01	Bittern Storm over Ulm						02:20
	02	Half asleep; Half awake						08:03
	03	Ruins						12:13
	04	Solemn Music						01:13
	05	Linguaphonie						05:34
	06	Upon entering the Hotel Adon						03:08
	07	Arcades						01:59
	08	Deluge						05:31
	09	The Glove						06:33
	10	Torchfire						04:51

Henry Cow
Unrest
East Side Digital (ESD 81412)
UK 1974

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

Heather MacKenzie:
This is the album that really turned me onto Henry Cow, however, there is nothing else by them that I enjoy. The first four tracks are great; classical and jazz and rock instrumentation, with both quieter and louder moments, and a brassy sound. The music is complex and shifty, although still graced with some great colorful melodies. My favorite is "Half Asleep, Half Awake" which contrasts mellow piano sections with complex upbeat sections. Also, "Ruins" is very good with some dynamic moments, such as the still tension of the intro, reminding me of classical music. Some of it sounds cartoony on occasion, which I mean in a good way; they mess with speeds and come up with some interesting sounds. I also enjoy "Bittern Storm over Ulm" a lot, and "Solemn Music" is good but only a short interlude.
I never listen to the last half of this disc, mostly improv that is noisy and experimental and not really my cup of tea. I listened to this disc a lot after I first bought it, and have really cooled off on Henry Cow since. Every once in a while, though, I crank up "Ruins" or "Half Asleep, Half Awake" and enjoy the complex tangle of sounds.
Gary Niederhoff:
This second album from the RIO pioneers drifts away from the Canterbury roots evident on their debut. Some would probably have trouble discerning side 1 from side 2, but they are entirely different worlds. I might as well say that side 1 is one of the most perfect LP sides I've ever heard, as I've found myself kneeling before it, spiritually kow-towing to the awesome (yes, Awesome!) musicianship displayed on its three tracks.
How anyone can hear this music as being pure technicality and without passion is beyond me. It took a few listens, but after leaving it sit for a couple of weeks, I put it on again and was amazed... no, make that moved, not only by the composition, but by each member's approach to it. I wish "Ruins" could be playing over and over in my head, or perhaps broadcast from my head somehow, to the delight (or irritation - it doesn't matter) of those around me. It's really that good.
To appreciate side two, one must understand the boundaries that the band itself had decided to cross, and the recording/editing innovation of its time. The reality is that they didn't have enough material for a second album and improvised the second half of the LP, experimenting with tape loops, overdubs and half or double speed recording. For the most part, it's eerie and ambient, and to be honest, I only spin it when I feel like a freak and need to be freaked out. Side one deserves a listen by all prog fans and yes, it may be an acquired taste that leaves neo-prog sounding banal and uninspired.


joe

The opening, a fully consonant E major chord, caught me off guard. I had wondered if I had put the right CD in my player. But, sure enough, the E chord soon twists into a minor E, then contorts further, until within a matter of seconds there was no doubt that I had the right CD. Greaves' noodly (obviously a prejudicial word, though I really mean that not as a put down so much as a descriptor) bass lines: stringy and elastic, scurrying here and fro. The restless pitter-pat of Chris Cutler's percussion. Woodwinds carving out sharp melodic angles or blowing fiercely in free jazz mode. Who else but Henry Cow?
Unrest generally piles the composed tracks on the first side and the improvised material on the second side. Each has moments that are interesting, stretching from the tender piano opening of Greaves' "Half Asleep; Half Awake" to the electronic haze and sing-song vocals of Lindsay Cooper that grace "Linguaphonie." At the end of the day, though...I really just can't get into this. Listened to it over and over. I found a voice within me begging, pleading: "You like Zappa's Hot Rats! You like some of the Cuneiform stuff! You should like this, too, dammit! So LIKE it!!" You know you're in trouble when you hear that voice. As on Legend, the lasting impression that I just can't shake is a band eager to see how many experimental sounds they can cram into one album, regardless of creating a context for these to blossom into something that makes a lasting connection (at least for me). Another impression is a band tripping over themselves to display their erudition. "Bittern Storm acknowledges its debt to O. Rasputin's 'Got to Hurry' by The Yardbirds." If that's meant to be a joke, the geek factor is alarmingly high, yes, even for me. But if that's meant to be dead serious, then the only thing I can say is what next? Lyrics based on carvings on the stylobate of Amiens cathedral? D'oh!!

