Hatfield and the North - Hatfield and the North

To delve further into the dense stuff of the Canterbury Scene, Hatfield and the North's 1974 debut is a great place to explore how the scene evolved both personnel-wise and sound-wise as the 70's wore on.  By this time Soft Machine was firmly on a jazz-heavy fusion route, with Robert Wyatt long-since departed, finished with his next project Matching Mole, a paraplegic and releasing his first masterpiece, Rock Bottom, the same year.  Gong and Caravan were already very different bands, with drummer Pip Pyle gone from Gong (to drum for Hatfield and the North) and guitarist Steve Hillage added to the fold, and bassist Richard Sinclair departing Caravan, also to work with the Hatfields.  By the time of this album's recording, the core group was rounded out by Egg (among other groups) keyboardist Dave Stewart and Matching Mole/Delivery guitarist Phil Miller.  My intention isn't to get overly cluttered with names and group references, but rather to show just how intermingling the Canterbury Scene was (and continues to be, to some extent)--Hatfield and the North can in some ways be considered the first Canterbury supergroup as it was formed from members who had already demonstrated their abilities on the classic albums of other Canterbury groups.

Sound-wise, Hatfield and the North amply demonstrates how the Canterbury sound continued to get more sophisticated, more refined, and jazzier.  Unlike mid-70's Soft Machine (or the trace jazz elements found in Caravan, for example), Hatfield and the North's debut sound is one of fusion of jazz harmony, complex composition and improvisation with appealing, gentle melodies.  The complexity of these compositions is far from the relative pop-simplicity of Caravan's songs, yet Richard Sinclair seems to have no trouble accommodating his bass skills to the material.  And don't think that this group is just going to sound like a summation of all the things the members did before--this album is rife with seamless transitions and sub-one-minute segue tracks, and the mission of the vocals (the lyrics for which are mostly tongue-in-cheek nonsense) seems to be to give listeners an accessible insertion point into what's often complex and difficult-to-get-the-first-time music.

Though it's not his group, per se (at least not as much as later incarnation National Health was), Dave Stewart's keyboards provide the most noticeable framework for this music--fluidly transitioning between Rhodes electric piano, Hammond organ, various synthesizers and acoustic piano to provide both texture and melodic substance.  "Son of 'There's No Place Like Homerton'" boasts some of the most Egg-like contrapuntal puzzle keyboard of the album, with a complex, ever-shifting atmosphere abetted by airy, ethereal contributions of the "Northettes" (background singers Barbara Gaskin, Amanda Parsons and Ann Rosenthal, who also contributed to Egg's Civil Surface album, released the same year).  Robert Wyatt guest vocalizes on "Calyx," eventually joined by Richard Sinclair in a delicate, wordless duet.  It's these kinds of complex but unassuming moments that make Hatfield and the North's two albums so rewarding on repeated listens.

I have to admit that it took me quite a few before my attitude shifted from mere respectful appreciation to all-out enthusiasm--I'm beginning to think that there's something about the language of jazz harmony that's fundamentally different from that found in most rock and pop--you have to have to acquaint yourself a certain amount with it before it stops just sounding like silly noodling and the multiple facets possible with extended harmony start to shine through.  The songs here don't often "rock out" (even by Canterbury's gentle standards), and the often major-key extended harmonies are much more reminiscent of later smooth jazz music than their darker minor counterparts being explored by Soft Machine and Henry Cow.  The band does manage to get pretty uptempo and a little more aggressive in sound on the fast-paced "Rifferama," which features Gong saxophonist Didier Malherbe and on which Dave Stewart coyly quotes the "I Never Glid Before" melody.  "Shaving is Boring" is likely the album's most epic composition, treading some darker territory with some Mahavishnu Orchestra-like ostinato patterns, gnarly Canterbury fuzz organ and an uncharacteristically distorted and noticeable contribution from Phil Miller's guitar (we won't quite get to see him cut loose until National Health's Of Queues and Cures, which fulfills all of Hatfield and the North's promise and then some).  Richard Sinclair does his best Robert Wyatt in the vaguely sexual "Licks for the Ladies," displaying that his sometimes subdued vocals aren't without a considerable amount of nuance.  He also manages some of the album's funniest quirky Canterbury nonsense vocals when "Big Jobs No. 2" recapitulates the second track with metacommentary on the band's hopes for commercial success.

