01	Kemp's Jig						03:14
	02	Sir Gavin Grimbold						02:50
	03	Touch And Go						01:35
	04	Three Jolly Butchers						03:57
	05	Pastime With Good Company						01:36
	06	The Uniquet Grave						05:48
	07	Estampie						04:57
	08	The Astrologer						03:16
	09	Tea Wrecks						01:10
	10	Juniper Suite						04:51
	11	The Devil And The Farmer's Wife						02:00
	12	Midnight Mushrumps						19:02
	13	The Ploughboy's Dream						03:05
	14	The Last Flash Of Gaberdine Tailor						03:56
	15	Gulland Rock						05:19
	16	Dubbel Dutch						05:35
	17	Ethelion						05:17

Gryphon
UK 1973

Brian Gulland, bassoon, crumhorns, recorders, keyboards, vocals; Richard Harvey, recorders, crumhorns, keyboards, guitar, mandolin; David Oberle, drums, percussion, vocals; Graeme Taylor, guitars, keyboards, recorder, vocals

Tracklist:
1. Kemp's Jig - 3:14
2. Sir Gavin Grimbold - 2:50
3. Touch and Go - 1:35
4. Three Jolly Butchers - 3:57
5. Pastime With Good Company - 1:36
6. The Unquiet Grave - 5:48
7. Estampie - 4:57
8. The Astrologer - 3:16
9. Tea Wrecks - 1:10
10. Juniper Suite - 4:51
11. The Devil and the Farmer's Wife - 2:00


conrad

The cliche goes that in the early seventies a student at the Royal College of Music in London started to grow his hair long, wear flared trousers and go on to become the key creative force behind a classic progressive rock group. Where the story diverges for Richard Harvey and Brian Gulland is that the progressive rock group they formed was originally a folk group who occasionally performed pieces of early music on medieval instruments.
The debut album for Gryphon sees the group performing a series of folk songs with a couple of early music standards and two original compositions thrown in. Being a fan of both early music and English folk, it was therefore a bit of a surprise to me that I took so long to appreciate this album. The reason is that they don't sit in either world comfortably. Of their contemporaries, Steeleye Span performed popular folk better and David Munrow's contributions to early music were far more impressive. However, Gryphon is not really trying to fit into either category; Gryphon were primarily entertainers.

This is not an album for pleasing purists. "Estampie" is a common piece for most groups who play music of the Middle Ages, but it is not common for the melody to drift into "Somewhere, Over the Rainbow" towards the end. The atmospheric section in the middle of "The Unquiet Grave" would throw folk purists into a whirl because Child certainly doesn't document it.

While these devices work quite well for me, if not the purist, what do not work for me are the silly voices. The West Country accents on "Three Jolly Butchers" are just plain annoying, making it very hard for me to appreciate as a piece of music. This sort of thing probably works very well in concert, however. Indeed, most of the repertoire on this album sounds as if it would play better live than in the studio.

The highlight of this album is "The Unquiet Grave", a truly beautiful traditional tune with a marvelous crumhorn introduction and a guitar backing that is reminiscent of Planxty. The early music pieces, especially Henry VIII's "Pastime With Good Company", are nicely played and arranged. Progressive rock fans will also find joy in the two original compositions, "Touch and Go" with its queer time signatures and "Juniper Suite" which Gryphon called their Magnum Opus at that time.

While not everything on this album hits the mark, it is still a good first up effort. Gryphon are a group of fine musicians who treat their music with a sense of humour. Progressive metal fans should probably avoid this album, but those who don't mind their music accoustic should find a fair bit to like on this album once they get used to Gryphon's approach.

2-9-03





GRYPHON

"Cold blows the wind to my true love and gently falls the rain"

ALBUM REVIEWS:

1973: Gryphon
1974: Midnight Mushrumps
1974: Red Queen To Gryphon Three
1975: Raindance
Disclaimer: this page is not written by from the point of view of a Gryphon fanatic and is not generally intended for narrow-perspective Gryphon fanatics. If you are deeply offended by criticism, non-worshipping approach to your favourite artist, or opinions that do not match your own, do not read any further. If you are not, please consult the guidelines for sending your comments before doing so. For information on reviewing principles, please see the introduction. For specific non-comment-related questions, consult the message board.

