JOHN GREAVES / PETER BLEGVAD / LISA HERMAN – Kew. Rhone. (LP-1977)

Label: Virgin Records – V 2082

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 1977

Style: Avantgarde, Contemporary Jazz, Fusion

Recorded at Grog Kill Studio, Woodstock, New York, October '76.

Engineering by Michael Mantler

Interactive multimedia track "Kew. Rom." produced by Les Corsaires and Voiceprint

Coordination and concept by François Ducat

Programming by Denis Thiriar

Artistic contributions from Peter Blegvad

A1 - Good Evening . . . . . . . . . . 0:33

A2 - Twenty-Two Proverbs . . . . . . . . . . 4:08

A3 - Seven Scenes From the Painting "Exhuming the First American Mastodon" By C.W.  

        Peale . . . . . . . . . . 3:32

A4 - Kew. Rhone.  . . . . . . . . . . 3:04

A5 - Pipeline . . . . . . . . . . 3:41

A6 - Catalogue of Fifteen Objects and Their Titles . . . . . . . . . . 3:36

B1 - One Footnote (To Kew. Rhone.) . . . . . . . . . . 1:29

B2 - Three Tenses Onanism . . . . . . . . . . 4:07

B3 - Nine Mineral Emblems . . . . . . . . . . 5:51

B4 - Apricot . . . . . . . . . . 3:05

B5 - Gegenstand . . . . . . . . . . 3:34

LISA HERMAN – vocals

JOHN GREAVES – piano, organ, bass, vocals, percussion on 'Footnote'

PETER BLEGVAD – vocals, guitars, tenor sax on 'Pipeline'

ANDREW CYRILLE – drums, percussion

MIKE MANTLER – trumpet, trombone

CARLE BLEY – vocals, tenor sax on 'Good Evening' and 'Footnote'

MICHAEL LEVINE – violin, viola, vocals on 'Minerals'

VITO RENDACE – alto & tenor saxes, flute

APRIL LANG – vocals on 'Pipeline' and 'Three Tenses'

DANA JOHNSON – vocals on 'Proverbs'

BORIS KINBERG – clave on 'Pipeline'

Kew. Rhone. is a concept album by British bass guitarist and composer John Greaves, and American singer-songwriter and guitarist Peter Blegvad. It is a song cycle composed by Greaves with lyrics by Blegvad, and was performed by Greaves and Blegvad with vocalist Lisa Herman and others. The album was recorded in Woodstock, New York in October 1976, and was released in the United Kingdom in March 1977 by Virgin Records, credited on the front cover to "John Greaves, Peter Blegvad and Lisa Herman", but on the record label as "John Greaves and Peter Blegvad". It was issued in the United States in 1978 by Europa Records.

Kew.Rhone is an often overlooked masterpiece from the 1970s, a multilayered concept album that combines the complexity of RIO with the melodic sensibilities of the best Canterbury bands and which features perhaps the most erudite lyrics in the history of progressive rock.

John Greaves (music) and Peter Blegvad (lyrics) began their creative partnership when Henry Cow and Slapp Happy joined forces for Desperate Straits - their song 'Bad Alchemy' was one of that album's highlights, and they have continued to write and perform together on an occasional basis ever since. Following the recording of 'In Praise Of Learning' Henry Cow and Slapp Happy split, and John Greaves left Henry Cow at about the same time. He and Peter Blegvad went to New York, where they wrote this album and then recorded it with the assistance and participation of jazz greats Carla Bley and Mike Mantler. Vocalist extraordinaire Lisa Hermann was rightly given joint billing with the two songwriters; like Dagmar in Slapp Happy and Art Bears, it is her interpretation of the material that brings it to life. Robert Wyatt was so impressed that he bought two copies, in case one got damaged or worn out, and later sang a version of the title track on John Greaves' 'Songs' album.