It's interesting to see how all of these Canterbury figures continued to develop their distinct but collective musical visions while at the same time working for some kind of commercial success.  As the band morphed into National Health and progressive music became less and less popular in the late 70's, it became clear that the golden days of having label support and a mouthpiece through which to broadcast these ideas were drawing to a close.  Luckily several of these musicians have soldiered on to make more worthwhile music, but we also have a legacy of densely enjoyable recordings and ideas to engage in the present.  This album is warmly recommended along with the band's sophomore effort The Rotters' Club, as well as National Health's self-titled debut and the aforementioned Of Queues and Cures--more thoughts on those records later!

Get it here.

James Brown - Hell

One of the popular music phenomena that most fascinates me is when an artist (almost always in conjunction with a label) attempts to recreate a successful album with a follow-up that attempts to in some way recreate the magic of its predecessor.  Harry Nilsson's Son of Schmilsson is definitely one of those albums, but his willful merry prankster approach seems a deliberate (and artistically sound) attempt to undermine his label's hopes for a repeat hit album in comparison with this, James Brown's rapid-fire follow-up to his early '74 hit The Payback.  Sure, it's not an attempt to completely duplicate The Payback's 20 minute grooves, but the fact that it's another double album with a bunch of indelibly funky jams interspersed with a bizarre and jarring segue (this time it's a blaring gong instead of a bunch of background singers going "zzzzzzzoooooo!") makes the comparison inevitable.

If anything, Hell is probably best described as an overreach.  While the quality of the funk is indisputable on tracks like "Coldblooded" and the title track's chainsaw delivery, it's easy to get the sense that the stripped-down essence of Brown's earlier funk masterpieces has become lost in a proliferation of instruments and experiments in eclecticism.  For example, there's the bizarre Latin treatment of the early Brown hit "Please Please Please," immediately followed by the even more bizarre funk-cum-proto-disco treatment of "When the Saints Go Marching In" (which finds Brown pleading cringe-worthily to be "in that funky number").  There are less egregious offenses, like the awkward attempt to update the blues classic "Stormy Monday" and an uncomfortably slick and square update of another classic pre-funk Brown tune in "I Lost Someone" (don't worry, you won't be inspired to throw away your copy of Live at the Apollo).  And then again, there are some guilt free moments in the Parliament-esque (and huge mouthful) "Dont' Tell A Lie About Me and I Won't Tell the Truth About You" and the ideologically confused but utterly on-the-one "Sayin' and Doin' It" (the CD reissue liner notes' attempts to credit Brown with social awareness on the level of What's Going On or Curtis based purely on "Hell," the cover art and a couple other tracks are valiant but laughable).  When the time comes for Brown and his crew to stretch out into some longform funky jams, the results are both tight ("I Can't Stand It") and solid but strangely ho-hum ("Papa Don't Take No Mess"), but never sounding quite as natural as the long tracks on The Payback.

When it comes to assessing the overall strength of this album, it's easy to pick holes in its particular (and ultimately relative) failures, but what keeps me coming back is the experimentation and, of course, Brown's ability to use his voice as an inimitable instrument even when singing the most inane nonsensicalities imaginable.  As I've probably said before, hearing someone try and fail at something uncharacteristic can often be just as rewarding as hearing them succeed at what they already do best.  Brown and company's attempt to prolong the hit magic may not be a complete artistic success, but at this point in his career (as evidenced below) he was on such a roll that any 80 minute double album was guaranteed to at least get your booty shaking--and that's always been the point, right?

Get it here.

