Henry Cow & Robert Wyatt - The Last Nightingale

Chris Cutler: drums
Bill Gilonis: guitar, bass guitar
Lindsay Cooper: piano, electric piano, sopranino saxophone, bassoon
Tim Hodgkinson: piano, electric piano, Moog synthesizer, baritone and alto saxophone
John Greaves: bass guitar
Fred Frith: guitar
Robert Wyatt: vocals
Adrian Mitchell: spoken voice

1984 THE LAST NIGHTINGALE
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Henry Cow - Leg End

HENRY COW:
Geoff Leigh: saxophones, flute, clarinet, recorder, voice
Tim Hodgkinson: organ, piano, alto saxophone, clarinet, little bells, voice
Fred Frith: guitars, violin, viola, piano, voice
John Greaves: bass guitar, piano, whistle, voice
Chris Cutler: drums, toys, piano, whistle, voice
Lindsay Cooper: bassoon (on 1991 CD re-issue only)
Guests:
Jeremy Baines: pixiphone on "Yellow Half-Moon"
Sarah Greaves, Maggie Thomas and Cathy Williams: chorus on "Teenbeat"

Political astuteness aside, Henry Cow's Leg End is simply a busy musical trip, comprised of snaking rhythms, unorthodox time signatures, and incongruous waves of multiple instruments that actually culminate in some appealing yet complex progressive rock. Here, on the band's debut, both Fred Frith and woodwind man Geoff Leigh hold nothing back, creating eclectic, avant garde-styled jazz movements without any sense of direction, or so it may seem at first, but paying close attention to Henry Cow's musical wallowing results in some first-rate instrumental fusion, albeit a little too abstract at times. Through tracks like "Amygdala," "Teenbeat," and "The Tenth Chaffinch," it's simply creativity run amok, instilling the free-spiritedness of the late '60s into this, a 1974 album. The techniques are difficult to follow, but the stewing that emerges between the piano, guitar, flute, and percussion is so animated and colorful, it actually sounds pleasant as a whole. Chris Cutler lends his uncommitted, self-governing brand of drumming to the album to help culminate the frenzy, and Leigh's tenor flute does add some extraordinary musical fabric to each of the album's ten cuts. "Nine Funerals of the Citizen King" is one of the easiest pieces to listen to, while the short but amiable "Bellycan" is an excerpt removed from the group's work with the Greasy Truckers, performed a year earlier. In 1974, Henry Cow released Unrest, which contains the same vigor and spontaneity as Leg End, only it didn't receive the same amount of attention. Shortly after, they united with Dagmar Krause and the rest of Slapp Happy to further their unconventional route.

1973 LEG END
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Henry Cow - Unrest

HENRY COW:
Tim Hodgkinson: organ, piano, alto saxophone, clarinet
Fred Frith: stereo guitar, violin, xylophone, piano
John Greaves: bass guitar, piano, voice
Chris Cutler: drums
Lindsay Cooper: bassoon, oboe, recorder, voice

By this point Henry Cow consisted of guitarist Fred Frith, drummer Chris Cutler, bassist John Greaves, keyboardist Tim Hodgkinson, and, of particular importance to the band's sound at this point, bassoonist Lindsay Cooper. As is so often the case with avant-garde rock & roll, it's the composed pieces that work best, and the fact that Frith is responsible for the majority of them is significant. "Bittern Storm Over Ulm" is an absolutely brilliant demolition of the Yardbirds' "Got to Hurry," while the brief but lovely "Solemn Music" unfolds in a stately manner with atonal but pretty counterpoint between Frith and Cooper. The improvised material succeeds in a more spotty way. "Upon Entering the Hotel Adlon" demonstrates how fine the line can be between bracing free atonality and mindless cacophony. The unsettling but eventually gorgeous "Deluge," on the other hand, shows how well Henry Cow could walk that line when they tried; in this piece, random guitar skitterings, scattershot drum clatter, and pointillistic reed grunts are eventually snuck up on and overtaken by softly massed chords and Cooper's gently hooting bassoon. The effect is startlingly moving. Overall, this is one of Henry Cow's better efforts.