Side 1 of the vinyl original opened with "Good Evening", which functioned like the opening tune of a Broadway musical - some of the main musical themes of the album are played in a short but highly effective big band arrangement. This leads straight into "Twenty Two Proverbs", which is just that - a collection of proverbs from a variety of sources set to music and sung by Lisa Herman with occasional interjections from other voices - John Greaves' delivery of 'What have I to do with Bradshaw's windmill?' is one of the album's early highlights. The proverbs sometimes seem to relate to each other; 'A cat may look at a king' is juxtaposed with 'By night all cats are grey', while 'Names are not the pledge for things but things for names' flags up one of the album's main lyrical concerns. "7 Scenes From 'Exhuming The First American Mastodon' By CW Peale" follows, the lyrics based on the cover painting, itself based on CW Peale's painting of his own scientific project. This track has some remarkable brass by Mike Mantler, which plays off Lisa Herman's lead vocal to stunning effect. "Pipeline" follows, which pulls off the rare feat of having a line such as 'Figure b. illustrates the assertion 'Ambiguity can't be measured like a change in temperature' and making it melodic and catchy. The lyrics refer back to "7 Scenes"; objects mentioned in that song reappear here in a different guise (Names are not the pledge for things...). Again, despite the apparent complexity this a breezy, melodic song which will linger in the mind for a long time. The title track is the album's centrepiece, another hummable gem with opaque lyrics. The first part of the song is written solely using the letters in Kew.Rhone, for example 'We who knew no woe', and the second features a lengthy palindrome: 'Peel's foe, not a set animal, laminates a tone of sleep'. Once again all this is sung to some extremely memorable music, with some wonderful strings by Michael Levine and a superb vocal arrangement with another sterling contribution from John Greaves' pleasing Welsh tenor. The first half of the album culminated with Catalogue of Fifteen Objects and their Titles (Names again...), which is also referred to obliquely on 'Squarer for Maud' by National Health.

Side 2 kicked off with another short track, "One Footnote", which suggests further anagrams from the title and invites the listener to think of some more. "Three Tenses Onanism" is a highly poetic paen to the pleasures of self gratification and sees the music move more towards RIO/Avant prog territory, each of the three tenses being represented by a different musical idea. Peter Blegvad is the main vocalist here, his knowing New York drawl adding an extra dimension to the lyrics. 'Nine Mineral Emblems' returns to the jazz tinged Canterbury stylings of the first half of the album, and contains some accurate information about mineralogy given an unlikely but effective erotic subtext: 'When heated, SCOLECITE lengthens, squirms - not unlike the worm that looks for lodgings in a pearly urn'. "Apricot" feature's Blegvad's second lead vocal, and is probably the closest the album comes to a straightforward rocker (not very close, admittedly, but there's something of Lou Reed in the vocals and it has the album's most prominent electric guitar)."Gegenstand" brought the album to a subdued close - this track has the sparsest arrangement on the album, dominated by John Greaves' bass playing.

The instrumental performances are all superb throughout the album. John Greaves plays some beautiful piano as well as anchoring the arrangements with his ever inventive bass work. Peter Blegvad is not a great guitarist (as he admits himself) but acquits himself creditably on some extremely tricky guitar parts, while the supporting players all turn in splendid performances - this is very much an album of tightly focussed, carefully arranged ensemble playing, the arrangements allowing the individual players to shine without dominating the proceedings. It also functions well as a whole package - Blegvad was responsible for the sleeve design, which informs some of the lyrics, and some CD versions have an enhanced feature which takes you deeper into the album's concept. Music, lyrics and visuals all complement each other to perfection.

Greaves and Blegvad have both had long and distinguished careers, and they have written a wealth of good material together and individually, but nothing since has quite equallled this gem of an album. This is a genuine masterpiece, and no collection is complete without it.

_ Review by Syzygy

NOTE:

The album cover is a reproduction of a painting by Charles Willson Peale entitled Exhuming the First American Mastodon (1806–1808). The song it illustrates, "Seven Scenes from the Painting 'Exhuming the First American Mastodon' by C. W. Peale" interprets the painting with, according to Peter Blegvad, "a brazen disregard for the painter's original intent." It is a song about "the perils of being named or defined" and describes a world in which "definition is acquired as liberty is lost". This "naming" is referred to again in the Romanian proverb, "Names are not the pledge for things, but the things for names" that appears in the song "Twenty-Two Proverbs".

Buy the book: PETER BLEGVAD – Kew. Rhone. (Uniformbooks, 2014)

First released in 1977, Kew. Rhone. is an album with lyrics about unlikely subjects and unlikelier objects, lyrics which refer to diagrams or function as footnotes, or are based on anagrams and palindromes.

Kew. Rhone. would never trouble the charts, it aspired to higher things, and yet, re-released in various formats over the decades, curiosity about this categorically elusive work has grown. Now its authors and some of its connoisseurs have broken silence to discuss the record and to reflect upon the times in which it and they themselves were forged.

http://www.colinsackett.co.uk/kewrhone.php

http://www.colinsackett.co.uk/uniformbooks.php

Definitely see:

(—by Franklin Bruno) PETER BLEGVAD Interview:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200911/?read=interview_blegvad

Peter Blegvad, Angel Trap (Blue), 1977.