Gryphon - Red Queen to Gryphon Three

Some progressive albums from the 1970's sound like the compositions could be played in the present and might actually manage to sound a little more modern, while others remain permanently tied to the time of their origin.  British group Gryphon's 1974 third album is surely one of the latter category, and a perfect choice to end the relative drought of progressive material here.  Listening to this album is like burying your head in a synthesized pillow of 70's renaissance heaven. 

Among the numerous progressive groups of similar ambitiousness, Gryphon are distinguishable (on this album at least) for eschewing vocals entirely and utilizing crumhorns, a Renaissance-era woodwind that imbues the band's backward-looking style with some aural authenticity.  Looking at the band's credits, though, it's not a huge surprise they're adept at accommodating the crumhorn--the horn is double-reeded, and Brian Gulland spends half of his time in the group playing bassoon.  Unsurprisingly considering these guys' academic credentials, the virtuosic level of musicianship is one of the album's strongest characteristics.

Compositionally, Gryphon has to be one of the most classically-influenced contemporary progressive groups, neatly folding Renaissance and especially Baroque influences into their songs while still pumping up the amplification with electric guitar and bass, drums and some well-arranged synth parts.  The album's "Opening Move" boasts some of the dreamiest instrumental passages, utilizing gorgeous but tense chord progressions, and juxtaposing a twinkling group sound very much influenced by passages in similar Yes songs with interlocking contrapuntal sections similar to those often explored by Gentle Giant.  Unlike Yes and Gentle Giant, though, Gryphon rarely breaks past the Baroque atmosphere into a more contemporary rock sound.  In some ways, they don't have to because their vocal-free sound doesn't pose the problem of matching lyrics and vocals to such an academic sound, but it's also because they're exploring the fusion of classical and rock to a much deeper extent.  The ebb and flow of tempo and energy in "Opening Move" is abetted by the development of a strong melodic motif and showcases of the band's multi-instrumental talents.

"Second Spasm" features the most overt rock sounds of the album, with the bass and guitar doubling on a boisterous and satisfying progressive riff after a couple of the most intricate Medieval and Baroque passages of the album.  As might be reasonably inferred from its title, "Lament" is the requisite quiet piece, which seems slightly unnecessary considering even most of the mid-tempo pieces here are fairly mellow.  By the time the album closes with "Checkmate," it's apparent that the group's arrangements--replete with synth/piano double runs and multi-flute harmonies--are the album's greatest asset.  While some of the melodies are unmemorable even after numerous listens, there's always joy to be found in the spaces between the multiple simultaneous sounds, and it's clear the band took great care with keeping the sections of their extended pieces constantly on the move and heading toward the next surprising combination.  While the band's sound is uncommercial by even progressive standards and the album will always sound hopelessly dated, this kind of music will always sound great to the converted and acts as a cheerful reminder that there was once a time when bands making music like this could land a record deal and at least have a shot at success.

Get it here.

Roy Harper - Valentine

You know you're in a good place artistically when you're pumping out massive, sweeping epics every couple of years and still find you have enough shorter, less ambitious songs coming out of your pen to collect another entire album without even having to try.  Roy Harper was in such a situation in 1974, coming off of a couple of conceptual beasts in 1971's Stormcock and 1973's Lifemask and realizing he'd amassed enough unrelated but equally strong material in the meantime to release an album of (mostly) love songs--1974's Valentine.

The fact that a spread of songs dating as far back as the mid-60's succeeds so well comes undoubtedly by the grace of the unstoppable roll Harper was on in the mid-70's.  Still in the continual process of honing his individualistic acoustic singer/songwriter-cum-absurdist rock experimenter style, it's clear on Valentine that there were plenty more song experiments and odd ideas yet to go before the well ran dry--indeed, with his move to a more rock centered style on 1975's HQ, Harper moved on before having to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