Introduction

Lo and behold, another entirely forgotten progressive rock band. This time, though, the reasons for which it's been forgotten are perfectly understandable, even if that's still no reason to neglect it. First of all, Gryphon never lasted that long - just about four years, and judging by their attitude and recorded output, it's sometimes hard even to accept them as a real 'band. They were more like an academic project, if you know what I mean: a bunch of well-meaning guys with musical education specializing in medieval forms of sound-extracting. They could get together and fall apart and not make a fuss of it. Second, Gryphon never even vaguely tried to be intentionally accessible or pander to public tastes; not while their career was at its peak, at least. They started out as a pure medieval-folk combo, playing acoustic guitars and recorders with no electric instruments at all; then started drawing on contemporary music ideas to mesh them up with their folksy stuff; then, going electric (at least partially), they plunged head first into the world of prog rock and delivered an album that should be counted among prog-rock's most befuddling 'masterpieces' before simplifying their music somewhat, finding out it was too late to do that and disbanding.
Third, these guys are just way too serious, and that doesn't work well with the public. Let's put it straight, though: Gryphon are not serious in the 'pompous' or 'pretentious' kind of way. As I see it, on its way to achieve perfection progressive rock could be faced with two main dangers, all of a psychologic character. First, at times prog rockers would dangerously toy with the public and rely on pompous and technical gimmicks to lure the buyer/listener's attention just because whatever was superficially 'serious' and 'artsy' could be passed on as 'the real thing'. Say, when Keith Emerson indulges in luxurious 20-minute piano improvisations. Or when Rick Wakeman hires an orchestra to play his Arthur suite. You know. That's all nice, but it relies a bit too much on the 'outer' side of affairs to be entirely reliable. Second, even more often prog rockers would just fuck up all over the place because they lacked true understanding of the nature of classical music, or technical skills to put it right - as in the case with most American prog rock bands, but not only that.
In this way, when Gryphon offered their own vision of rock, they evaded both of these mistakes. The band never really showed off - none of the members were outstanding soloists, although all of them were vastly professional in their own field; and the band always, or at least, almost always (I'm still a bit disappointed by Midnight Mushrumps in that respect), knew where it was going and what it wanted to achieve. This is why, although only a very small part of Gryphon's output can be called 'memorable' in the normal sense of this word, I find myself so interested in whatever they were doing. In a certain way I could say that perhaps it was Gryphon, and not any other band, who really managed to effectuate the ultimate synthesis of rock and old classical (medieval) music by bringing the former into the latter and not vice versa. The difference is understandable - most prog bands started out as pop/psychedelic/rock combos, only gradually assimilating classical values; the only meek exception is ELP, because of Emerson's classical background, and ELP never managed that synthesis quite well because whatever you might say, the 'classical' and the 'rock' sides of ELP were still two very different sides. Gryphon, on the other hand, started out as hardcore "medieval folkies", and rock elements in their music are secondary - and yet, on albums such as Red Queen To Gryphon Three they are very much present and do not feel alien. Hence a certain uniqueness of the band and the fact that I like what they were doing even if, by all accounts, I should have hated that.
Line-up: Richard Harvey - recorders, crumhorns, harmonium, pipe organ, pianos, mandolin, glockenspiel, vocals; Brian Gulland - bassoon, bass crumhorn, tenor recorder; Graeme Taylor - guitars, vocals; David Oberle - drums, timpani, percussion. Philip Nester joined on bass and vocals, 1974: the crucial point when the band headed off into 'electric' territory. Nester left, 1975, replaced by Malcolm Bennett. Organist Ernest Hart contributed heavily to several of the band's albums, yet was never an official member.
I carefully listed all these instruments just to let you understand what a serious combo we're really dealing with here. Amazingly, their weakest point are the vocals: none of the band's members really sing well. On the other hand, that might even be treated as an advantage (see the review of Gryphon below to see what I have to say about that further). The essential 'core' of the sound in the early days depended on the dueting of Harvey's recorder and Gulland's bassoon; however, as the instrumentation became deeper and more dense, that opposition slowly faded away.
As far as I know, Gryphon's albums are available both in individual CD format (more rarely) and on those convenient 2-fers that make all the five original Gryphon albums available on but three CDs in all. Needless to say, each of the 2-fers (Gryphon/Midnight Mushrumps; Red Queen To Gryphon Three/Raindance; only Treason has no pair to it) are a great buy. But beware - you're in for a tough listen!