Ink and watercolor impregnated with Suze (liquor made from blue gentian).

Happy New Year everyone!

Enjoy.

If you find it, buy this album!

SLAPP HAPPY with HENRY COW – Desperate Straights (LP-1975)

Label: Virgin – V 2024

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Repress / Country: UK / Released: 1975

CD ReR Megacorp – ReR HCSH1 (UK) (2004)

Style: Avantgarde, Jazz Rock, Prog Rock

Recorded at The Manor & Nova Sound Studios, 1974.

Arranged By, Producer – Henry Cow, Simon Heyworth, Slapp Happy

A1 - Some Questions About Hats . . . (1:49)

A2 - The Owl . . . (2:14)

A3 - A Worm Is at Work . . . (1:52)

A4 - Bad Alchemy . . . (3:06)

A5 - Europa . . . (2:48)

A6 - Desperate Straights . . . (4:14)

A7 - Riding Tigers . . . (1:43)

B1 - Apes in Capes . . . (2:14)

B2 - Strayed . . . (1:53)

B3 - Giants . . . (1:57)

B4 - Excerpt from The Messiah . . . (1:48)

B5 - In the Sickbay . . . (2:08)

B6 - Caucasian Lullaby . . . (8:20)

Line-up / Musicians

- Peter Blegvad / guitar, voice

- Lindsay Cooper / oboe, bassoon

- Chris Cutler / drums

- Fred Frith / guitar, violin, xylophone

- John Greaves / bass guitar, piano

- Anthony Moore / piano

- Tim Hodgkinson / clarinet, organ, piano

- Dagmar Krause / voice, wurlitzer

Guest musicians:

- Mont Campbell / French horn

- Nick Evans / trombone

- Mongezi Fezza / trumpet

- Geoff Leigh / flute

- Pierre Moerlen / percussion

Shortly after recording 'Unrest', Henry Cow entered into a merger with label mates Slapp Happy. Slapp Happy comprised Dagmar, a German vocalist who would later win great acclaim for interpretations of Brecht (and sign my copy of this abum), Peter Blegvad, American born but raised and educated in England, played guitar and wrote most of the lyrics and would later contribute the unique strip cartoon Leviathan to the Independent, and Anthony Moore, English pianist who wrote most of the music and who would later work with the post Waters Pink Floyd. Together they produced a kind of skewed pop awash with literary and artistic references. They had recorded 2 albums with Faust, the second of which was re-recorded with session players for Virgin. 2 albums would come from this merger; Desperate Straights (Slapp Happy with Henry Cow) and In Praise Of Learning (Henry Cow with Slapp Happy).

Desperate Straights was the first of the joint ventures to be recorded, and the union of Henry Cow's avant rock with Slapp Happy's warped pop was both challenging and accessible. The majority of the songs were built around a piano/bass/drums accompaniment, with other instruments adding extra colour where needed. Tim Hodgkinson's clarinet is deployed as an instrumental foil to Dagmar's unique voice to superb effect, particularly on the opening song Some Questions About Hats. Elsewhwere, The Owl features Dagmar accompanied solely by horns and Europa has some superb percussion from Pierre Moerlen - all the arrangements are highly original and well thought out. Peter Blegvad takes the lead vocal on Strayed and does a neat pastiche of Lou Reed's drawl. Excerpt From The Messiah is a snippet of Handel as though played by a 70s glam metal band like Slade. There are 2 instrumentals, the title track which is a short, off kilter foxtrot, and the closing track, a lengthy piano/clarinet piece which features the 2 instruments playing scales very slowly. Caucasian Lullaby isn't bad at all, and would have been a superb addition to one of Eno's Obscure label releases, but it is somewhat out of keeping with the rest of the album.

This release is more representative of Slapp Happy than Henry Cow. All of Slapp Happy's albums are worth checking out - this album was released on CD as a twofer with their first album for Virgin, and is superb value if you can find it. If you've ever wondered what a cabaret band from mars would sound like, this album is definitly for you.

Review by Syzygy,

PROG REVIEWER, February 08, 2005



Buy this album!

