Camberwell Now - 'All's Well' (ReR)

Camberwell Now, what a band, what a moment in music, but what little splash they made! This CD, long sought-after by yours truly before it was finally reissued, compiles everything they recorded during their brief (1984-1986) existence. Now, here's a bias to lay up-front: I'm a massive This Heat fan, and I look to Charles Hayward as a magical musical force that did a lot for my own artistic and critical development. This Heat/Camberwell Now brought together a lot of concerns for me at just the right time in my life (my early 20's!). In the musical arena, they brought together ruthless sound experimentation with mindblowing musical chops - the balance is always perfect, as for every dazzling Hayward drum run comes some incredible use of musique concrete techniques. And lyrically, Hayward showed me that you can bridge fiery, political expression with poetry and the personal - I'd say that I now follow the "everything is political" philosophy, which is a great deal inspired by This Heat. So Camberwell Now was the somewhat more obscure followup band, whose lone LP The Ghost Trade I luckily scored from eBay about ten years ago, but whose other records remained unobtainable. The Meridian EP, which comprises the first 4 tracks of All's Well, is an open, tuneful Camberwell Now, and maybe the furthest removed from This Heat's post-punk caterwauls. The nautical theme is overabundant and years before all those midwestern indie rock bands started writing songs about boats, it's funny to hear Charles Hayward's approach. The trio format of This Heat, with Stephen Rickard on the tapes, is retained; what's different is that there's a more central rhythm, yet less rock structure here. It seems to emanate more directly from the intelligent 70s prog scene that Hayward came out of, but I think more of Rock Bottom than the Quiet Sun LP. Coming in the midst of Thatcherism, these songs about decaying empire and the exploitation of natural resources seem prescient, if not overtly obvious. A bit of digging under the surface is good, and the way these rhythms emerge it feels like waves, gently rocking. The instrumental 'Resplash' is where we get Camberwell Now starting to really amp things up. It gets a bit 'S.P.Q.R' at points, but puts on the brakes at just the right moments, building up massive caches of tension. It's the first really astounding track in a disc that's full of them, and it's like rock music has taken a major step forward. A bonus track, 'Daddy Needs a Throne', is inserted after Meridian, before Ghost Trade and clearly coming from the same sessions. This is when we start to really feel the manic, bass-driven rock of Camberwell Now's middle period. The song, in only 3 and a half minutes, somehow manages to address the difficulty of maintaining a working class family structure, while exploding in a cacophony of furious voices and electricity. But it's almost a teaser for 'Working Nights,' the leadoff cut from The Ghost Trade, which I'm glad to have on CD because my vinyl copy is practically worn through. This is the definitive Camberwell Now song, which is crazy because the first time I heard it I thought it reminded me of New Order! There is something lively and dancey here that This Heat never had, but it's so fucking intense and fast and magical and the bassline is like a choker necklace on your brain. I don't even know what else to stay here, but I know the LP will get listened to soon on Vinyl Underbite, so I'll save it for there. 'Sitcom' follows , assessing the state of progress in mid 80's Britain, and then the beautiful, understated 'Wheat Futures' closes out side 1. Except this is a CD, so we don't have to flip anything! 'Wheat Futures' is one of those songs where Hayward is singing/droning/intoning deeply and passionately, accompanied at first by an electric erhu and some keyboards, and it slowly builds to a slow series of musical thoughts, with a repetitive autoharp line to centre it. This is still somehow punk rock to me, but it's also folk and experimental and anything and everything. Hayward probably never plays drums as minimally as at the end of 'Wheat Futures', yet it's still folding in on itself in rhythmic complexity. 'Speculative Fiction', with it's cut-up vocalisings and electro-beat, at first sounds like the great sellout, but is actually an upright stride towards Valhalla. While still frantic, it's slow enough to breathe, with lots of studio/Rickard tricks, such as layers of bells and whistles, echoing drum fills, and nooks and crannies jumping out at all points. By the end it's a swirling maelstrom of the original electroclash hook and Haywards layered Ya-ya-yas. And then 'Ghost Lantern', whose lyrics aren't printed in the booklet for some reason yet this track continues The Ghost Trade's reliance on Trefor Goronwy's manic basslines and frantic guitar chops, with Hayward's crisp yet explosive drumming. And then 'The Ghost Trade', the 12 minute behemoth that ends the album of the same name. The first four minutes are a midtempo song, an indictment of global capitalism, post-Fordism and conspicous consumption. And then a slow xylophone line emerges from the keyboard smog and a plodding, instrumental coda takes us to the end. It's as beautiful as everything else here, which is to say it's also tense and strange and unusual. And then, the Greenfingers 12" to close out the disc! The title track is an explosive meditation on rural malaise, with punchy saxophones and a rock-solid beat that makes me violently tap my foot off the bottom of my desk when I listen to it. It feels a bit more fruity than what came before, perhaps a feeling carried on in 'Mystery of the Fence'. At this point, the band has expanded to a four-piece, with Maria Lamburn adding the sax, piccolo and viola. The textures are slightly more plastic, but it's 1986 after all - it's got that digital sheen on things, despite Lamburn's organic grounding. Goronwy's own tune, "Know How" comes next, which is a real 180 turn. His earnest, bright voice sounds like he should be in Tears for Fears, and the simple, minimal lyrics are much more commercially rooted than Hayward's use of language. There's a nice pulse behind everything, and I've come to really like this song over time. It's a weird sort of ending for the Camberwell Now, though I guess that would actually be the 35 second 'Element Unknown' which actually ends the disc. I realise this has been one of the longer and more passionate entries in the Constructor Bags to date, but I guess that's why I love music - because it gets me excited, inspired and totally fuckin' pumped! The booklet includes lyrics and a rather technical description of the tape switchboard, written by Rickard. I know that this is all that there is, but I still can't help myself from pining for some more deluxe edition (vinyl!) in the future.