1974 UNREST
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Henry Cow with Slapp Happy - Desperate Straights

HENRY COW with SLAPP HAPPY:
Dagmar Krause: voice, wurlitzer
Peter Blegvad: guitar, voice
Anthony Moore: piano
Tim Hodgkinson: clarinet, piano
Fred Frith: guitar, violin
John Greaves: bass guitar, piano
Chris Cutler: drums, etc
Guests:
Geoff Leigh – flute
Pierre Moerlen – percussion ("Europa")
Mont Campbell – french horn
Mongezi Feza – trumpet
Nick Evans – trombone
Lindsay Cooper – bassoon, oboe

A surprising team up at the time of its release (1975), Desperate Straights is a surprisingly melodic album, light on the art school angst and heavy on the playfulness, which one would hardly expect from such determined socialists as these. But here it is: "Some Questions About Hats" sounds like a Kurt Weill outtake, "A Worm Is at Work" gallops along with a sweet tune. Dagmar Krause remains restrained and not given to flights of horrible fancy. "Strayed" is reminiscient of Kevin Ayers's brand of art rock, and most of the songs clock in under two minutes. But never fear: the album ends on the eight minute "Caucasian Lullaby," a minimal woodwind piece that suddenly bursts into one last jab of Krausian despair.

1975 DESPERATE STRAIGHTS
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Henry Cow with Slapp Happy - In Praise of Learning

HENRY COW with SLAPP HAPPY:
Tim Hodgkinson: organ, clarinet, piano
Fred Frith: guitar, violin, xylophone, piano
John Greaves: bass guitar, piano
Chris Cutler: drums, radio
Dagmar Krause: voice
Peter Blegvad: guitar, voice, clarinet
Anthony Moore: piano, electronics and tapework
Lindsay Cooper: bassoon, oboe
Guests:
Geoff Leigh – soprano saxophone
Mongezi Feza – trumpet
Phil Becque – oscillator

A team-up with Slapp Happy may seem an obvious meeting of minds in 2000, but not at the time (1975) when all they really shared was a Marxist outlook and a record label (Virgin). The two bands had already recorded Desperate Straights, which focused more on songs and Dagmar Krause's vocals. Here, Krause gets one good song, the terrific Kurt Weill-esque "War" (subsequently covered by the Fall many years later), which leads off the album. "Living in the Heart of the Beast" takes up the rest of side one, and in long form Kraus seems lost. There's some free noise on side two, and it's a bit of a waste seeing Mongezi Feza among others play on the album. The best thing to take away from this meeting is that it went on to produce Art Bears, News From Babel, and several other groups made up from this spectacular personnel.

1975 IN PRAISE OF LEARNING
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Henry Cow - Western Culture

HENRY COW:
Fred Frith: electric & acoustic guitars, bass guitar, soprano saxophone (background "On the Raft"), vocals ("Viva Pa Ubu")
Lindsay Cooper: bassoon, oboe, soprano saxophone, sopranino recorders, vocals ("Viva Pa Ubu")
Tim Hodgkinson: organ, clarinet, alto saxophone, Hawaiian guitar, piano, vocals ("Viva Pa Ubu")
Chris Cutler: drums, electric drums, noise, piano, trumpet (background "On the Raft"), vocals ("Viva Pa Ubu")
Guests:
Annemarie Roelofs: trombone, violin
Irène Schweizer: piano ("Gretels Tale")
Georgie Born: bass guitar ("½ the Sky", "Viva Pa Ubu"), vocals ("Viva Pa Ubu")
Dagmar Krause: vocals ("Viva Pa Ubu")

The group's fourth and final studio LP, Western Culture remained for a long time Henry Cow's hidden treasure. Two factors were instrumental to its occultation (and one more than the other): first, it was not released by Virgin like the other ones; second, it did not have the "sock" artwork common to its brothers. Obscurity aside, Western Culture remains one of the group's strongest efforts in the lines of composition, especially since the unit was literally torn apart at the time. Side one consists of a suite in three parts, "History & Prospects," written by Tim Hodgkinson. The opener, "Industry," stands as one of Henry Cow's finest achievements, the angular melody played on a cheap electric organ hitting you in the face so hard it makes an imprint in your brains. Side two features another suite, this one in four parts and by Lindsay Cooper. While Hodgkinson's music leans toward rock, energy, and deconstruction, her writing embraced more contemporary classical idioms. Filled with contrasting textures and delicate complicated melodies, these pieces showcased another aspect of the group's sound while foretelling her later works. Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer performed a cadenza of sorts in "Gretel's Tale."