HENRY COW – In Praise Of Learning (LP-1975)

Label: Virgin ‎– V 2027

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 1975

CD ReR Megacorp – ReR HC3 (US) (2000)

Style: Avantgarde, Jazz Rock, Prog Rock

Recorded at the Manor, February & March 1975, except track A1, recorded November 1974.

Artwork By [Sock] – Ray Smith

Producer – Henry Cow, Phil Becque, Slapp Happy

Recorded By, Mixed By – Phil Becque

Remastered By – Matt Murman

ART IS NOT A MIRROR - IT IS A HAMMER (John Grierson)

A1 - War . . . (2:26)

A2 - Living In The Heart of the Beast . . . (15:30)

B1 - Beginning: The Long March . . . (6:27)

B2 - Beautiful as the Moon - Terrible as an Army With Banners . . . (7:02)

B3 - Morning Star . . . (6:06)

Line-up / Musicians

- Dagmar Krause / vocals

- Peter Blegvad / clarinet, guitar, vocals

- John Greaves / bass, piano

- Chris Cutler / piano, trumpet, drums, vocals

- Lindsay Cooper / bassoon, oboe, Wind

- Mongezi Feza / trumpet

- Phil Becque / synthesizer

- Fred Frith / guitar, piano, violin, keyboards, xylophone

- Tim Hodgkinson / organ, clarinet, piano, keyboards, saxophone, vocals

- Geoff Leigh / trumpet, saxophones

- Anthony Moore / synthesizer, piano, keyboards, electronics

The trademark chainmail sock was deep red, and the cover was adorned with a quote from the left wing film maker John Grierson - 'Art is not a mirror, it is a hammer'. The titles of the two instrumentals also explicitly refer to the band's left wing politics; Beginning: The Long March is a reference to the Chinese Revolution, while Morning Star is the name of the daily paper published by the Communist Party of Great Britain.

And what of the music?

HENRY COW had joined forces with the German trio SLAPP HAPPY as they collaborated to make the album "Desperate Straights" under the SLAPP HAPPY name. "In Praise Of Learning" sees this collaboration continue only this one is released under the HENRY COW name. This collaboration would end shortly after this album was released. Still this melding of the two bands makes "In Praise Of Learning" quite different from their previous two studio albums. More avant-garde i'd say plus having Dagmar Krause on vocals changes the mood completely. I am used to her vocals from the ART BEARS albums but those who haven't heard her sing before don't usually view her participation as a positive. Including guests we get eleven musicians involved with the making of this record. SLAPP HAPPY would fold after this recording when Dagmar announced she was staying with HENRY COW as the COW would tour a lot the following year or so. She would return to SLAPP HAPPY though as witnessed on their 1980 release "Acnalbasac Noom".

"War" is only 2 1/2 minutes long and was composed by the SLAPP HAPPY duo of Moore and Blegvad. Both Blegvad and Krause sing on it and Dagmar is quite passionate here. I like the brief instrumental sections. "Living In The Heart Of The Beast" opens with Frith ripping it up with some dissonant guitar leads. Krause comes in vocally and I like this song already much better than the first tune. It settles down before we get some more aggressive guitar. A calm follows with piano and Dagmar returns in a reserved manner. It turns dark before 3 minutes as we get a complex instrumental section that really impresses. Vocals are back before 4 1/2 minutes. Another calm a minute later as the vocals stop and the sounds become intricate. Vocals are back and they do get passionate at times. Another calm before 7 1/2 minutes with organ. Violin joins in from Frith after 8 minutes. It will kick in again but settle back quickly. This is so good ! Vocals are back before 12 1/2 minutes as it stays fairly relaxed. Great, great track composed by Tim Hodgkinson.

"Beginning- The Long March" like the final track "Morning Star" were joint efforts by the two bands. The first is experimental throughout as various sounds come and go. I like this instrumental a lot, it's a real trip. "Beautiful As The Moon-Terrible As An Army With Banners" is a Frith / Cutler composition. It opens with reserved vocals and a laid back sound with plenty of piano. It does become a little more passionate then settles back before 3 minutes. It picks back up before 4 minutes with an excellent instrumental section. Dagmar is back late. Another excellent track. "Morning Star" ends it as we get dissonant horns and random drum patterns to start and more. Avant is the word and it continues throughout. An adventerous instrumental to close out the album...

Review by Mellotron Storm

PROG REVIEWER, March 03, 2013

Whether you agree with their politics or not, music as passionate and committed as this is all too rare, and in the prog field it is almost unprecedented. Listen and be amazed.

