Canterbury style : review page of related items

Cuneiform Rec.Hugh Hopper : Hopper Tunity Box (UK,rec.1973,re.2007)****

Hugh Hopper did make some personal marks with bass, tape loop and inventive compositions. Most remarkable moments (after the known contributions on Soft Machine first few albums until 1972) were his contributions on Soft Machine’s “Spaced” which was only recently published, and with his first solo work, “1984” (in 1973) which was done when Soft Machine evolved to more predictable jazz-rock ideas, just recently reissued. After “1984” Hopper left Soft Machine, toured with Carla Bley, played with East Wind, the Monster Band, and with jazzrock group Isotope with whom he recorded their second album. Hopper also featured on Robert Wyatt’s “Rock Bottom” (1975) before leaving it all, and dedicating himself completely into this new solo project, with the same recording engineer from his 1984 album, Mike Dunne, with new ideas that he wasn’t able to work out yet with Soft Machine. It also features members from jazzrock/Canterbury flavoured groups like Gilgamesh, Hatfield and the North / Egg, and of course, Isotope and Soft Machine, as well as people from jazz (Keith Tippett's Centipede). The result for a large part could be a side-project of all these mentioned bands, especially referring to Soft Machine on most tracks, but also with a certain essence of real jazz, especially on “The lonely Sea and Sky”, which has elements of the smoothness of jazz concert. The first, title track has a fuzz bass solo as fundament, and some great sax solos. I think the album will appeal especially to Soft Machine fans, because it gives an insight and a slightly different angle to what was Soft Machine’s strength, here in the form of a studio project which brilliantly and simultaneously compiles live and improvisation energies with studio controlled ideas.

Audio :"Gnat Prong"

Homepage : http://www.burningshed.co.uk/hopper/

Label info : http://www.burningshed.co.uk/hopper/

Other reviews : http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=25168

& http://www.waysidemusic.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=RUNE%20240

& http://www.cloudsandclocks.net/CD_reviews/hopper_htb_E.html

& http://www.icebergradio.com/album/443966/review

& http://www.jazzreview.com/cd/review-18597.html

& http://www.cfrb.com/album/443966/review

or http://www.chom.com/album/443966/review

German review : http://www.babyblaue-seiten.de/album_5360.html

Interview with Hugh Hopper about this reissue mostly : http://www.cloudsandclocks.net/interviews/HHopper_interview07.html

Hux Rec.Matching Mole : on the radio (UK,rec.1972,pub.2006)***°'

Introduction on 'Matching Mole' :

In 1970, Robert Wyatt, still being part of Soft Machine, produced his first solo album, “The End of an Ear”, a pretty free jazzrock excursion. Robert began to become a difficult person to work with for the other members of Soft Machine, so in 1971, Robert decided to start his own band, while Soft Machine evolved more towards jazz, and away from rock. He attracted very talented members, so the new band pretty much was like a new Canterbury styled alternative for “the old” Soft Machine. Three of the members came from some of the most interesting other Canterbury styled groups : bass guitarist Bill MacCormick came from Quiet Sun (which existed from 1970, but which had only one, very good album in 1975, called “Mainstream”, and which besides Bill, also consisted of Charles Hayward and Dave Jarrett, and also, Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno -who soon would join Roxy Music around 1972-), together with organist Dave Sinclair, who came from Caravan, (and who already joined the “End of an Ear” album), which Robert already knew from the pre-Soft Machine group The Wylde Flowers (this group had all the original Soft Machine members plus Daevid Allen, who started his own, psychedelic band Gong), and with guitarist Phil Miller, who played before both in Hatfield & the North and National Health. Keyboard player Dave MacRae he had met when drumming with Nucleus. The new band was called “Matching Mole”, inspired by the French title of William Burroughs’s novel “Soft Machine” called “Machine Mole”, in which Robert found the right 'match' for the new band name. The band only existed for 11 months, and made two albums, of which the “Little Red Record” was their masterpiece. They also appeared a couple of times on BBC sessions, of which a few of them were John Peel sessions. The live concert was published on CD before, but now, for the first time, all these BBC recordings are compiled together. Two other live recordings from Matching Mole were quite recently published by Cuneiform Records. The band disbanded pretty quickly, because in some way Robert felt he wanted to do other things, and he felt too much responsibility and didn’t feel comfortable as a kind of frontman of another qualitative Canterbury energy entity, and while also dealing with drinking problems and its excesses, he stopped the group at a certain height, a few months before his accident that forced him really to do something else like with his vocal and song ideas..(but that’s already a different story –which I told in the reviews of Robert’s solo releases on this page-).

