John Bassett is the one man multi-instrumentalist force responsible for King Bathmat's studio work, and the impression you'll get from his music is that he doesn't really pay attention to the world around him. How else could he produce such non-relevant music? This isn't an insult but an earnest compliment -- he has a wonderful ability to combine a variety of song forms and styles into a cohesive (albeit unsettling and obtuse) whole.

Fantastic Freak Show Carnival is more of Bassett's music from another world -- his world, one that's pretty cool once you acclimate to its overall strangeness, from the music to the title of the songs to the Alice Cooper-meets-Jefferson Starship cover artwork. "Ghost in the Fire" churns in feedback and manipulated percussion, then kicks into a '90s alt-rock groove, rampant with melodic guitars that ease into slight overdrive during the chorus. Before you can say Collective Soul, you need to figure in Bassett's eerie psychedelic vocal harmonies and singing theremin, which slip into the mix and slap things around. "Kings Ransom" rocks a bit harder, turning up the distortion and whammy pedal, though the drum work nods both to Mod-era Britpop and R&B, and Bassett's recurring bridge sinks into murky Sabbath territory. Combining Moby's "Porcelain" piano tinkling with echoed-out Hawaiian slide guitar, the instrumental "Illuminous Pups" floats along somewhere between Suede and This Mortal Coil -- at least until it explodes, midway through, in a maelstrom of riff-rock/wah-wah frenzy.

The suggestion that Bassett lives an insular life, free from knowledge of modern musical goings-on, couldn't be more ill-informed. On the contrary, Fantastic Freak Show Carnival suggests that he spent 20 years absorbing everything there is to hear in pop music, then developed his ability to effortlessly reproduce it all at once, without ever sounding derivative. Talk about a niche of your own...