Of course, many dig this one, and if you are one of them, then as I imagine Prince might say, more power 2 U (I wonder if "Gett Off" or "Little Red Corvette" contain any unacknowledged debts to the work of O. Rasputin). As for me, guess I'm still looking elsewhere.

1-4-04




gary n

This second album from the RIO pioneers drifts away from the Canterbury roots evident on their debut. Some would probably have trouble discerning side 1 from side 2, but they are entirely different worlds. I might as well say that side 1 is one of the most perfect LP sides I've ever heard, as I've found myself kneeling before it, spiritually kow-towing to the awesome (yes, Awesome!) musicianship displayed on its three tracks.
How anyone can hear this music as being pure technicality and without passion is beyond me. It took a few listens, but after leaving it sit for a couple of weeks, I put it on again and was amazed... no, make that moved, not only by the composition, but by each member's approach to it. I wish "Ruins" could be playing over and over in my head, or perhaps broadcast from my head somehow, to the delight (or irritation - it doesn't matter) of those around me. It's really that good.

To appreciate side two, one must understand the boundaries that the band itself had decided to cross, and the recording/editing innovation of its time. The reality is that they didn't have enough material for a second album and improvised the second half of the LP, experimenting with tape loops, overdubs and half or double speed recording. For the most part, it's eerie and ambient, and to be honest, I only spin it when I feel like a freak and need to be freaked out. Side one deserves a listen by all prog fans and yes, it may be an acquired taste that leaves neo-prog sounding banal and uninspired.

10-3-00







c ground and sky





Henry Cow


Leg End (1973)
Unrest (1974)
In Praise of Learning (1975, with Slapp Happy)
Concerts (live, 1976)
Western Culture (1978)

County Of Origin: England
Established: 1968
Styles: RIO, Canterbury



Biography

Henry Cow epitomize the Rock in Opposition sub-genre, both in their status as founders of the movement, and in their uncompromisingly modernist attitude: "Radical politics demand radical music." Strangely, they only gradually evolved into what most people think of as the "RIO sound"; their first album, Leg End, is very jazzy, with strong ties to the Canterbury scene. As they continued, though, elements of noise began to come to the foreground, and the melodies became more angular and chromatic, with their final album Western Culture being essentially jazz-tinged modernist classical music for an extended rock band instrumentation. In the mid-70s, they teamed up with cabaret-rockers Slapp Happy to produce two albums, of which Desperate Straights is more a Slapp Happy album with Henry Cow helping out. In Praise of Learning, however, is a true Henry Cow statement, with noisy free improv facing off against complex composed pieces, and the addition of a real vocalist (the infamous Dagmar Krause) allowing the band to voice their Marxist politics through lyrics as well as music. Tim Hodgkinson's epic "Living in the Heart of the Beast," with its abruptly shifting moods, spiky counterpoint and anti-capitalist lyrics, could be considered the ultimate Henry Cow statement.

After IPoL, things became problematic. Slapp Happy dissolved, and Dagmar Krause joined Henry Cow. Arguments started to arise: some members wanted to focus more on song-based material, while others wanted to write extended pieces. Rather than attempt to compromise, the band split up in 1978, releasing Tim Hodgkinson's and Lindsay Cooper's longer instrumentals as Western Culture, and Fred Frith's and Chris Cutler's more song-oriented work as the first Art Bears album, Hopes and Fears. Henry Cow is still alive in a sense, though, as most of the ex-Cow musicians are still active in the avant-prog/experimental scene, with Cutler writing lyrics and playing percussion for Biota and the Science Group, Frith's music being recorded by ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, Hodgkinson releasing electro-acoustic chamber music on ReR, and so on. - Alex Temple [November 2001]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unrest (1974)

When I first started getting into Henry Cow, Western Culture seemed the obvious choice as their best album: it was entirely composed, and quite tightly at that -- not a note out of place. I'm still willing to admit that Unrest is much freer in construction than that album; in fact, the formalist in me took a while to get used to its somewhat more rhapsodic affect, and I found it somewhat baffling at first. Over time, though, Unrest has come to seem just as good as Western Culture, and at times I even prefer it.

