766 - Henry Cow Box Set "3 : Hamburg"

The books that accompany each box represent some of the most thorough and complete start-to-finish documentation of a group ever presented in a collection of this nature. A combination of oral history, recollections (fond and otherwise) and musical references, it also provides a detailed and chronological list of gigs and recording sessions so extensive that they shine a bright light on the difference between groups today and those of decades past. Faced with the harsh reality that, today, an extensive tour is rarely more than a couple of weeks in length, modern groups often have to splinter so that individual musicians can work in enough contexts to make a living. Not that living was by any means easy (Cutler's documentation clearly lays out the expenses of running a band), but as was the case with groups like Egg (documented in Uriel and Egg: The Road to Hatfield and Beyond), for the majority of Henry Cow's existence, it was an all-consuming affair where its members focused on nothing else but the group.

The group makes wordplay out of a number of known compositions from its studio discography, nodding perhaps to the sometimes significant alterations that were made to them for a specific performance or tour. Frith's "Bittern Storm Over Ulm," from Unrest, becomes "Heron Shower Over Hamburg," while the Frith/Cutler collaboration, "Beautiful As the Moon—Terrible As an Army With Banners," from In Praise, becomes "Fair as the Moon," in the 1976 Hamburg, Germany performance that opens disc three (Hamburg). Mirroring the BBC session that opens Concerts, the tune segues into Frith's "Nirvana for Mice" (from Legend), this time "Nirvana for Rabbits," gradually descending into crazed freedom despite Cutler largely managing to keep time moving forward. A brief drum solo and bassoon intro from Cooper turn stark for "Ottawa Song" and "Gloria Gloom," the latter a song by Robert Wyatt and bassist Bill MacCormick from their Matching Mole album, Matching Mole's Little Red Record (Columbia, 1972).

Unlike Concerts, however, the group then veers off into nearly 25 minutes of largely dark-hued free improvisation that's closer to contemporary classicism than it is to free jazz. It's a lengthy ride of abstruse harmony and unpredictable textures running the gamut from no time/no changes to time and, if not exactly changes, harmonic shifts that at least provide a core, before finding their way back to the irregular-metered vamp of "Beautiful As the Moon" for an end to the 47-minute continuous set, followed by another lengthy free improvised piece, "A Heart." The disc closes with two tracks culled from 1975 audience recordings in Rome and Paris, both featuring guest Robert Wyatt singing his own "Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road," from Rock Bottom (Virgin, 1974) and a surprising and wackily absurdist take of "We Did It Again," the iconic and repetitive Kevin Ayers song from Soft Machine's 1968 debut, Volume One (Probe).

AAJ