HOPES AND FEARS

At the turn of the 60's, two English students of Cambridge, Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson formed the core of Henry Cow, a band who over the course of ten years pretty much bucked every stale tradition of rock, creating their own way, a Baroque inflected free jazz soaked cacophony which they refined to a method dubbed Rock In Opposition (RIO), by way of several communal traipses across Europa. The general idea was to create an independent network of like minded performers that would not be dependent on the largesse of the major record companies for their own survival.

So, in the 70's, the collaborative spirit seemed to have swept through the British progressive art rock scene. Countless performers commingled on each other's albums and, in a variety of configurations, they explored similar sonic territory. This spirit of creative collaboration was most highly concentrated around the virtually unclassifiable music of one of the most iconic bands, Henry Cow. Serving as the nexus of a wildly experimental scene and seeing a virtual who's who of the avant-garde wing of the British art rock, Henry Cow's influence and ideals spread quickly during the decade in which they existed, each member popping up here and there on other artists' albums before striking out on their own.

During the ten years of existence, 1968-78, Henry Cow released four studio albums. During the recording of their final album "Western Culture", the band split down the middle, with Hodgkinson wanting to continue down the increasingly oblique path their music had been careening down, and Frith wanting to perform more "song-oriented" fare. In a fashion unusually amicable and diplomatic, Frith split off with the percussionist Chris Cutler, to finish recording the material they had prepared for "Western Culture" but which didn't make part of the final version. Cutler wrote lyrics, and their recently bandless acquaintance Dagmar Krause, who already worked with them, stepped up to work with both.

So, the drummer Chris Cutler and the guitarist Fred Frith were core members of Henry Cow, who had collaborated with German singer Dagmar Krause's band, Slapp Happy, on a pair of albums in the mid of the 70's. Krause brought a highly distinctive vocal presence to the band, one both wildly idiosyncratic, witness her various shrieks, growls and unclassifiable utterances throughout the Art Bears catalog, and schooled in traditional European art songs, particularly those of Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht. With her voice and phrasing, she managed to single handedly unify lengthy works that might have otherwise lapsed into typically arch, classically structured Henry Cow pieces. When Krause joined the band on a permanent basis, it was natural that they should gravitate towards something more like "songs".

The musicians who would become Art Bears began recording their first album, "Hopes And Fears", before the band even formally existed. In 1978, Cutler, Frith, Krause, Georgie Born, Lindsay Cooper and Tim Hodgkinson went to Switzerland with the intent to cut the fifth Henry Cow album at Etienne Conod's Sunrise Studio. However, when it became apparent that Cutler's shorter songs, along with Krause's vocals, weren't going to result in anything resembling a Henry Cow album, Cutler, Frith and Krause decided to rename themselves Art Bears, and with the others, agreed to record different, instrumental pieces for what would become Henry Cow's final album, "Western Culture".

The duo wrote 13 succinct, arguably more tuneful songs all based loosely on carvings which adorn the walls of the Amiens cathedral in France. This is really a very dense, challenging and tough album to crack. It's supposed to be. But with repeated listenings, its brilliance will begin to take shape, an angular swan which slowly carves itself out of the ice of initial distaste. Brilliance and genius, all too apparent in Frith's shapeshifting guitars and stark arrangements and the panoply of diverse percurssions and noises of Cutler and his oblique, preternatural lyrics, delivered supernaturally by the voice of Dagmar Krause. It's the confounding voice of crestfallen strength, desperate and seemingly tuneless, yet never missing a note. It's stark in the greatest German tradition, but unlike much less talented and yet far more namedropped "anti-singers" like Nico, this is a voice strained and cold via too much emotion, rather than devoid of it.

Conclusion: The music on "Hopes And Fears" is strange, dark and aggressive. Sometimes reminds me of something close to Van Der Graaf Generator, but even more experimental. Firth's guitar sounds are twisted and unpredictable, and Cutler's drumming focuses on a more simplistic, but at the same time forceful side, rather than his disorienting, polyrhythmic playing in Henry Cow. On "Hopes And Fears" there are mostly regular length songs, with Krause's falsetto vocals at the center. I must admit that I'm not a huge fan of her singing, although she is a nice addition to the music on the album. The music of Art Bears sounds almost as ahead of the curve today as it did so many years ago. The sophistication and beauty of their music is far above of most other song based bands of the last few decades. Art Bears was at the pinnacle of the European songwriting. Unfortunately, they aren't simply understood by most people.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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