In fact, it may be that Unrest's less strict construction is its strong point. While "Ruins," easily closest piece here to later Cow, is a very good composition, it's just not at the level of Cooper's and Hodgkinson's contibutions on the following two studio albums. (This may be because Frith was not as developed a composer in the 70s as were his two bandmates, though he did go on to write some wonderful music later.) Indeed, the stark textures that dominate the song seem a bit unfilfilling next to its companions on side one, the anarchic "Bittern Storm over Ulm" and the sensuous "Half Asleep; Half Awake."

"Bittern Storm over Ulm" is actually quite a surprise for someone working his way backwards through the band's discography: a catchy, cheerful jazz-rock piece over which is laid a wild, arhythmic guitar solo from Frith. There's also a rare moment of humor about one and a half minutes in, where, just for a few measures, the band claps along with its own constantly shifting meters. By contrast, "Half Asleep; Half Awake" is a somewhat somber and transcendently beautiful piece, John Greaves' last composition for the band and up there with "Living in the Heart of the Beast" as a contender for Henry Cow's best single track. It's replete with jazzy (tonal!) piano playing, Canterbury-style organ, blurty bassoon solos and melodies that hit just the right balance so that they're never predictable, but feel as if they couldn't possibly have been written any other way. This is one of those rare pieces where I've found myself half-remembering a passage from the middle, and then waiting for it, constantly surprised and startled by the subtly related melodies that never quite resolve into the one I'm thinking of, the listener and the piece playing an exhilharating game of delayed gratification. Structurally precise? Not very, but it's superb nevertheless.

Except for Frith's short (and slightly awkward, though certainly enjoyable) "Solemn Music," the second half of Unrest consists of improvisations, studio constructions and other things the band came up with when they got to the recording studio and discovered that they only had 25 minutes' worth of material. These tracks tend to catch some flak for being boring or inchoate. To me, though, they sound very good -- certainly better than the corresponding tracks on the second side of In Praise of Learning. The heavy post-production on most of it makes it more considered than some free improv, and there's certainly quite a bit of variety, from the invigorating chaos of "Upon Entering the Hotel Adlon" (complete with a shriek of "YEEEAHHHHH!" at the kick-off) to the near-ambient chamber music of "Arcades." "Linguaphonie" augments its quiet noise and gurgling bassoons with bits of rhythmically spoken, highly assonant French text, and, later, some very sweet wordless vocalizations from Cooper that recall pieces like Crumb's Madrigals.

What makes this stuff really worthwhile, though, is the ending. "Deluge" starts out as just some more wobbly proto-Biota, but, ever so gradually, instruments fade into the mix. By the end of the song, they're in full force playing some more wistful, jazz-tinged chamber music, and just as it reaches a cadence, we get another astounding Greaves moment: he enters, playing the piano and singing a tune very much in the vein of Robert Wyatt's solo work, sings a few phrases... and then, as quickly as it began, it ends, taking the album with it and leaving the listener wondering where the music went. It's unusually enigmatic for this band, and it takes on extra resonance with side two's succession of titles, evoking a magnificent hotel being overwhelmed by water, which mutes all sound and leaves nothing but the listener, completely alone. Even without such programmatic visuals, it's an incredible moment, and one that's far too often overlooked in this band's fantastic oeuvre. - Alex Temple [October 2002]


1. Bittern Storm over Ulm - 2:18
2. Half asleep; Half awake - 7:59
3. Ruins - 12:10
4. Solemn Music - 1:11
5. Linguaphonie - 5:31
6. Upon entering the Hotel Adlon - 3:04
7. Arcades - 1:57
8. Deluge - 5:24

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

East Side Digital
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In Praise of Learning (1975)

You all know Dagmar Krause's reputation. Room-clearer. Insane. "Mrs Crazzzzzzy Squirrrrrel," as one rec.music.progressive poster put it. I'd had the Art Bears twofer, Winter Songs / The World as it is Today, for ages, and I never quite understood why everyone had such violent reactions to her. Sure, she gets kinda hysterical on "Rats and Monkeys," but nothing too shocking, really.
Then I got In Praise of Learning.

