Gingerbread Man (1994)

The Gingerbread Man is a figure of death who appears to claim people who doom themselves by their selfishness, foolishness, cynicism, jealousy etc.; people who are stuck in a rut. Each track here is devoted to one of nine characters, all victims of their nature; The Dying Oilman, The Aging Musician, The Sold-Out Artist. Is this an album about doubt? Regret?

Though I realise the music was concieved first I still find it tends to play second fiddle to the fantastic graphics the listener is able to trigger off in the expanded CD-ROM version (see multimedia section). The Aging Musician is great though; "Maybe if I put a bullet in my brain, they'd remember me like Kurt Cobain".

Musically, you may call this "Variations on One Theme", which might be a bit boring, when listening for the first time. As a real gingerbread man should be, this is rather short (36 mins) and rather sweet. Well, as sweet as nine studies of the psychology of despair can be, once set to music. Nicely packaged, but the booklet really should have been in colour. The CD-ROM version is nice to play with, too, but not essential.