The actual review :

This collection luckily is completed with interesting background introduction notes by Bill MacCormick, and various rare photographs. From the 4 John Peel sessions, the first one, a track in three parts from over 20 minutes, is the best quality, technically and musically, and shows a terrific performance of improvisations, with jazzy passages. Each member adds fresh notes to the free improvisations on a few tunes and themes, while building up a rarely achieved quality of energy. Most tracks shows the importance of keyboards in this group (they also had two keyboard players), and what a terrific bass player MacCormick was. We also hear Robert on the live session of "Instant Pussy" making sounds like birds and other animals. A great document of one of the most shortlived, top Canterbury groups.

Matching Mole introductions : http://calyx.club.fr/bands/matchingmole.html

(from Canterbury site : http://calyx.club.fr/index.html) & http://www.progweed.net/reviews/matchingmole/matchingmole-band.html

& http://www.gaudela.net/portugalprog/artistas/Matching_Mole.html

Dutch intro : http://www.noisette.nl/matching%20mole/matching%20mole.htm

Matching Mole / Quiet Sun tree : http://www.macgraphic.co.jp/ich/matching_mole/index.html

Label info : http://www.huxrecords.com/cdsales83.htm

Info on all BBC sessions : http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/artists/m/matchingmole/

First BBC live CD : http://www.z95.com/album/221197

Other reviews : http://calyx.club.fr/index/latestrel.html

& http://www.waysidemusic.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=25/HUX%20083

The 2 outtake albums : http://cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/matchingmole.html

Interview with Dave Sinclair : http://www.markfromholland.com/interviews.php?intID=109

* Some solo release of Robert Wyatt I have reviewed on http://singersong.homestead.com/RobertWyatt.html

* Quiet Sun webpage : http://www.manzanera.com/QuietSun1.htm

Cuneiform Rec.Soft Machine : Middle Earth Masters (UK,1967,1968)***°

The Middle Earth sessions were never released or worked upon, because the technical quality of it was so bad. But just recently, with a lot of work and equipment, they have managed to make it worth hearing. The place was really underground and everything was played extremely loud. The only thing that they that could not be restored well was the volume of the vocals, but in the end, after having heard the instrumental part of the concert, which now has a clear sound, that does not really spoil it at all. The recording shows how good the early band as a trio (after departure of Daevid Allan) really was, especially for Mike Ratledge organ, and this stimulated by especially the bass of Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt drumming. The first two calmer song tracks sound a bit more like a lost Velvet Underground session (with its own charm). But then from the moment when the organ comes in to improvise, this concert sounds like a very unique moment, which is especially brilliant on the extra long trip on “Hope For happiness”, and on Ratledge’s improvised very free “Disorganisation”, after on the trippy ending of "I shoud’ve know”. Impressive. I am sure not only hard Soft Machine fans will enjoy this.

Audio : "Bossa Nova Express"

Info : http://cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/softmachine.html

& http://www.waysidemusic.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=RUNE%20235

Other reviews : http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/3200

& http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=24018

Moonjune Rec.Soft Machine : Floating World live (UK,1975)****

This live recording done for Radio Bremen (Germany) on 29th January 1975 was recorded in the year of their ‘Bundles’ album (after “seven”). It featured Allan Holdsworth : guitar & violin; Karl Jenkins : electric piano, piano, oboe, soprano sax, woodwinds; Mike Ratledge : electric piano, Lowrey organ, synth ; Roy Babbington : 6-string electric bass; John Marshall : drums, percussion. It shows a professionally improvising group in the jazzrock/fusion area.

The recording starts with one big section of an incredible jazz driven jazz-rock composition, where each member takes the lead with his skills and sometimes invention, with their specific instruments, while the others succeed, with an osmosis-like group strength to maintain the organic continuum. It takes up to the 10th section (after 21 minutes) that a different musical theme is taken by the whole group. It is very understandable that after this remarkably strong performance that there was a renewed interest in Soft Machine.

(The recording is remastered from the original radio studio tapes).

Short audio fragments : http://www.newburycomics.com/r...