There is no doubt in my mind that "War" is the origin of Dagmar's reputation. She's harsh and aggressive, rolling her R's and exaggerating her vowels, scraping holes your ear with a stylistic icepick.

Of course, I love it.

In Praise of Learning is a collaborative effort between Henry Cow and cabaret-rockers Slapp Happy, and "War" could technically be considered a Slapp Happy song, since it was written by Peter Blegvad and Anthony Moore. It's hard to imagine that such aggressively "out" music could be created by the same band that gave us "I Got Evil." But members of Slapp Happy have since said that when they worked with Henry Cow, they tried to tone up the dissonance and experimentation so the music would better suit Cow's musicians. The result is a weird mixture of catchy diatonic melody and the insane vocals described above, as well as creepy laughing noises straight out of the Beatles' "I Am The Walrus" and a middle section that switches from noise collage to cheerful jazzy trumpet playing halfway through. I can't imagine a better integration of such apparently irreconcilable styles.

"War" is followed by the epic "Living in the Heart of the Beast," a massively dense and complex piece by Tim Hodgkinson. This song is as perfect an example of the RIO aesthetic as I can think of, with its angular melodies, subtle motivic development, and violent textural contrasts. The song abounds with brilliant moments, from the double-tracking of Dagmar's voice in one section to the driving and furious guitar solo later in another, from the quiet passages of instrumental interplay scattered throughout to the weirdly funky guitar and drum playing under the word "fear" about halfway into the song. The song concludes with an Art Bears-like call for a proletarian revolution against "capital's kings who reduce [us] to coinage," and this chorus is so stridently powerful as it fades into the distance that it almost makes Marxism seem feasible.

And then... side two. After such a breathtakingly excellent pair of songs, it's not surprising that the second side pales in comparison. "Beautiful as the Moon - Terrible as an Army with Banners," by Chris Cutler and Fred Frith, is sort of a rocked-up early 20th-century German art song, which is pretty good but only gets really impressive during the apparently double-tracked piano solo near the end, where two Friths play slightly out of sync to create a strangely liquid effect which seems to foreshadow Ligeti's Etudes. The other two tracks are highly edited group improvs. While "Beginning: The Long March" is a rather interesting composition of mostly ambient noise, "Morning Star" is too sparse and noodly to hold my interest for more than a couple of minutes.

I should probably mention that the CD I have is labelled "In Praise of Learning (Original Mix)." I haven't heard the remixed version, but I hear that it has a less colorful sound and a forgettable bonus track, so I'll stick with this version. I recommend that all you prospective buyers do the same. - Alex Temple [October 2001]

1. War - 2:31
2. Living in the Heart of the Beast - 16:18
3. Beginning: The Long March - 6:00
4. Beautiful as the Moon - Terrible as an Army with Banners -7:02
5. Morning Star - 6:02

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

East Side Digital - ESD 81522 - 2000
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Western Culture (1978)

If you thought it was impossible for an album to be gloomy, propulsive, jazzy, dissonant, angular, fluid, noisy, tranquil, militant and downright pretty all at the same time, you should give this one a listen. Western Culture is the final Henry Cow release, and it represents the next logical step from In Praise of Learning: an entirely composed album. The noodly free improv that the band indulged in previously is almost completely gone; and when it does pop up, it's very controlled, as in the squonky sax work hidden behind the strident displaced triads of "? the Sky" or the skittery avant-jazz piano solo in the middle of "Gretel's Tale." Instead, we get three tracks of Tim Hodgkinson's weird combination of drunken jazz chords and spiky free atonality, followed by three tracks of Lindsay Cooper's slightly more restrained, post-Stravinskian chamber fusion. The final track finds them collaborating -- appropriately, its name is a reference to the Chinese (?) proverb, "women hold up half the sky."