In Valentine we get the classic Harper blend of tenderness ("I'll See You Again," an update of his debut's "Forever,"), belligerence ("Male Chauvinist Pig Blues," "Che"), comic vulgarity ("Magic Woman Liberation Reshuffle") and spaciness ("Twelve Hours of Sunset," "Acapulco Gold"), all tied together by an ever-present sense of human searching in things both musical and lyrical.  While I know this schizophrenic aesthetic can be disorienting for Harper newcomers, it's the unflinching honesty that brings the converted back again and again.  In fact, it's often in the songs in which more than one of these contrasting moods are juxtaposed that Roy produces his most compelling tension--the lilting folk psychedelia of love song "Forbidden Fruit" belies the reality that, save some ambiguity regarding the narrator's age, it's about pedophilia (a fact the song's beauty makes fittingly all-to-easy to ignore).  The lush, well-paced "I'll See You Again" places the songwriter's compassion at odds with his stubborn pursuit of his own path, shading a hurtful move with obvious deep consideration.  The perennial live favorite "Commune" achieves this contrast perhaps best of all, with Harper exposing love's complexity through his own fickleness, gradually softening the chorus from "And love is my torment/And I'll take when I can/But I'll give in the moment/When you are my woman and I am your man" to "And love is no torment/For we'll give when we can/And we'll live in the moment/When you are my woman and I am your man" and finally altering the final line to "And we'll live for the moment/When she is my woman and I am her man," somehow using a few short words to subtly lay bare the simultaneously selfish and selfless act of reaching out that lies at the heart of love.  Oh, let's not forget that the same song also combines Harper's inclination for bodily imagery (enough to make many listeners squirm) with one of his most gloriously distinctive fingerstyle pull-off laden guitar riffs.

In light of my recent complaints against less refined attempts at adding orchestration to pop music, I want to make special note of the contributions of recently-deceased English composer and conductor David Bedford.  Appearing on a select handful of tracks, Bedford's arrangements are the quintessence of sympathetic--they swell with strings and blaring brass on the aforementioned "I'll See You Again," lending added drama but also harmonically enhancing Harper's vocal melody.  Repeating string figures rhythmically punctuate the guitar part on "Commune" without ever obscuring it, tonally enhancing the lyric's nature imagery and adding variation to the repeating guitar part.  Harper's version of "North Country" possesses a polish Dylan never matched, and the strings again swoop below, above and around the polytonality of his guitar line, their liquidity contrasting the more percussive sound of a fingerpicked guitar and at other times emphasizing Harper's naked guitar and vocals with judicious application of one of the most important (yet underutilized) tools in every musician's box--silence.  Finally, the arrangement collaboration between Harper and Bedford on the immortal "Twelve Hours of Sunset" produces some of the most spine-tinglingly beautiful moments I've ever heard, as Harper's multi-tracked vocal arrangement explores extended harmony while Bedford employs French horn and dissonance with more strings to funnel tension into the song's hair-raising dual crescendos.  Bedford's respect for Harper's songs and his crucial intuitive understanding of the colors his instrumentation contributes take these hallowed additions to the Harper songbook and elevate them even further.  In answer to the two orchestration-related questions from my last review, "yes," the songs work without the orchestration, and "yes," each and every added element enhances the song with distinctive character (there's virtually no excess in Bedford's instrumental choices or part writing), which seems to be the ideal outcome in all ways.

Aside from these canonical contributions, Harper also gives us a generous helping of his inimitable coarseness in "Male Chauvinist Pig Blues" and "Magic Woman Liberation Reshuffle," both of which experiment with electric guitars, rock arrangements, and what could politely be referred to as "contentious" attitudes toward monogamy and feminism (it wouldn't be a classic Harper album without some controversy).  "Acapulco Gold" combines Harper's love for dope with a rare vocal jazz piano arrangement, while mostly instrumental dedication "Che" successfully stretches Harper's formidable guitar skills into the Spanish realm with some of his best guitar playing on tape.  All in all, Valentine is often overshadowed by Harper's more ambitious 70's recordings, but its charms lie in the subtlety and quality of its somewhat more conventionally-constructed songs.  Once you've had a taste of singer/songwriter material that's this varied and deep, it's hard to settle for anything less.

Buy it from the artist.

More Roy Harper.