& http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/soft_machine/1239022/album.jhtml

Info : (with audio) http://moonjunerecords.com/floatingworld.html

& http://www.noisette.nl/discs/floating%20world.htm

Other reviews : http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=21036

& http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=8826

& http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/discography/index.jsp?pid=5710&aid=759091

Soft Machine discography of official albums : http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/ian.simpson/softs/soft%20discography.htm

& http://www.connollyco.com/discography/soft_machine/index.html

Another 1971 recording ->; 1967/1968 recording -> ; 2005 release->

Aluna Rec.Giles,Giles & Fripp : The Brondesbury Tapes (UK,1968)***°

A very interesting release, with thick booklet and detailed notes. The concept in this music is at first somewhat puzzling. First of all it seems as if here are three ? different project are on the same CD. All recordings were made with a more or less same group as the early King Crimson without sounding like them at all in the first two parts. Peter Giles voice sound at first somewhat like Robert Wyatt combined with some Daevid Allen and early Pink Floyd. The musical explorations have a 60's psych pop and easybeat foundation, but Fripp adds also several skillfully jazzy guitar explorations. Moody jazz creeps in more than once. A bossanova rhythm changes the mood into another part of the CD where a female vocal is added. This is Judy Dyble, the original vocalist with Fairport Convention. The atmosphere with her will change slightly and then more clearly into a Syallyangie-like music with at first with more instruments than the mentioned reference. At first this seems a very strange change. I thought at first it was somewhat a shame that these recordings were on the same cd because sounding like from a completely different project. Being fond of Sallyangie I liked this of course. Beautiful is to hear such a psych-folk version of "I talk to the wind" (later on the first King Crimson album). Then the playing and arrangements will in stages become more progressive. And then it all comes together. Very interesting to hear and to feel here that the group is taking the direction towards a King Crimson sound, here combining most elements from before slightly more explored. Great !

Webpage at http://www.voiceprint.co.uk/voiceprint/vp235.htm

Soundfile : http://www.artist-shop.com/voiceprt/brondes.ram

Reviews at http://www.elephant-talk.com/rfmusic/brond.htm and

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/classicpop/reviews/rev_giles.shtml

http://www.elephant-talk.com/digests/pda/postings925/etposting13.htm

musicians on the songs : http://www1.sphere.ne.jp/crimson/crim0c.htm

Charly Rec. Here and Now Band : Give and Take (1977)***°

This is a lesser known Gong related item, possibly still belonging to the classics. "Here and Now" grew out of a jamming group and formed to play at the 1974 Windsor Free Festival. They later performed at the Watchfield Festival in 1976 for 15000 people. Because of their popularity they were asked to play again and they did ; Arthur Brown and Kwakku (Traffic) joined them. In 1977 they teamed up with Daevid Allen. Under the name of Planet Gong they recorded "Live Floating Anarchy" in 1978. When Daevid left to go solo they recorded this album "Give and take", their actual first release.

The group sounds very much like Gong themselves in 1976 : with space psychedelica and nice dreamy fantasy atmosphere. I wonder if all the names here are not fake, and this is actually Gong playing here. The guitarist seems not to be Steve Hillage, but he plays like him. And if we can go through all musicians,: I can find even find many more similarities (like the female voice, drums, bass, electronics..). The group has surely the same magic.

More information : http://www.sonnet.co.uk/gong-gas/tribal/herenow.htm

or http://www.planetgong.co.uk/maze/map/fhn.htm

& http://www.sonnet.co.uk/space/page5.html

& http://www.multimania.com/sleeprev/herenow.html

& http://www.voiceprint.co.uk/misclabels/ttcd015.htm

Daevid Allen Tree with Here and Now included : http://www.macgraphic.co.jp/ich/gong/daevid_allen.html

Other release : http://www.cs.ruu.nl/people/jur/reviews/ufoasis.html

& http://www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue3/herenow.html

Here & Now discography with covers : http://www.wellers.demon.co.uk/herenow.htm

Planet Gong Web Site : http://213.239.30.80/

Other fine Gong related products I have :

* Spalax M. Gong : The Gong Trilogy (1972)***** :

with You, Angels Egg, The Flying Teapot and in fact also :

* Spalax M. Gong : Camembert Electrique (1972)*****

* Virgin R. Gong live (1977)****

* Spalax M. Gong : Continental Circus (1972)****°

All these items are psychedelic fantasy trips.

* Virgin R. Daevid Allen & Euterpe : Good Morning (1976)****

My favorite of Daevid. Very psych like folk.

* Charly Daevid Allen : Now is the happiest time of your life (1977?)***°

Also folk like psychedelic, Gong like fantasy.

* Legend Clearlight : Visions (1977)***°

(with Cyrille Verdaux,D.Lockwood,D.Malherbe,..)

* Spalax M.Dashiell Hedayat : Obsolete (1971)****'

A classic. lightly Chanson flavoured, but also like in "Continental Circus" vein. Not like his other album which is instrumentaly not that interesting.