Never have I heard such a radiant combination of instrumentation, song-writing, emotion, intellect, everything that makes each song unique and full of true magic. If you have not heard it, grant your ears the gift immediately. This album gets my highest recommendation of anything I could write.

Buy this album!

HENRY COW – Concerts (2LP-1976) - 2CD-1995

Label: East Side Digital – ESD 80822/832
Format: 2 × CD, Album; Country: US - Released: 1995
Style: Free Improvisation, Abstract, Prog Rock, Jazz, Experimental, Art Rock
Tracks 1-1 to 2-1 & 2-5 originally released as the 2LP set "Concerts" in 1976. 
Tracks 2-2 to 2-4 are taken from the "Greasy Truckers Live At Dingwalls Dancehall" compilation released in 1973.
Original LP mastered by David Vorhaus at Kaleidiphon, London.
Reissue mastered by Bob Drake at Studio Midi-Pyrénées, France.
Mixed By – Bob Conduct (tracks: 1-1 to 1-5), Harold Clark (tracks: 2-1 to 2-8), Jack Balchin (tracks: 2-1 to 2-8), Neil Sandford (tracks: 1-8, 2-12), Sarah Greaves (tracks: 1-6, 1-7, 1-9, 1-10), Tony Wilson (tracks: 1-1 to 1-5)
Recorded By, Mixed By – Henry Cow (tracks: 2-9 to 2-11), Tom Newman (tracks: 2-9 to 2-11)

Disc 1: 1 to 5 recorded 5th August 1975 at BBC Studios (Peel Session).
Disc 1: 6 & 7 recorded 21st May 1975 at the New London Theatre.
Disc 1: 8 & Disc 2: 12 recorded 13th October 1975 in Udine.
Disc 2: 1 to 8 recorded 25th July 1975 at the Hovikodden Arts Centre, Oslo.
Disc 1: 9 & 10 recorded 26th September 1974 at Vera, Groningen.
Disc 2: 9 to 11 Redorded and mixed at the Manor on 4.11.73.

John Greaves: bass, voice, celeste, piano
Tim Hodgkinson: organ, clarinet, alto sax, piano
Fred Frith: guitar, piano, violin, xylophone
Chris Cutler: drums, piano
Lindsay Cooper: bassoon, flute, oboe, recorder, piano
Geoff Leigh: tenor & soprano sax, flute, clarinet, recorder
Dagmar Krause: voice, piano
Robert Wyatt: voice

Disk 1
1. Beautiful As The Moon; Terrible As An Army With Banners / Nirvana For Mice / Ottawa Song / Gloria Gloom / Moon Reprise 22:46
2. Bad Alchemy / Little Red Riding Hood Hits The Road 8:43
3. Ruins 16:25
4. Groningen 8:56
5. Groningen Again 7:22
Disk 2
1. Oslo 28:54
2. Off The Map 8:23
3. Cafe Royal 3:20
4. Keeping Warm In Winter / Sweet Heart Of Mine 10:00
5. Udine 9:42

Henry Cow - Concerts

"Henry Cow is the new King Crimson". Though Frank Zappa and Soft Machine were both mentioned, it was the group's (supposed) similarity to King Crimson that was the main selling point of the first review I ever read of Legend, Henry Cow's debut album. And though a cautious attitude was definitely in order, this being the same magazine - though not necessarily the same writer - that four years earlier had called King Crimson "the new Moody Blues"... well, I got the album.

All were excellent musicians: on sax, clarinet and flute, Geoff Leigh was the most overtly jazz-influenced member; keyboard and reed player Tim Hodgkinson was already a very skillful composer, Amygdala being a track that one could listen to today without having any idea of its real vintage; on guitar (but also on violin, viola and piano), Fred Frith appeared to be the group's most overtly "rock" element; then there was the rhythm section: on bass, John Greaves was absolutely excellent in his choice of notes and their attack and release; while Chris Cutler would prove to be the last in the long line of inventive, personal drummers to come out of the United Kingdom (which is not to say that there were no more "technically proficient" drummers in UK after him). Though the LP definitely featured parts that on first listening sounded quite difficult, it still managed to fascinate and intrigue - while at the same time making one aware of the fact that there were musical dimensions of which the average listener (i.e., this writer) had no awareness whatsoever.