Egg - The Civil Surface

The sound of a ticking metronome opens Egg's third and final album, 1974's The Civil Surface.  I don't think there's any better sound to introduce a band like Egg, whose music is probably the most classically-influenced of all the Canterbury bands and is typified by Mont Campbell's precise, intricate compositions that are filled in by Dave Stewart's interweaving organ and keyboard parts and driven by Clive Brooks' undeniably exact skills at the drum kit.  The Civil Surface is really more of a reunion album for Egg (not to be confused with newer group, The Egg), as the group had broken up in 1972--luckily for us, they had another album in them and here develop the sound of their first two albums even further.

Being a reunion album, The Civil Surface is a bit of a fractured collection.  Therein lies the main stumbling block regarding my ability to enjoy Egg--they present some of the most interesting and "out" ideas of any of the Canterbury (or any other progressive bands, for that matter), but when it comes to crafting a cohesive and really great album, they were never really able to make it happen.  The ideas really do reach rarefied heights, though.  The aforementioned opener, "Germ Patrol" is perhaps most typical of the group's overall career sound, with plenty of Canterbury fuzz organ and bass, jazz harmony and ear-surprising twists.  It's on this track I most notice a common complaint with The Civil Surface--the drums are mixed extremely loudly, and it's especially painful when Brooks goes for the high-hat, with lots of sibilance that can be really sharp and hard on the ears.  Because of this, the album doesn't really sound good on a lot of sound systems (especially ones prone to treble-y sound), and the more you push the volume to discern the compositional intricacies, the more the drums get in the way.  The song plays effectively with additive rhythms and builds on its somewhat anonymous melody, though, and features nice clarinet and bassoon from Henry Cow guests Tim Hodgkinson and Lindsay Cooper, respectively, and some signature french horn from Campbell.  This style reprises on the confusingly-titled mid-album "Prelude," which also features wordless female vocals reminiscent of those which would later appear on related acts Hatfield and the North and National Health.

The album's crowning achievement is undoubtedly "Enneagram," which Mont Campbell supposedly composed in response to composer Aaron Copland's criticism that his "Long Piece" (from The Polite Force) was merely music of repetitions and didn't develop.  Campbell certainly took Copland's words to heart--over its 9 minutes, "Enneagram" develops Egg's tricky rhythms to their fullest, alternating between driving hard, fuzzed-out riffs and spacey sections where Stewart's keys flitter away with echo and the cymbals provide a backdrop for Campbell's bass runs.  The song's rousing conclusion fuses heavy toms with stuttering organ and bass unison.  It's really interesting to hear Dave Stewart's keyboard work in the midst of the 70's; though the compositions are mostly Campbell's, there are keyboard moments that recall both the gentle jazzy interludes of previous band Khan as well as crisp contrapuntal figures that predict breaks that show up later in National Health and Hatfield and the North.  Though that style dominates here, I think it displays Stewart's abilities to play to different styles but also forge a distinctive style of his own when the time came for his compositions to dominate.

As for the rest of the set, there's material that echoes Egg's earlier work ("Wring Out the Ground Loosely Now"), featuring what are probably Campbell's weakest vocals to date and some mainly textural guitar from Gong and future solo star Steve Hillage.  Compared musically and lyrically with "Contrasong" from The Polite Force, it doesn't hold up so well--depending on how you look at it, the vocals either add variety to or awkwardly interrupt a mostly-instrumental album.  There's also plenty of material exhibiting some modern classical vibes, like the interesting and blithely-plodding "Nearch" which joyfully experiments with continually-increasing amounts of silence, and two wind quartets, which only feature Campbell from the Egg lineup.  To my ears, the sprightly first quartet ironically echoes some of Copland's more accessible works, albeit with a little more dissonance, and the second experiments more with longer-sustained notes and a sort of rocking eighth-note rhythmic figure.  The quartets are good, in my opinion, but if you came to Egg looking for their more rocking tendencies, I can see how you might find them irrelevant and cluttering.  As I mentioned earlier, despite a wealth of creative ideas, the album can't seem to weave its variety into a really good flow.  Still, I manage to enjoy it quite a bit every time I hear it!