* Virgin Steve Hillage : Fish Rising (1973)*****

Watery flowing guitar (used for his trance house later), dreamy, rich nice fantasy.

* Tangram Didier Malherbe & H.Angel,L.Ehrlich,S.Maïtra : Fluvius (1994)**°

Jazz influenced acoustic.

* Tangram Didier Malherbe & Loy Ehrlich : Hadouk (1995)****°

highly original acoustic music, reinventing World Music.

More at http://www.sonnet.co.uk/gong-gas/tribal/bands.htm

Cuneiform Rec.

Arkham (B,1970-1972)****

Arkham was another group with a certain Canterbury style with a high dose of musical talent and potency. For lovers of this mentioned style influence this is possibly an essential release. It gives us also some historical clarifications of certain musical developments of ideas. The CD gives an overview of musically high quality live recordings from the short existence of this Belgian group.

The history of this group is full of changes. Keyboard player Jean-Luc Manderlier and Daniel Denis met in Brussels and formed Arkham. Somewhat later in 1970 one more member participated : bass player Claude "Picollo" Brekovich (who came from Here and Now, where at that time Marc Hollander was playing too). End 1971 Cognaux left (to play in Pazoup) to be replaced by Paolo Radoni (also from Here and Now). Improvisation became more important now. The last months of its existence trumpet player (and later co-founder of the Univers Zero group) Claude Deron joined, together with the Frenchman François Arnaudeau but for only a short time (both came from Jelly Fish). Also bass player Christian Ramon joined only in for one concert and recording. The electric trumpet style flom Claude was highly influenced by Nucleus pianist Keith Tippett. The recorded tracks of 1971 are also more experimental, quite avant garde, somewhat dark. There I like especially the original approach of the organ on "Visibility poor". Christian Vander from the French group Magma invited Manderlier and Denis to join their group after having seen Arkham playing. Also Radoni and Vincent Kenis (from the later Aksak Maboul group) joined Magma for more than a year, and took part in the classic recording of "Mekanik Destructiw Kommandöh". Denis only participated a few concerts, returned to Belgium to form Necronomicon with Deron. This second group lead also to the formation of Univers Zero. Unless the quality of the recordings is not completely optimal, and a few moments are only just good I highly recommend this release.

Webpage : http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/arkham.html

Soundfile fragment : http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/realaudio/Upstairs.ram

& http://www.artist-shop.com/cuniform/arkham.ram

Review : http://www.artist-shop.com/cuniform/

Interview with Trigaux : http://www.rainofthought.com/Winter98/TrigauxInterview.html

IDMHugh Hopper & Julian Whitfield : In a dubious manner (UK,2003)**°

One day before this I listened back to the first side of Hugh Hopper's famous "1984", this wonderful piece of art. I knew already by quick skipping a few days before, I couldn't expect something similar, and why should I ? Also, I heard before, some of Hugh Hopper's work on Cuneiform records. There he liked already the use of smooth bass rhythms. That happens here too, as a slow version of rhythm and blues or whatever, performed, let's say, in a dubious manner.. This form is a bit more catchy in "I have a load,me". This is not a new Canterbury style or so (-for those who missed something, Hugh Hopper used to be bass player of the classic Canterbury group Soft Machine-). I guess Hugh Hopper can do whatever he wants now, without bargaining anything for a specific public, a public that mostly only expect the recognisable, even in a repetitive form. Here this freedom results in a sound that actually fits nicely with what is popular now in some (better) alternative fields, and would also work perfectly in a blues club. But further on, on "Lost at sea", we can also hear smooth electronic grooves. This is literally mixed -with loop-like bass lines- with jazz on the track "time ago". "Iron Hand" concludes the CD perfectly. This sounds like a modern form of smooth new kind of fusion with jazz, and minimal electronica and with touches of the blues. Nice and unpretentious music to listen too.

Info : www.hughhopper.com & www.burningshed.com

The 2005 release of Brian Hopper with old members of the Wylde Flowers (Robert Wyatt, Hugh Hopper,..) is reviewed on http://psychemusic.org/prog12.html

Cuneiform Rec. Soft Machine : Grides (UK,1971,iss.2006)***°

The brilliantly clear liner notes explain thoroughly the stage of where the performance came to live in time, while forming new ideas for the fourth album. After a long tour after ‘third’, a break was taken of 6 months where Wyatt worked on “The End of an Ear” and the guys had time to develop new ideas. Only a few concerts were held then, of which this might have been the best one for the Dutch three concerts. The CD was recorded live on October, 25, 1970 in Amsterdam, while the DVD was recorded at Radio Bremen TV studio on March, 27th, 1971, some months later. In this period Soft Machine had the strong line-up of Elton Dean, sax, saxello and electric piano, Hugh Hopper, bass, Mike Ratledge, electric piano, organ and Robert Wyatt, drums and vocals.

