Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The patterns may change, the colours remain vibrant, but our daily lives, our hopes and desires are held hostage by the ones who makes the Kaleidoscope turn, and what we are left with is the maze of mirrors that create arrangements by design but never giving the whole picture; like the person who shares only success but never failure, the object is skewed in the favour of the turning and twisting the machine.

What we really need, what we should be insisting upon is that the Kaleidoscope be in the hands of the compassionate and the one who sees the design as a building block to changing life for all, not for those who see the mirror and the reflection doubled back, proclaiming beauty when all they offer is a continuous echo, the enduring and never-ending likeness.

In the mind and vision of Dorothy Bird, the Kaleidoscope is a chain reaction of honesty burning bright, it is the colour expanded, however in this case there are no mirrors and smoke to make the crowd become fooled into adoring the spectacle of the decorative, just a revelation, an opportunity to listen and urge others to seize the means of dismantling the concept of image and pursue instead the belief that we are not alone, that we should always find ways to be together, even when nature insists that we must not.

Dorothy Bird’s beautifully expressive and utterly beguiling melancholic song is not just haunting, but in the same insightful way as Banquo’s appearance at the feast, it is timely, raw, stunning, but underneath it is heartbreakingly honest, a song that has so much truth weaved through it that it makes the listener feel as though their head has finally stopped spinning, no longer obsessed with the pattern, but instead focusing on the picture beyond the shapes and distractions.

Dorothy Bird captures the moment with absolute sincerity in her new single and it is one to fully admire.

Ian D. Hall