Thinking about Egg in the context of their whole discography and the Canterbury scene in general, it seems like their strengths lie more in their rhythmic and contrapuntal pursuits rather than their melodies--even the best songs here are difficult to recall melodically, in part due to the fact that only bass and keyboards contribute to the melodic statements.  Though melody probably wasn't on top of the list of the band's intentions, I can't help feeling that this contributes in a mildly negative way to their overall accessibility--but hey, we're talking about the Canterbury scene already, so there's no need to worry about billboard charts!  Judging by his recent interviews on the BBC's progressive rock documentary and on blog friend It's Psychedelic Baby's recent interview, Mont Campbell is fairly bitter that he wasn't allowed to fully flower as a composer and musician because the music business wasn't nurturing enough.  It's the sad truth, but three albums released on fairly large labels is a whole lot better than similar artists are getting these days!  Sometimes we just have to nurture ourselves.

Jorge Ben - A Tábua De Esmeralda

I'm excited today to delve into some areas I haven't yet written about on this blog.  Jorge Ben is one of the most popular and enduring Brazilian artists of the past 50 years, so featuring one of his best albums is a good way to start discussing Brazilian popular music of the 60's and 70's.

1974's A Tábua De Esmeralda is widely viewed as a high-water mark for both Ben and the MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) genre as a whole.  While MPB is a rather broad term that's used to describe almost any popular usic coming out of Brazil in the 60's and 70's, its lack of specificity is often reflected in the blinding eclecticism of the artists it's used to describe.  Jorge Ben is a perfect example--his songs' rhythms and distinctive nylon-string guitar style gives the music away as samba, but there's so much more to it than that!  The album-starting "Os alquimistas estão chegando os alquimistas" (which is about alchemists, of all things) fits the samba mold with Ben's upbeat strumming, a bouncy beat, hand percussion and a small chorus backing up the Ben's smooth but expressive vocals.  And yet, the track opens with some Portuguese mumbling and the track is adorned with sweeping strings and flutes, which build like a storm in the background toward the track's end.  Similarly, the second track, "O homem da gravata florida" is deceptively straightforward in its simplicity, but Ben's vocals are increasingly reverbed and delayed to the point that things get a little...well, trippy.  This mood reaches a peak on one of my favorite cuts, "Errare humanum est," which opens with an innocent "la la" chorus melody but progresses into a moody, layered atmosphere where pumping cellos duel with the drummer's pounding toms and Ben's plaintive vocals effortlessly dance between his reedy mid register and smooth falsetto and cascade into an infinity of cavernous echoes.  How he manages to achieve a mood that's simultaneously joyful, dark, mellow and energetic is beyond me.

While the production flourishes do add a psychedelic flavor to the songs, this is a long way from the sometimes-manic style to be found in late-60's Tropicália, a much more political and edgy subset of MPB spearheaded by artists like Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil--there's no sanity-threatening sonic collages or bursts of noise.  Instead, Ben's songs--brimming with melody--and his personality as a performer carry the show.  While in some ways the strings and echo make the album, it's easy to imagine these songs standing on their own in a live setting with a smaller, mostly acoustic ensemble.  While I freely admit that Portuguese is impenetrable to my ears, this album is close to the top of my list of foreign language records where it doesn't matter if you don't understand the words--of course, it helps that a lot of the refrains are wordless.  I can only imagine how knowing the words would enhance this already sumptuous listening experience.  Of course, there is one song sung in English--"Brother"--which sort of breaks the spell with its Jesus message, but it's one of the catchiest cuts on the album, so it's hard to begrudge it for its mundane religious message alone.

Of the Jorge Ben albums I own, this one regularly dukes it out for top spot with his also-brilliant Africa Brasil from 1976.  Unfortunately this album (along with much of the tragically poorly-curated Tropicalia and MPB legacy) is out of print, but it's available used and in high quality MP3 for a reasonable price here.