Canterbury Binge: 2022

[Kcrimso]

When this book was introduced over here by Aymeric (https://www.progressiveears.org/foru...cene-published) I wrote that I rather wait for his book on the subject than this one.

I would have preferred to have both.

[calyx]

^^^ Shame it didn't make Missing Pieces. I really like that line up with Mont.

Phil said in an interview at the time (Tone Clusters) that it was thought that the sound quality wasn't good enough. I guess it was the LSE concert that was considered, but in the end they only used a snippet of it (the fake collapse of the band towards the end of "Paracelsus").

[Hunchentootz]

Phil said in an interview at the time (Tone Clusters) that it was thought that the sound quality wasn't good enough. I guess it was the LSE concert that was considered, but in the end they only used a snippet of it (the fake collapse of the band towards the end of "Paracelsus").

MOSTLY TWINS AND TRIOS is a good Greaves tune - never recorded too - on a couple live boots - Bordeaux being the best one I've heard.

[thedunno]

Soft machine, Caravan, Hatfield, National health...love them all.

But what about the new Alco Frisbass - le Mystere du Gué Purcelle ? Best new Canterburish album I have heared in a while! I got it a couple of months now and it is still in heavy rotation.

[Hunchentootz]

Soft machine, Caravan, Hatfield, National health...love them all.

But what about the new Alco Frisbass - le Mystere du Gué Purcelle ? Best new Canterburish album I have heared in a while! I got it a couple of months now and it is still in heavy rotation.

I really like those albums - new one is great. BUT- Homunculus Res is my favorite newer band.

[aith01]

Homunculus Res is my favorite newer band.

Love that band. Their most recent record was excellent.

[JKL2000]

NP: Hatfield & The North - The Rotters' Club (my copy was missing for a while, and I just found it! Whew, that was upsetting!)

[Piskie]

After a weekend dominated by Zappa and Can I'm back onto the Canterbury binge again. I seem to be defaulting to National Health at present - but this evening I've gone back to the start of the Dave Stewart story -back before The Egg, to my (slightly cheap) Arzachel cd

[Progatron]

Now spinning:

cd15.jpg

The drumming on this is out-bloody-rageous! I love this era.

[Hunchentootz]

Now spinning:

cd15.jpg

The drumming on this is out-bloody-rageous! I love this era.

a real stomper - about as wild as they ever got in my book - Phil is a beast - almost too much but I still love it. Some of my favorite material too. 5th is one I reach for A LOT.

[Progatron]

a real stomper - about as wild as they ever got in my book - Phil is a beast - almost too much but I still love it. Some of my favorite material too. 5th is one I reach for A LOT.

Indeed. It gets pretty blazing, and obviously a mood choice but very effective today turned up loud with too much coffee while I had the place to myself.

[chalkpie]

Drop is killer!

[pb2015]

Phil Howard sounds like an earthquake in a drum store for a large part of this disc. At times I do imagine Ratledge and Hopper thinking "WTF?" as they try to keep the songs going during this.

[Piskie]

Today:
Soft Machine- Seven,
Steve Hillage -Point 3 Water Album
Phil Miller- Cutting Both Ways
Hatfield & The North -Hatwise Choice
Quiet Sun- Mainstream

[Piskie]

My favourite Gilgamesh tune - I love the hypnotic, restrained drumming

[Scrotum Scissor]

Always loved this theme, with Gary Boyle as accomplice. It appears (although briefly) at the exact space where it belongs in 'The Man Who Fell to Earth', and engroined into my mind from when I first saw that film at 12 y.o.

[arturs]

Phil Howard sounds like an earthquake in a drum store for a large part of this disc. At times I do imagine Ratledge and Hopper thinking "WTF?" as they try to keep the songs going during this.

That description resulted in a laugh out loud moment for me. And it is so true. Poor Hugh tries gamely to play the normal bass lines associated with the tunes, and in a few cases that is the only way I recognize which tune it is supposed to be at any given moment.

If I'm in the right mood, Drop is a satisfying listen; if I'm not, it has few redeeming qualities.

[Hunchentootz]

My favourite Gilgamesh tune - I love the hypnotic, restrained drumming

Oh man... I LOVE this one too.

[Piskie]

So, correct my Canterbury Scene history if I am wrong; the original scene fizzled out in about 1980 when National Health split up, and nothing much happened for 40 years until this Zopp album came along in 2020. Have I missed anything important in-between?

[Steve F.]

So, correct my Canterbury Scene history if I am wrong; the original scene fizzled out in about 1980 when National Health split up, and nothing much happened for 40 years until this Zopp album came along in 2020. Have I missed anything important in-between?

I would agree that the scene kinda died out with National Health, although, y'know, Phil Miller and Hugh Hopper and others from that original era still made good and great music. Did it sound just like Hatfield or Soft Machine? No. Could you draw a line from that scene to what they were doing? I certainly think so. You hear no Canterbury references at all in In Cahoots? I certainly do.

And there are things that reflected that sound (not COPIED that sound) that were released from between the 80s to the 20s. I'll list two favorites - there are plenty of others:

[Scrotum Scissor]

Phil Howard sounds like an earthquake in a drum store for a large part of this disc. At times I do imagine Ratledge and Hopper thinking "WTF?" as they try to keep the songs going during this.

Well Howard was considerably younger - wasn't he? I still keep thinking that an album like Elton Dean's Just Us is worth it for Howard's incredible input alone, even if you for whatever reason don't enjoy Dean's approach as such. I personally hold it in high regard myself. But I was admittedly never the biggest fan of Drop; probably because there's so much archival material available from the band now, and the natural thing for me is to conjure up whatever Wyatt was on. While I could endorse the free-jazz markings of Just Us, I was never too convinced about its definite place in SM. As such, the Marshall era was a different deal altogether, as I hear it - as he strove for a completely other attachment of style and mode in keeping with their overall move towards fusion.

Yet Phil Howard was a highly interesting percussonist.

[Kcrimso]

Fourth is my favourite Soft Machine album so I am very interested to hear this Drop.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Fourth is my favourite Soft Machine album so I am very interested to hear this Drop.

Howard is on SM 5.

[Kcrimso]

Howard is on SM 5.

Indeed. He shared drumming duty on Fifth with John Marshall. I enjoy Fifth very much also.

[pb2015]

Well Howard was considerably younger - wasn't he?

Poking around on the web and looking at the Drop liner notes, I can't find confirmation of his age compared to the rest of the group.

Marshall was a more disciplined drummer, maybe less exciting but a good long term fit for what the group had become by 1972.