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ALBUM REVIEWS
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GRYPHON

Year Of Release: 1973
Record rating = 9
Overall rating = 11

Engulf yourself in the spiritual emanation of King Henry VIII!
Best song: THE UNQUIET GRAVE

Hardcore! From the very beginning, the seminal hardcore band Gryphon establishes itself as a bitter, mercyless take-no-prisoners no-bull band with wild guitar tones and lyrics that would make all fair maidens blush...
...er, wait a minute. Slight addition: Gryphon are indeed a hardcore band, but a hardcore medieval-stylized band. The rest all stands (guitars go wild, only they're acoustic guitars, and as for the lyrics, well you know, medieval lyrics would easily concur in obscenity with the dirtiest punks around). But seriously, what Gryphon did was take a listen to people like Rick Wakeman and Steeleye Span playing around and deciding, 'Hey, we can do it better by making it more authentic'. And that's what they do. This music is so dang authentic-sounding it hurts. Sure they do use some instruments that people five centuries ago could not be using, but for the most part it's a recorder (masterfully played by Richard Harvey) and bassoon (for which responsibility is assumed by Brian Gulland). No electric guitars, no cunning synthesizers, no weird production tricks. Nothing at all to give the recorded material a more glossy or commercial appeal.
Goes without saying that this should be, you know, the "next step" after you went through your golden Fairport Convention period. Personally, I like this album a lot. Gryphon have often been compared to Gentle Giant in their prime, but there's a significant difference: Gentle Giant were taking medieval elements as only a single part of their schtick, and they used to frig 'em up in the most inhumanly ways to show off their talents at taking a 'normal' melody and twisting it here and there, as well as letting it through a filter of dissonance and avantgardism. In this way, Gentle Giant don't have any "authentic-sounding" medieval tunes; Gryphon's stuff here all sounds genuine, fresh from King Henry the Eighth's recreation hall. (By the way, one of the short instrumental links on here is actually credited to King Henry in person - nice tribute. Did the Tudors get the royalties, I wonder?).
Anyway, the songs here are more or less equally divided into short instrumental 'suites' and vocal ballads, alternating with each other so that the level of potential monotonousness is kept pretty low. I must confess that the instrumental suites often end up losing me; personally, I love the 'grand' way that Gryphon could arrange similar stuff on Red Queen To Gryphon Three. However, that certainly doesn't refer to the joyful album opener, 'Kemp's Jig', which presents us with the main elements of the band's groove from the beginning as Harvey's recorder duets with Gulland's bassoon. Play it loud and dance to it, and who knows, you might get a vision of Sherwood Forest. (I actually tried using this as a soundtrack for Sierra's Conquests Of The Longbow game. Marvellous). The shorter instrumental links, like 'Touch And Go' and the already mentioned King Henry's bit 'Pastime With Good Company', are cute and don't overstay their welcome, either. However, when 'Estampie' and 'Juniper Suite' start re-establishing the same themes with the exact same kind of interplay, it's time for a little bit of boredom. That's the album's main flaw - medieval music never was particularly inventive in its choice of moods.
But hey, at least the vocal numbers all rule. Not that the guys particularly bother about singing; one thing they did not want to establish was a gorgeous vocalization. It might well be that they just didn't have a good vocalist and didn't want to increase their ranks by letting in an outsider, but I actually think that's also an intentional part of the whole shenanigan: be more realistic, you know, down-to-earth and all. How do we know that all medieval minstrels had angelic voices like that of Richard Thompson or Sandy Denny or Maddy Prior? We sure don't know nothing. More probably, they had some people who sang real well and a LOT of people who couldn't sing worth crap. You know, the kind that got bones and empty goblets thrown at them at great dining events. Not that I'm implying the vocals are THAT bad, but they're certainly nothing to write home about.
It's the melodies that rule, and the tales told through them. 'Sir Gavin Grimbold' entrances you with the cute stop-and-start structure and mystical tale of unexplained disappearance. 'Three Jolly Butchers' tells a horrendous tale of betrayal played to a bassoon/harpsichord backing. 'The Astrologer' is simply hilarious as far as smutty thematics goes, and 'The Devil And The Farmer's Wife' is a funny exercise in medieval misogyny that finishes the album on the perfect note. Best of all, of course, is 'The Unquiet Grave', a really chilling little ditty that's the only thing on here to somehow be elevated to a truly epic scale. Which is good - heck, for once we have a bunch of guys that assault medieval music as if it were something real, fresh, full of vital energy, instead of sacralizing it. We all know Anglo-Saxon and Celtic folk the way they were "sacralized" by Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span - here comes somebody to desecrate that stuff. That works for me. If only these guys had bothered about making some of the instrumentals less sterile and more diverse, as well, I would certainly have considered a higher rating. As it is, Gryphon is not a perfect album, but certainly one well worth your money if this kind of music ever interested you.

