In the Kingdom of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster is an album by the Norwegian band Shining

Shining (Norwegian band)

Shining is a Norwegian band that started out as an acoustic jazz quartet in 1999. Their sound has since become more experimental and extreme, incorporating elements from metal and progressive rock as well as 19th and 20th century classical music....

. It was released in 2005 by Rune Grammofon

Rune Grammofon

Rune Grammofon is a Norwegian record label founded in 1998 by Rune Kristoffersen. Rune Grammofon's reputation for lovingly issued experimental electronic music, jazz, and improvised music by Norwegian artists has grown over the years with its artists being featured heavily in magazines such as The...

. The title is taken from a line in Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera , born 1 April 1929, is a writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and The Joke. Kundera has written in...

's novel the Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being , written by Milan Kundera, is a philosophical novel about two men, two women, a dog and their lives in the Prague Spring of the Czechoslovak Communist period in 1968. Although written in 1982, the novel was not published until two years later, in France...

.

There are many cultural references in the track titles as well. "Goretex Weather Report" probably refers to the band Weather Report

Weather Report

Weather Report was an American jazz-rock band of the 1970s and early 1980s. The band was co-led by the Austrian-born keyboard player Joe Zawinul and the American saxophonist Wayne Shorter...

, "REDRUM" is a repeated line in The Shining

The Shining (novel)

The Shining is a 1977 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The title was inspired by the John Lennon song "Instant Karma!", which contained the line "We all shine on…". It was King's third published novel, and first hardback bestseller, and the success of the book firmly established King...

, a part in "Romani" is very inspired by a part in Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

's 6th symphony, "Perdurabo" was Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...

's magical pseudonym in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a magical order active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which practiced theurgy and spiritual development...

, "Aleister Explains Everything" refers Crowley as well, the numbers in the title of track six (31=300=20) is a Gematria

Gematria

Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like...

 reference (Shin

Shin (letter)

Shin literally means "Sharp" ; It is the twenty-first letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Aramaic/Hebrew , and Arabic ....

), "It is by Will Alone I Set My Mind in Motion" is a line (more exactly a Mentat Mantra) from the movie Dune

Dune (film)

Dune is a 1984 science fiction film written and directed by David Lynch, based on the 1965 Frank Herbert novel of the same name. The film stars Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides, and includes an ensemble of well-known American and European actors in supporting roles. It was filmed at the Churubusco...

, "Where Death Comes to Cry" is a phrase in Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

's song "I'm Your Man" and "The Smoking Dog" is a poem by Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...

 from The Book of Lies

The Book of Lies

The Book of Lies may refer to:In Literature/Writing* The Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley, first published in London in 1913....

. "Magazine RWRK" simply means that the track is a rework of the Jaga Jazzist

Jaga Jazzist

Jaga Jazzist is an experimental jazz band from Norway that rose to prominence when the BBC named their first album, A Livingroom Hush , the best jazz album of 2002. The core of the band are brothers and main songwriters Lars and Martin Horntveth...

 album Magazine from 2004. The final track, "You Can Try the Best You Can", may be a reference to Radiohead

Radiohead

Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...

, the title in fact being a lyric from the song "Optimistic", found on the album Kid A

Kid A

Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in October 2000 by the Parlophone label. A commercial success worldwide, Kid A went platinum in its first week of release in the United Kingdom. Despite the lack of an official single or music video as publicity, Kid A...

.

Track listing

1. "Goretex Weather Report" – 5:01
2. "REDRUM" – 1:37
3. "Romani" – 3:19
4. "Perdurabo" – 3:02
5. "Aleister Explains Everything" – 3:24
6. "31=300=20 (It is by Will Alone I Set My Mind in Motion)" – 4:25
7. "Where Death Comes to Cry" – 2:23
8. "The Smoking Dog" – 3:57
9. "Magazine RWRK" – 6:32
10. "You Can Try the Best You Can" – 5:21

External links

• Last.fm album page