1979 WESTERN CULTURE
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Art Bears - The World as It Is Today

ART BEARS:
Fred Frith: guitar, keyboards, violin, viola, xylophone
Dagmar Krause: vocals
Chris Cutler: drums, electronic drums, percussion, noises

If you thought Henry Cow was a pretty political band to start with, you may be even more taken aback by the Art Bears, which was put together following Henry Cow's demise by former Cows Chris Cutler (percussion), Fred Frith (guitar, violin), and Dagmar Krause (voice). On The World As It Is Today and its predecessor, Winter Songs, the Art Bears move away from the long-form art rock of Henry Cow and get much, much more politically explicit: song titles like "The Song of the Dignity of Labour Under Capital" and "The Song of Investment Capital Overseas" almost sound like Monty Python gags today, but if any humor was intended it was clearly meant to be mordant. Frankly, the lyrics are so overwrought and portentous that it's hard to take them seriously. But the music is something else again. Cutler and Frith are natural collaborators; Cutler's drumming always rides a very fine line between the scattershot and the funky, while Frith bounces his horror-show guitar noise and carnival piano off of Cutler's grooves with manic abandon and fearsome inventiveness. And Krause's singing is just as inventive; she whoops, croons and screams her way through the density of Cutler's lyrics without a hesitation or misstep. Easy listening it isn't, but it's sure worth hearing. Frith fans, in particular, should consider this album a must-own.

1981 THE WORLD AS IT IS TODAY
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Art Bears - Winter Songs

ART BEARS:
Fred Frith: guitar, keyboards, violin, viola, xylophone
Dagmar Krause: vocals
Chris Cutler: drums, electronic drums, percussion, noises

Finding distribution on the Residents' Ralph Records label, the Art Bears' second album consists of 12 songs of various tensions: rest vs. speed, improv vs. pulse, space vs. density, Dagmar Kraus's vocals vs. everyone else. As usual, Chris Cutler's lyrics tell political allegories through medieval-tinged stories: slaves, castles, and wheels of fortune (and industry) dominate. Fred Frith explores discordance through his guitar, and European folk figures through his always enjoyable violin. Though not as confrontational as their other work, the centerpiece has to be the frantic "Rats and Monkeys" with three minutes of teeth-gritting, out-of-control insanity as all three players are plugged into a wall outlet and let rip. A guaranteed lease breaker if played often enough.

1979 WINTER SONGS
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Art Bears - Hopes and Fears

ART BEARS:
Fred Frith: guitar, violin, viola, piano, harmonium, xylophone
Dagmar Krause: vocals
Chris Cutler: drums, electronic drums, percussion, noises
Lindsay Cooper: bassoon, oboe, soprano saxophone, tape
Georgie Born: bass, cello
Tim Hodgkinson: organ, clarinet

The first album from Dagmar Krause, Chris Cutler, and Fred Frith's post-Henry Cow project is one of the art rock masterpieces of the 1970s. It's as politically potent as Henry Cow's more strident work, but couched in more poetic and provocative terms. Opening with Bertolt Brecht's "On Suicide," with Krause declaiming the playwright's bitter lyrics in her semi-operatic style to the wheezing accompaniment of Frith's harmonium, the album continues in that uncompromising vein. Although most of the other members of Henry Cow guest, with reeds player Lindsay Cooper and keyboardist Tim Hodgkinson playing on a majority of the 13 songs, Hopes and Fears is considerably more focused and powerful than that group's often scattershot albums. The songs are built on Cutler's impressively varied drumming (often on electronically modified instruments), and the amazing variety of sounds Frith is able to coax out of a battery of electric and acoustic guitars, but there's enough space in the music for Krause's unique vocals to shine. Highlights include the epic, multi-part "In Two Minds," parts of which are as close as the Art Bears ever come to conventional rock music (which is to say, not very close at all, but there's an electric guitar solo), and the puckish instrumental, "Moeris Dancing."

1978 HOPES & FEARS
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