Henry Cow - Concerts (1976)

×

Henry Cow - Concerts (1976)

Close

More than most rock bands, Henry Cow was in many ways a fundamentally live entity, mixing through-composed avant-rock with collective free improv in a way that even today — more than three decades after this album's release — is a rarity and a curiosity. Not surprisingly, then, Concerts is one of their finest releases, and contains some of their most compelling improvisations on record.

The highlight of the set for most fans, though, is the 22-minute medley that opens the album. Bookended by "Beautiful as the Moon, Terrible as an Army With Banners," this medley features pristine sound quality (recorded live in the studio for the BBC), multiple moments of sublime beauty, and Dagmar Krause at her least alienating. If I had to recommend one chunk of Henry Cow's music as an introduction for neophytes, this medley would be it. The band frequently performed this set of songs on its 1975 tour, often with the addition of "Ruins" to make it a 35+ minute journey, and this is apparent in the practiced ease with which they breeze through the material. Each song represented here is superior in some way to its studio counterpart; "Nirvana for Mice" in particular takes the cake, and the take on Robert Wyatt's "Gloria Gloom" (from Matching Mole's Little Red Record) is captivating. And the way the band returns to the propulsive piano theme of "Beautiful as the Moon" in a reprise after fifteen minutes of digression has the effect of making everything in the world seem to make sense.

Elsewhere on the first disc are superior takes of "Little Red Riding Hood Hits the Road" from Rock Bottom (with Wyatt himself duetting with Dagmar) and "Ruins" from Unrest. Fred Frith's guitar performance on the latter is a highlight of the album, a fragmented yet cohesive solo that gives way to Dagmar's wordless vocals and leaves the listener in wonderment. Like the opening medley, these composed pieces are beautiful and accessible, and go a long way towards disproving the popular myth that Henry Cow (or avant-rock bands in general) intentionally shy away from catchy melodies.

The rest of the album is much less easily comprehensible, as tight composition gives way to what is essentially 76 minutes of free improv with varying degrees of abstractness. The cornerstone is the 30-minute "Oslo" that opens disc 2. Split into eight tracks "for navigation purposes," this might be my favorite Henry Cow improv on record, easily topping the material on Unrest and In Praise of Learning. The first couple parts are low-key and unobtrusive, with the band establishing itself through quietly clattering instrumental interplay before Lindsay Cooper's reeds cut through the haze with a jittery leading line. After Cooper's line fades out, the group begins an almost linear tension-building exercise, starting from almost nothing and reaching a noisy climax in part five that's punctuated by what might be Dagmar Krause's fiercest screaming on record (even topping her demented outing on "FREEDOM" from The World As It Is Today). Then things calm down, returning to low-key ebb-and-flow before the closing section introduces an almost pastoral feel, led again by Cooper on oboe.

For the listener not scared off by the likes of "Oslo," tacked onto the CD reissues of Concerts are several lengthy studio improvisations taken from the Greasy Truckers live set. These improvs are probably the most out-there of the ones offered up on this album, eschewing any conventional sense of structure, form, melody, or rhythm. If the opening cuts of Concerts are a great intro to Henry Cow, the Greasy Truckers outtakes are probably the worst possible such intro.

Taken as a whole, Concerts is a tremendous document of a groundbreaking band. Henry Cow synthesized rock, jazz, free improv, and Western classical composition into a whole that has rarely if ever been matched. The full extent of this synthesis is not really evident on their studio albums, though; it takes a familiarity with Cow's live oeuvre to fully respect how well they pulled this off. Concerts — especially the pristine new remastering job courtesy of Bob Drake — is a fabulous official live document, though for the most die-hard Cow fans it's only a jumping-off point, a starting gun that sets them off into the world of bootlegs, where hissy amateur recordings on 30-year-old tapes hide moments of transcendent musicality.

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