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - 'Grow Fins: Rarities 1965-82' (Revenant)

I guess this is the first of a few 5CD boxsets in the Glass Mastered Cinderblock project. We've been spared the 11 CD Albert Ayler set because it doesn't fit on the regular spined CD shelf, but this one just squeaks in under the size limit of my cheapass Ikea CD rack, so here we go!! Listening to Grow Fins is a mammoth undertaking but it's a treasure for sure. When it first came out I really gravitated towards the fifth disc, which is pretty much everything from post-Trout Mask til the end. But these days I get a lot of grooves out of the 60s material and this set is weighted a bit in that direction, so now I'm just kicking myself for not having played this much in the past six years. Disc one, Just Got Back From the City (1965-67) is, as you would guess, the earliest recorded Magic Band demos, none of which were ever released before and only a few tunes ('I'm Glad', 'Yellow Brick Road', 'Sure Nuff n Yes I Do') ever really turning up in other versions. 'Obeah Man', which is the first track, is almost shocking in how frantic the band is going at it for 1966. Everything on this disc dates from '66 and '67, except for a pretty spooky and awesome acetate demo of 'Call On Me'. You'd expect a lot more conventional balladry like 'I'm Glad' but you don't get too much - there's a lot closer connection to traditional blues (like shoutouts to Tupelo, MS in the track of the same name) and uptempo rockers. Doug Moon is the guitarist of note here, I think - some of his ragged squiggles are pretty bent given that Van Vliet hadn't really busted anyone out of their shells yet. But it's not necessary to seek the 'out' in this early stuff - it's perfectly fine to enjoy it as a really great, cranking blues-rock band with ragged psychedelic flourishes. The familiar songs, well, they sound pretty much like demo versions of the Safe as Milk songs - more raw, a bit less fidelity, and without Ry Cooder. Though I don't know that it really makes a difference whether it's Cooder or someone else. As you listen to Grow Fins straight through (which is not something I've ever done before), you really see the narrative that it constructs. Disc two, Electricity 1967-68, is aptly named - mostly live recordings, you can hear things are starting to click. This version of 'Sure Nuff' has a bit more oscillating and a bit more crunch. 'Rollin n Tumblin' is a reprise with different lyrics, somewhat murky (probably an audience recording) but you can hear the band achieve a new level of smokin' - it's a bit rougher and more passionate, as opposed to 'Obeah Man's more controlled energy. This band is Jeff Cotton and Alex Snouffer/St.Clair, and they straddle the line between jam band and visionaries. The extended solos are a bit more directed towards conventional concepts such as melody and harmony, but they still know how to buck and jaw and fight each other. Vliet's there on the shenhai or something - it's distant but it's perfect. If you listen close enough, I daresay you can hear some Trout Mask melodies poking through. 'Yer Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond' is clearly the root of 'Tarotplane' and the one non-live cut here is the languid 'Korn Ring Finger', somehow strained in it's casual gestures.