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MIDNIGHT MUSHRUMPS

Year Of Release: 1974
Record rating = 7
Overall rating = 9

The band grows from arrangers and performers into composers. Gradually and painfully.
Best song: ETHELION

A letdown of sorts. All of you bastard great-great-great-great-grandsons of King Henry, why don't you sue the bastards? Here they were doing these nice little arrangements of our forefathers' music, and then, all of a sudden, there's Midnight Mushrumps. See, on the first record all but two of the tunes were supposedly 'traditional' or 'unidentified'. Now I know that in a perfect world, this would simply serve as a nice little trick for not paying anybody any royalties, but in this here case, I suppose they actually had reason to put up those little notes. But starting from the second album, Harvey, Taylor, and Gulland decided that they'd want to be just like their forefathers, also composing something in the genre.
It all started, if I'm to believe the liner notes, with Harvey's commission to write the music to a 1973 theatre production of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'. Harvey agreed, and based on the music he wrote for the show, he later concocted a nineteen-minute symphonic instrumental piece. For reasons I'm unaware of, he called it 'Midnight Mushrumps'. Then he stimulated the other guys to pen their instrumental compositions. They did. Then they recorded one vocal track for "diversity"'s sake. Then they put on sixteenth century outfits (naturally - they were now the authors, not just post-generation reinventors) and took a photo. Then they issued the album. And it became a fan favourite. Isn't it funny how one good turn predicts another?
Seriously now, in radical contrast with the debut album, large chunks of Midnight Mushrumps just bore me to death. There's one thing I've always been afraid of whenever it came around to modern composers doing medieval music: overcomplication. Certain chord changes and unexpected melody twists on this album reek of avantgarde more than of the medieval spirit; I'm pretty sure that if King Henry actually decided to take a listen to this stuff himself, he'd be shocked and definitely would have ordered a couple more wives to be executed just to calm down his soul. It's the musical college student spirit, see - never satisfied by conventional stuff, we plunge on further into the unknown. Granted, Mushrumps do pave a way towards the far superior and far more beautiful Red Queen To Gryphon Three, but the suite itself and the shorter tracks that surround it are just too self-indulgent to be taken seriously.
I'm not speaking of memorability - it's not as if the tunes on Gryphon were all that memorable, after all. I'm speaking of atmosphere; this album doesn't have a great deal of it. It definitely requires more than one listen, but I gave up after the sixth one, as soon as it became obvious that any further listening would only make me hate this stuff. Because, basically, it's hardly offensive. The instrumentation is still essentially the same, although more emphasis is placed on guest organist Ernest Hart's playing than anything else; this is a very keyboards-oriented album, with acoustic guitars taking second place and Harvey's recorder and Gulland's bassoon now playing more of a secondary, 'embellishing' role. And, of course, the medieval vibe is still present; it's just that the "pure" atmosphere of the debut that I had treasured so much has completely vanished. They've made a step towards really sounding like Gentle Giant at their most pretentious, and it isn't a particularly good step; although I suppose it was good enough to make Yes choose them as opening act for their 1975 tour.
Do not ask me to describe the songs, really. The lengthy title suite goes through several separate 'movements' which never last all that long but never really go all that far. Some slower, chorale parts, some faster martial parts, some moody pompous organ blasts, you know the drift. It's probably possible to extract a few pieces of good music from there, but as a whole, the suite just doesn't work for me. As lazy background music, perhaps. The melodies are way too lifeless and 'pro forma'. The four shorter compositions on the second side aren't much better; note also that for the first time, the band draws away from 'only purely medieval' stylistics - for instance, 'The Last Flash Of Gaberdine Tailor' with its harpsichord passages sounds more like Bach-era music than King Henry-era music. Not that I really care. It's still essentially just a subtle mood piece.
'Ethelion', I guess, is the best of the instrumental tracks on here, adding a little diversity with the strange laughing section in the beginning and featuring a cool and economic drum solo from David Oberle. It's a nice showcase for all the musicians, and it has the thing that's the closest to being memorable on here: a romantic little recorder riff from Harvey that slowly metamorphoses into a romantic little bassoon riff from Gulland and then goes off into a wonderfully-constructed crescendo with all the instruments used by the band's members slowly joining in. It's about the only tune I'd eagerly recommend from the album, although the only vocal number, 'Ploughboy's Dream', is hardly bad either.
But did you think I was going to give the record a six or something? A nine it is. Weak, though. It'll hardly save me from being bashed to hell by Gryphon fans, who'll want to tear me apart with their gryphon claws and vulture beaks once they've learned I dared to put down 'Midnight Mushrumps', but it'll save me from my own conscience which is worse. Gryphon fans are here today gone tomorrow (more often like 'here tomorrow gone today', though), and my conscience will torment me. After all, it was kinda brave from the guys. And it did lead them right away to their masterpiece, want it or not.


