classic albums atsonicpark edition # 27: henry cow - western culture
 

HENRY COW "Western Culture"
Celluloid, 1979

Henry Cow was an amazing, eclectic, complex, forward-thinking band from the 60's-70's who was mainly known for starting the "rock in opposition" movement and for having a young Fred Frith amongst its ranks. Their sound is very difficult to describe, but I'll try anyway: "almost inhumanly complex epic avant-progressive meets avant-jazz". Some people prefer to describe it as "avant-classical music played with rock instruments". Yeah. Probably some of the most exhaustive 36 minutes of music you will ever hear (and I mean this in the best possible way), you have to really listen to each song over and over to appreciate the layers of depth here. While you'll likely immediately appreciate the weird meters and bizarre song structures, you need patience in order to notice all the beautiful melodic themes running underneath the complexity. But don't let that scare you off: This is actually extremely easy listening. Unlike past Cow albums, there are no vocals at all here, letting the amazing music be the spotlight.. also, on past album, Cow occassionally dabbled in improvised music; however, this entire album was composed, and the songs were actually written to be too difficult for any of the members to play, though they eventually were able to play them after hundreds of hours of practice. Essential listening for anyone into music that nearly 30 years later is still aheads of its time.

Never heard this record, but I looove In Praise of Learning. Henry Cow is definitely fucking amazing. I'm glad I'm seeing them mentioned here.

pretty fucking obscure, dude!

I have never heard of Henry Cow. Who is Fred Frith? Please take the time to school an old punk about this recommended prog-rock.

I love Henry Cow. Unrest is thee one for me, though, but Western Culture is a great one. Their most "acquired taste" LP is In Praise Of Learning, I think. I love this band.

Rob, Fred Frith is a longstanding experimental guitarist. You have probably heard something of his if you've listened to much Residents stuff ever. He worked with them some. A true innovator, that guy.

Their reed player, Tim Hodgkinson, has worked with Skullflower in recent years, and I recently saw his improv trio Konk Pack, which was awesome.

eeep.

I have heard the Residents and I do not enjoy the Residents.

oh well.

I'm 99% positive you would loathe Henry Cow.

I just listened to 6 minutes of Nirvana For Mice off of their 1973 album.

That album is described as more accesible than their later ones.

It is not bad. Like Mothers of Invention had sex with Miles davis' Bitches Brew band.

maybe when I am 80 i will enjoy Frank Zappa's "music"

I figured the prog leanings would annoy you.

it did not annoy. it did not excite either though.

Frith did an LP of guitar solos in 1974 that would freak out the freakiest noiseniks to this day. Way out ahead of the curve in guitar abuse. Seriously abrasive and great.
His work with Bill Laswell in Massacre is underrated. I think I put one of those tunes on my last Sonic mixtape, from the album "Killing Time."
Drummer Chris Cutler has been involved with a ton of projects I admire, Cassiber in particular. I was pretty immersed in this shit when I was about 19-24.

i knew the name sounded familiar, i found out about them on the fred firth wikipedia page. i tried findind some records but failed. fred firth is one of my heroes, so ill definitley try and find this.

ReR reissued the first three albums as a very nice CD box set with a gigantic foldout "family tree" inside. Shit goes on and on and on. So many tendrils, it's insane. I have the live 2XLP as well, which is pretty great. When I was working at the record shop, I was lucky enough to score a mint Japanese pressing of "Legend" on vinyl. Sounds incredible. I don't know why "Western Culture" was left out of the reissues. For a long time, it was nly available as a Japanese import on CD; don't know if that's still the case.

I love Henry Cow.....great band.

I too prefer Unrest, but WC is great too.

Nice to see them mentioned on here.

You people surprise me sometimes!Glad people like this album. Unrest is probably my 2nd favorite.

ive been meaning to hear them for a while. so last night i dounloaded wesern culture and their 73 album. listened to WC, really excellent stuff.
keep ther classic album series going.
when are you doing a SCG albm review?

Unrest is one of my favorite albums of all time, but unfortunately I've never gotten around to listening to this album. Now I'm inspired to check it out.

Rob Instigator, if you're curious about Fred Frith, I'd suggest listening to 'Gravity' as a great starting point for his material after Henry Cow.

fugazifan, unfortunately I can't decide on one SCG album to cover on this series. It'll probably be horse cock or torch of the mystics. I still haven't settled on a "favorite" yet.

Does anybody have any Henry Cow live shows?? I've been trying to hunt some down for awhile now....quite a few exist. If you do, then get ahold of me and I'll upload something from my list for you.

I have a live double album, but it's only on vinyl and I can't digitize it here..

Is it "Concerts?"