A VERITABLE CENTAUR

A weird "unreleased second album" of sorts for this group with a very different line-up (no Gowen or Hopper) recorded live in France in 82 , but it's more likely that they found these tapes laying dormant a decade later and managed to publish them while the context was a little more favorable for notice, both critical and fan-wise. Coming with a completely inappropriate artwork and some useless liner notes about "life on the road incident", these concert tapes are a stunning and much-worthy recount of what these talented musicians could do, mostly out of pure improvisation, because it's probably not likely the group had much a rehearsal before the concert.

Musically the quartet is often on the dissonant side of things, but often manages to produce something well inside the tolerable threshold of pain and endurable sonic torture. Relax, boys, I'm almost kidding here, but if you're jaundiced-stricken yellow-belly musical coward, you can end your reading here, the rest is for real men. Despite his useless liner notes, Hewings is the unsung hero of this release, even if Greaves' bass is all over the place as well. Dean is his usual self, setting the outside boundaries of the quartet's field of expansion, and Pyle tries to mount up he mayonnaise which can only be rather spicy given the elements present. The last track is not from this concert but dates from 88 and is a whopping 26 mins+ Toot De Sweet (that Tout De Suite >> right away) where the edges of sanity are not only explored but toyed away with, and a close inspection of your brief might be suitable whether you adored or detested the track.

Sadly the original line-up is now standing on the frail shoulders of Hopper, now that Elton, Pip, Alan are gone and Hugh is fighting his last windmills.. Sooo while only half-relevant with the original album (that got a remaster reissue treatment recently), this Soft Heap Cd is worth your investment from a n excellent quartet, despite a rather misleading list of names on page three of the booklet