It could be said that with each successive album Henry Cow managed to test the limits of what was possible in "rock" - this should be understood as referring to both the form and the commercial environment in which they found themselves operating (this is the early 70s, remember, with T. Rex and Glam Rock as the new craze). Unrest saw the group drop the jazz (and Geoff Leigh) and get a quite different instrumental voice with Lindsay Cooper on bassoon and oboe. If side one was in some ways an extension of the first album, the studio-intensive side two was a leap not many listeners proved to be willing to take. And the lack of any serious interviews didn't help (in just a few years, Virgin Records had signed Faust, Henry Cow, Hatfield And The North, Robert Wyatt, Gong and Slapp Happy, but it was Mike Oldfield - and, later, Tangerine Dream - who paid the bills).

Things became even more confusing with the release of the Slapp Happy/Henry Cow joint album, Desperate Straights. Though the songs on the LP were not at all difficult, the only review I read at the time managed to compare Dagmar Krause's vocals to Yoko Ono's - which could not in any way be taken as a compliment! (I still remember the horrified look of those at Virgin Records - whose offices I briefly visited in Summer '75 - when I referred to In Praise Of Learning as being "Henry Cow's new album after Desperate Straights", a notion they hastened to correct.)

In Praise Of Learning managed to feature many musical streams on the same album - and quite successfully, I'd say: the short song, the long composed piece, the studio works, all was excellent. Plus, the album seriously rocked (well, maybe not in the States, their meaning of "rock" being quite different/definitely more limited than its European counterpart).

Soon all this came to an end - and to a different beginning. The day I got my copy of Concerts - an import copy I bought via mail order (I had previously bought all the group's albums in a shop in the centre of the town, and they were definitely widely available as Italian pressing) - I was quite surprised: who's this Compendium Records? It looked like Virgin Records had finally decided that this music was not, financially speaking, the shape of things to come. And though the Continent would prove to be a more fertile ground for this kind of music for a few more years, the hordes of those "complexity-challenged" who shot point blank in the direction of EL&P and Yes and who ignored even the mere existence of groups like Henry Cow (not that it would have made any difference anyway) were obviously bound to prevail.

As per the album's title, Concerts showed what a different group Henry Cow could be on stage. Compared to the old double LP of 1976 (there had been a CD re-release, about ten years ago, which I never listened to) this new Bob Drake-remastered version sounds miles better. I mean, not in the sense that anything has been "improved"! - the BBC session sounds as good as ever, the Robert Wyatt tracks sound as... well, as mediocre as ever. But it's obvious that a cleaner sound, no surface noise, and the fact of not having to deal with the physical limitations of vinyl definitely make for an easier appreciation of this music, especially when it comes to the long (almost half an hour!) improvisation titled Oslo which was originally compressed on side three.

The BBC session that (still) opens the album could maybe work as a "pocket introduction" for those who have never listened to Henry Cow. One of the group's best songs, Beautiful As The Moon, Terrible As An Army With Banners, opens: nice piano (Frith), expressive vocals (Dagmar), excellent cymbals (Cutler); then a nice reprise of the more "jazzy" Nirvana For Mice, off the first album, with Hodgkinson on saxophone and an ebullient but precise Greaves on bass; The Ottawa Song, an original, and a cover of the Wyatt/MacCormick-penned Gloria Gloom (off Little Red Record, Matching Mole's second album) show the group to be at ease.

Off Desperate Straights, Bad Alchemy has Wyatt on vocals and Greaves on piano; a nice cover of Wyatt's Little Red Riding Hood Hits The Road, off his much-lauded Rock Bottom LP, follows. Off Unrest, Frith's Ruins still sounds fertile and inventive. Originally placed on side four, the two concert extracts titled Groningen, by a Cooper-less quartet, are a superb group rumination on a theme by Hodgkinson.

Oslo is for this writer the real find: a coherent but continuously surprising improvisation sporting ever-changing timbres (Cutler on piano!), it shows how advanced the group's improvisations were at the time. As a bonus, we have the very good cuts that had originally appeared on the out-of-print-for-ages double compilation Live At Dingwalls (while listening to track 10 I happened to look at my old, but still working, turntable: a mere coincidence?). Udine brilliantly closes this (very long, but there's not one superfluous note to be found anywhere) double CD.

Meanwhile, some very dry but (in their own understated way) quite dramatic pages off Chris Cutler's touring diary will speak volumes about the group's "life on the road".

_ Story by BEPPE COLLI
(CloudsandClocks.net | Nov. 2, 2006)



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