my, this was a tough review me me to get started on! You see, what The iss That Took A Trip brings here, is a very nice atmospheric/ Ambient collage of music, of the type that will have me gazing off in the far distance during listening sessions! Só tough was it for me, that at a certain moment I even considered simply copying the info sheet onto this page (well, write it all over again, of course, because I have never copy-pasted in my life!), but then that's something we cannot do, is it?
So, to cut things short, The Kiss is the one-man musical project of Spaniard M. D. Trello, whom started it in 2006 after several years of doubt (according to our info, it's the DIY esthetics of Steve Albini, Trent Raznor, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor which eventually pushed M.D. to get started after all).. For the largest part, his music is constructed on a computer, with however the ethereal guitars played for real, and vocal samples worked into the stuff. Since finally getting into it, The Kiss has already had several releases: following the 2008 EP Dating Aphrodite, came the full-lengths Worst Case Scenarios (2009) and The Dummy Family (2011). Homemade and lo-fi (Trello only “recently” upgraded his “instrumentarium” to Mac and Logic Pro), these albums are mainly instrumental, with only an occasional singing line here and there (and of course, vocal samples from the news, movies, etc...), and are politically critical (no wonder, after all he doés live in Spain, doesn't he? – how could a musician not be touched by what the politicians are doin' there!?).
With How The Mighty Have Fallen, the political theme is dropped somewhat, and according to the info sheet, has The Kiss finding a “unique voice”. Well, for starters, there IS of course the upgraded computer side of the thing, but also there's other considerations, and here's when I wíll cite a snippet from the info sheet : “...the album bases its sound on long-winded Ambient/ Jazzy suites and unravels with no sense of urgency but employing signature changes, breakdowns, drone sections, distortion and hummed vocals reminiscent of Bark Psychosis...In this album, as in past releases, The Kiss leaves a breadcrumb trail of sound that may lead the listener to The Kiss' biggest musical influences (Talk Talk, Friends Of Dean Martinez, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Mogwai, Mike Oldfield, His Name Is Alive, Can, Rush, Barry Adamson or Angelo Badalamenti), only that distortion is turned up a notch or two, placing The Kiss That Took A Trip in a not very crowded musical niche in which Progressive music and mainstream appeal meet but don't clash...”! Darn...I wish them were my own words, because there's really no better way to describe what Trello does with this project of his! In a general way, it is a meeting of Post-Rock, Ambient, Progressive, New-Age, Lo-fi, and Orchestral Pop (short description also provided by the artist!).
Interesting detail: Trello is against copyright infringement. Although all the music he composes (through means of computer of in the good old analog way) is his own, he stands for free music, and operates on a “pay only if you wish” policy through Creative Commons. His music can be found on several websites, including Bandcamp, Jamendo, Last.fm, Soundcloud, Grooveshark and Dogmazic. Of course, to get a copy of the CD, you woùld have to pay a certain fee (there is, after all, certain costs involved, you know!).
For more details on the artist, whom in parallel also works on a project which he calls Always In The Wrong Mood for a series of thematic albums; thus far released Vol. I: Music For Funeral & The Afterlife in Oct. 2007 (n need to explain what that's about), and is trying to revive the more Industrial Noise geared solo project Victorian Bug, log onto (www.) thekissthattookatrip.com (you'll also find links to the several sites mentioned earlier). All I'm left to do now (a full day after having started the review, because I could not stand having to continue writing without listening to the album some more), is to add the album to my “Best Albums Of 2012”-lists!