AMG EXPERT REVIEW: The group was still doing some folk-type vocal numbers on this, their second album, but it was clearly moving in the direction of progressive rock. The 18-minute title track by Richard Harvey took up one whole side of the original LP, and incorporated medieval, baroque, and classical-era influences in its structure. That track is probably what attracted Yes (and, more specifically, Steve Howe) to the group in time for them to be booked as an opening act on the progressive rock supergroup's 1975 tour. The tempo changes come just often enough to keep the material from being remotely stilted or boring, and the radical shifts in dynamics make this a rather sonically impressive piece - and the melodies are gorgeous. The resulting album is a strange brand of "progressive folk," never veering too far from traditional English and European source material, but played within structures as appropriate to the concert hall as they were to the club or the pub. New member Philip Nestor (bass, vocals) added considerably to the weightiness of the band's sound. For an unofficial member, organist Ernest Hart (who would join on the next album) plays a surprisingly important and visible role here, vastly expanding the range of their sound so that Gryphon seems like it can fill a full-sized concert hall. The shorter vocal piece "The Ploughboy's Dream" is also handled on a far more sophisticated level than the work on the first album. Amazingly, the highlight may be the closer, a hybrid folk/rock/classical instrumental called "Ethelion," which showcases each member's major instruments (including one of the most delectable and appropriate drum solos in rock music history). - Bruce Eder





Gryphon - "Midnight Mushrumps" (1974)
At their best, this British medieval-progressive rock band simply were one of the greatest bands who ever have walked on the earth! Their second album was their first where progressive elements were brought into their strongly medieval-influenced music. The arrangements are wonderful and includes lots of flute, krumhorn, recorder, organ, percussion and guitar. There's absolutely no plastic shit in here! The album starts with a real masterpiece; the 19-minute title-track. This composition is loaded with the typical and VERY beautiful medieval-themes of Gryphon from start to finish. Very complex, and the arrangements are...just so damn good and wonderful! THIS is music! "The Ploughboy's Dream" is a version of a traditional song, and this is the only track on the album with vocals. But the best of the shorter tracks here is probably "Ethelion". Gryphon's music is very beautiful and fairy-tale like. Listen to this album and you'll hear.




Gryphon
Midnight Mushrumps
Communique ()
UK 1974

Brian Gulland, bassoon, bass crumhorn, tenor recorder, keyboards;
Richard Harvey, recorders, crumhorns, harmonium, pipe organ, pianos, mandolin, glockenspiel, vocals; David Oberle, drums, timpani, percussion, lead vocals;
Graeme Taylor, guitars, vocals;
Philip Nester, bass guitar, vocals

Tracklist:
1. Midnight Mushrumps - 18:58
2. The Ploughboy's Dream - 3:02
3. The Last Flash of Gaberdine Tailor - 3:58
4. Gulland Rock - 5:21
5. Dubbel Dutch - 5:36
6. Ethelion - 5:15

total time 42:10


conrad

To say that the second album from Gryphon saw a change in style would be to understate the matter. In fact, other than the use of similar instruments, the only thing to suggest that this is the same band that recorded Gryphon one year earlier is the presence of a solitary folk song.
The album is dominated by the nineteen-minute title track. It's a very good piece, and I'm unaware of anything that sounds quite like it. Perhaps if you try to imagine "Close to the Edge" conceived as an instrumental piece and performed on acoustic instruments such as recorders, bassoons and pipe organ, you might get somewhere close.

Of the remaining songs, only "The Ploughboy's Dream" and "Ethelion" are really of great quality. The former is a folk song done very much in the style of Fairpoint Convention; in fact, if that band had released it, I would count it among their best songs.

"Ethelion" has easily two of the best tunes on the album. The problem is that they were both filched from sixteenth century sources. The main theme is the Tordion from Attaignant's "La Magdelena", and the other tune is a galliard used by Arbeau. Still, Gryphon have very good taste as they are both excellent tunes, and their treatment of them is original and effective.

If it were not for the fact that three of the tracks meander about aimlessly without leaving much of an impression, this album would be a classic. As it is, it serves as an admirable appetizer for Gryphon's progressive masterpiece, Red Queen to Gryphon Three. Fans of their first album will still find a few moments of enjoyment too.

6-9-03