Although there is a certain harmonic and timbral uniformity to the album, there is actually a good deal of variety that may not be apparent at first listen. Some songs, like "Industry" and "Falling Away," fit the general conception of the RIO style perfectly -- angular, dissonant, uncompromising, with a chamber music vibe and a slight jazz tinge. "Industry" is particularly thorny, thanks to Hodginskon's whining organ and Chris Cutler's pots-and-pans drumming. "The Decay of Cities," on the other hand, is downright consonant at times, with sections of almost tonal acoustic guitar work contrasting with funereal trombone passages, grumblings of noise and upbeat jazzy fragments; even the most hard-core anti-experimentalist would probably enjoy at least the first minute of the song. The brief "Look Back" may be even more surprising to those familiar with Henry Cow's reputation for aggressive avant-gardism: this bittersweet chamber piece for guitar, winds and strings has more in common with the mid-1920s modernist scene than with anything post-war.

Western Culture is certainly Henry Cow's most cohesive and consistent statement. I suppose some people might miss the furor of In Praise of Learning, or be put off the aforementioned uniformity. I can also see some validity in the argument that both sides end a bit abruptly, not giving the listener a powerful dramatic climax during which he has time to think "wow, this album kicks ass" just before it ends. But to me, this is a truly wonderful meeting point of rock, jazz and classical music, and there's an enormous amount of beauty here if you're willing to make the slight effort necessary to get past the album's introverted quality. - Alex Temple [November 2001]


Part I: History and Prospects
1. Industry - 6:58
2. The Decay of Cities - 6:55
3. On the Raft - 4:01

Part II: Day By Day
4. Falling Away - 7:38
5. Gretel's Tale - 3:58
6. Look Back - 1:19
7. 1/2 the Sky - 5:14

Tim Hodgkinson - organs, alto sax, clarinet, Hawaiian guitar, piano
Lindsay Cooper - basoon, oboe, soprano sax, soprano recorders
Fred Frith - electric & acoustic guitars, bass, soprano sax
Chris Cutler - drums, electric drums, noise, piano, trumpet
with:
Anna-Marie Roelofs - trombone, violin
Irene Schweizer - piano
Georgie Born - cello, bass

East Side Digital - ESD 81652- 2001





Henry Cow - Unrest

Member: Thekouderwunz (Profile) (All Album Reviews by Thekouderwunz)
Date: 12/5/2003

Progressive rock has often had musicians and bands that tried to meld the aesthetics of rock, with free forms of jazz, classical, avant-garde with psychedelic washes, most went onto become successful, charting on album and single charts, those groups would become the successful one, whom most of today's younger bands would often site as major influences on them, but then you have the groups that did not become successful, but yet, not only played a truer form of the amalgam that most of the successful groups forsook for fame and fortune, but would prove just as influential.

One of those bands is the UK based band, Henry Cow. Hailing from the innovative Cantenbury scene, like most of the bands from this area, Henry Cow has musicians that have cut their teeth in plenty of bands, but it was with this group that many, would consider as the definitive "Rock-In-Opposition" group.

The term "RIO" given by the musical press, was given to Henry Cow and other groups that followed in their wake, when their music did not follow the true roots of rock's grit, falling more truer to chamber music that predates the 20th century, with the true form of improvisation of free jazz.

With enough polyrhythmic drumming, the time shifting music on this masterpiece, is enough to make any fan of free and jazz-rock feel right at home.

Henry Cow's Unrest is for fans that are into bands like Frank Zappa, Soft Machine, Univers Zero, Gong, and John Coltrane (60's era) would enjoy complex, challenging music that appears on this RIO classic.

Album rating: Five stars

Charles


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