On the CD recording of the concert, for me it is difficult to notice every detail of which part of compositions comes from where, and how improvisations were developed into new compositions and so on, which is a case study on its own, something I must say the liner notes (by Aymeric Leroy) succeed well to analyse, making the album even more interesting. Mostly the compositions hold a bit the middle between the jazz improvisation and some of compositional melodic notes in the musician’s heads, played and build up and broken into something different with some freedom. There’s no singing. The highlight I think is “Esther’s Nose Job” using complex rhythms, starting with a composition-improvisation by Mike Ratledge, who gave during this concert many driven moments. Elton Dean on his turn added his own parts of electric piano. It is a moment where Soft Machine was going into freeer and less melodic jazz, which can be noticed on the first concert, but even more on the DVD from a few months later, with the free parts having a fragile balance between experiment and a struggle of exhaustion.

The DVD presentation of was recorded with camera’s from different angles was Soft Machine's final European tour with Robert Wyatt in 1971, clocking in at 20-minutes. The performance starts rather free and adapts this idea from the beginning into more improvisation parts further on.

Audio : link 1 & here

Info : http://cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/softmachine.html

& http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD.asp?cd_id=12271

Other reviews : http://www.mmguide.musicmatch.com/...

& http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=22505

& http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=22366

PrivateHopper & Fenner : Just Desserts (UK,2006)***

A funny cover of eating desserts in the deserts, Brian Hopper and Robert Fenner improvise together with far away whirls of the Middle East in the background, with rhythmic dromedaries and dunes, Midiwind controllers recalling the Arabian deserts, improvisations on sax, guitars and sequenced sounds, keyboards and different rhythms. (Robert Fenner also used 6 and 12 string guitars). While this could have created a kind of soundtrack, the rhythmic section pulls the listener mostly very much in the centre of it, creating a musical fashionable nomadic tent, with desserts on the table. On “Indian Summer” a tribe (not really belonging to the desert) appears with moments on the background as well. The music is really enjoyable. But when hearing a full release in this style it also reveals how the real centre is from a more stagnate but luxurious place than a real desert with desserts; This has more a home cooked made energy, with a fata morgana fantasy of a different world. The dessert only has fractions of the desert, beamed as a background image. These bits of fantasy made many tracks fashionable with worldmusic-sequenced flavours.

Other description : http://www.burningshed.com/index.asp?page=details&main=home&label=2&id=485

Previous Brian Hopper release is reviewed on http://psychemusic.org/prog12.html#anchor_117

Moonjune Rec.Soft Machine Legacy : Live in Zaandam (UK,2005)***°

Also published on the same label is a well recorded live concert from Soft Machine some 30 years later. Soft Machine here is Elton Dean : alto sax, fender Rhodes piano; John Etheridge : electric guitar; Hugh Hopper : bass guitar; John Marshall : drums.

The album is as moody and nice as I like jazz to be. Jazz without emotions, but with more love for the jazz style itself doesn't appeal to me so much. But all members from Soft Machine were experienced in the music that was called Canterbury Rock, which is a rock genre because of its expressive creativity. A favourite track is “1212” (Hopper) with great moody and groovy sax (-a track which I listened to, very coincidentally, while I was putting the coverscan from the group 12twelve on my website for later future review-). For me especially the first 40 minutes sound like a terrific evening concert. The “plll” guitar on “Two down” (Marshall/Etheridge) breaks down the sphere a bit to an intellectual part, so that the first notes on “Big crees” (Etheridge) sounds more like rock after this, but of course this is Soft Machine, and also there the group finding its groove in it too, with a slightly funky touch. Great to hear how Soft Machine didn't lose it. A fine album.

Info : (with audio) http://moonjunerecords.com/liveinzaandam.html

& http://www.noisette.nl/discs/zaandam.htm

Other reviews : http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19778

& http://progressor.net/review/soft_machine_2005.html

Second radioshow on Soft Machine : http://psychevanhetfolk.homestead.com/files/Soft_Machine_2.txt

Two Robert Wyatt releases reviewed on http://singersong.homestead.com/RobertWyatt.html

with additional remarks on Soft Machine and about the the Canterbury scene.