The Canterbury "progressive" school was renewed in the 1970s mainly by Henry Cow and the solo works of its members.
Formed in 1969 on the Cambridge campus by guitarist Fred Frith (a violin virtuoso and former composer of ballet music), wi…
The Canterbury "progressive" school was renewed in the 1970s mainly by Henry Cow and the solo works of its members.
Formed in 1969 on the Cambridge campus by guitarist Fred Frith (a violin virtuoso and former composer of ballet music), with Tim Hodgkinson on keyboards and Geoff Leigh on woodwinds, Henry Cow won a competition for young talent and composed a Dionysian rock opera about Euripides' "Bacchae." They were later joined by John Greaves on bass and Chris Cutler on percussion.
Leg End (Virgin, 1973) is an album inspired by the jazz-rock of Soft Machine, the brainy guitar-sound of King Crimson, and the big bands of Frank Zappa. The latter in particular is the main influence: Nirvana For Mice vents the fiery country-band libidos of Grand Wazoo revised under the banner of free-jazz, fancier percussionism, and little keyboard dissonance; the classical fantasy of Amygdala owes as much to Zappa in the flickers and gyrations of keyboards and guitars, with indeed more comedy; and Teenbeat is a paradox worthy Burnt Weeny Sandwich in three movements: cacophonous free, expressionist ballet, and demented bandism. To the violent, metaphysical jazz-rock of Matching Mole, however, refers The Tenth Chaffinch. The long, evocative Nine Funerals Of The Citizen King, a chamber piece totally improvised in both vocal and percussion parts and with very few useful chords, is out of this trajectory of full-bodied music at a great pace, and constitutes, in its abstract and surreal pacing, the first premonition of the group's real artistic personality: its finale of Brechtian cabaret choruses, chamber strings and medieval saltarellos opens boundless horizons.