And then, it's on to disc three, the Trout Mask House Sessions - 73 minutes of practices and aborted runthroughs, a document of one of the most legendary recording sessions in the history of music. Right, but what does it sound like? It's perplexing, presented in a pretty raw format with background ambience, dog barks, lots of conversation and strange gaps between performances. If you believe in the cult-like legend of Trout Mask (meaning that DVV ran the recording like a cult preparing for some sort of elaborate suicide ritual - the discipline of the North Korean Arirang crossed with the Manson-like intensity and dedication to purpose) - then it's the house itself that radiates the aura. This is a record made inside a house, even if the final product was laid down in a studio, and the way it's presented here is like a true House of Fiction, straight out of Henry James. As a document of collaged anti-music it would fit right in as a Siltbreeze release or some sort of post-Homosexuals side project; but it's also a stunning revelation into how these classics were constructed. I found this disc pretty hard to listen to when I first got this box set (which was about ten years ago I think -- back when 'enhanced CDs' were the rage) but these days I think it stands up well on its own, even if you've [somehow] never heard Trout Mask Replica. Clearly Revenant felt that this should be the centerpiece of the box set, even though it occurs relatively early in the career of the Magic Band; I agree, now. Though Van Vliet was allegedly dictatorial and take-no-prisoners in his rehearsal schedule this disc is fair to the band. You get a lot of Van Vliet soprano skronk but otherwise you really hear the musicians working things out. When the familiar riffs break through after all the faffing about, it's like hearing a song you've been waiting through the whole concert to hear, so it's that much more rewarding. The fidelity is surprisingly great too -- thank god the recorder was running.

The recorder kept running enough to put 12 minutes onto a fourth disc, called the Trout House Sessions [storytime portion]. And that's a continuation of the conversation and babbling we hear in glimpses on disc 3, though I can't admit that I've ever paid enough attention to follow any narratives. It does explode into 'China Pig' at the end but that's about all it's got going on the musical tip. This listen was no better for me - too easy to get distracted. If you dig the nonsense that led to the infamous 'Fast and Bulbous' conversations this is the disc for you. But really, the bulk of this disc is the Enhanced CD portion, cause this was released at the tail end of the whole Enhanced CD craze.

And then finally disc 5, Grown Fins [1969-82] which pulls everything else after Trout Mask onto one messy disc. Admittedly this was the disc that won me over the most when I first got this box, but that's cause I wasn't too familiar with the later era of Beefheart's work. Listening now I'm slightly annoyed by the poor fidelity of the (mostly) live tracks. It works well on some tunes, like the opening version of 'My Human Gets Me Blues' from '69 - it's so blown out and uneven, with certain instruments far more audible than others, that it actually sounds like something that would come out of LAFMS -- far more weird than it probably sounded in person. There's some cuts of the Decals band doing Trout Mask songs - the marimba bursting through on 'Big Joan' is particularly hot - and then a slow progression through the 70's via live and radio tracks. The Bluejeans/Unconditionally material is totally bypassed and we skip ahead to a 1975 radio version of 'Orange Claw Hammer' with Zappa strumming chords underneath. I used to love this version but now I'd prefer to hear the original pause-button edited version; Zappa instills an actual cadence into the song that ruins it a bit. But I shouldn't be too critical of this disc cause it's still the most diverse and fascinating of the set; the two versions of 'Odd Jobs' (a piano demo and a full band blowout) are pretty different though sadly marred CD skips on my copy; the Mellotron improv tracks are brilliant bits of sound-Dada; the title track sounds a bit better here than on the record. I do question why Revenant didn't include the original version of Bat Chain Puller - I suspect rights/legal reasons are the answer, but it's still disappointing because it would have balanced this set a lot more. It's a lot to take in, and if this post feels a bit disjointed that's because I listened to this in pieces (as to be expected for a 5 disc box set). I should say something obligatory about the box and book which are lovingly designed, managing to convey psychedelic design without seeming overly retro; it's Weird enough, though a bit difficult to read and the glue is starting to separate on my hardcover book. Drumbo's story is pretty essential and it makes up for John Corbett's overly enthusiastic descriptions of the disc's contents.