A.R. Kane: Alex, Rudi (vocals, various instruments).

Additional personnel: Christopher Earl, Susan Lamb, Richard Hendrix, Aileen Doyle (strings); Luca Bonvini (trumpet, trombone); Daniel Camosa (piano); Peter Van Straten (bass); Anni McCann, Sharon Shelton (background vocals); The Renaissance Children's Choir (vocals).

Producers: A.R. Kane, Chris Cuben-Tatum.

Recorded at H. ARK and Matrix, London, England; Coast Recorders, San Francisco, California.

A.R. Kane's quest began as a self-described synthesis of "Miles Davis and the Cocteau Twins," ultimately leading Alex Ayuli and Rudi Tambala to discoveries that altered the vocabulary of pop. On their seminal EPs and the ambitious 69 and "i," A.R. Kane combined scathing feedback and effects-laden guitar cascades with soulful vocals, unabashed grooves and syncopated club beats in startling, previously unimagined ways. As half of M.A.R.R.S., forgers of the colossal, sample-heavy "Pump Up The Volume," Ayuli and Tambala also changed dance music forever.

Burdened with the magnitude of such accomplishments, NEW CLEAR CHILD was met with disappointment and precipitated A.R. Kane's dissolution. They had abandoned London for the West Coast, and their new music radiated a distinctly Californian quasi-mysticism and sunny, love-affirming spirituality. The soul-on-ice stylings of "Honey Be (For Stella)"and "Grace" are beautiful and heartfelt, outshining similar efforts by PM Dawn or Seal while prefiguring Tambala's trip-hop project, Sufi. Such bliss-confections as "Deep Blue Breath" and "Snow White's World" retain A.R. Kane's inimitable strangeness, rivaling the magnificence of late-period Talk Talk. Even if this resplendent experimental soul music is out of step with the cynicism of the '90s, NEW CLEAR CHILD is another "dreampop" wonder.

Q (9/94, p.97) - 3 Stars - Good - "...a refreshing selection of chilled classical pop and shuffling neo-ambient rhythms..."

NME (Magazine) (10/8/94, p.43) - 7 - Very Good - "...Above all, though, the insidious jazz-warped melodies work because they're so immaculately dressed..."