It’s already been said that even the average Kool Keith album is peppered with bizarre, disjointed, delusional or disassociated themes, concepts, and references. So imagine an album where Keith Mathew Thornton is well and truly hyping up his hugely ironical claims of being a former mental patient of Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, where he was treated for depression. Multiple personalities doesn’t even come into it. Have you any idea how many alter-egos this man has had? Keith Turbo, Keith Torg, Dr. Sperm, Dr Ultra, Dr. Dooom, Black Elvis, Mr Orange, MC Bladylocks, the Forth Horseman, Blonde Man, Cleanman, Shark Man, Elephant man, Mr. Gerbi, Alien man, Jimmi Steel, Willie Biggs, Willy Natural, Reverend Tom, Larry Lopez. The list goes on. And on. And on. And what complicates things even more is the fact that his 1996 Dr. Octagon alias was actually killed off in the introduction to his next album, ‘First Come First Served’, by his new persona Dr. Dooom.
Confused? You will be. Especially when you learn that Thornton was none too keen on this personality being resurrected by his record company and threatened to pull the plug on the whole thing before it even got started.
Politics and prognosis aside though, ‘The Return Of Dr. Octagon’ is produced by three producers known collectively as One Watt Sun (an Australian-American trio allegedly based in a medieval tower in Prague) and released on OCD Records, an imprint of CMH Records.
Morphing, old skool, and loopy. Sounds unfinished but it’s not without its charm.