HATFIELD AND THE NORTH

"Hatfield and The North" is the eponymously titled debut full-length studio album by UK progressive rock/jazz-rock act Hatfield and The North. The album was released through Virgin Records in February 1974. Hatfield and The North formed in mid-1972 by members and ex-members of Delivery, Gong, Caravan, and Matching Mole. All accomplished musicians who had already tried a lot of different things and had experience with recording and touring.

Hatfield and The North play an experimental progressive rock style with strong jazz-rock/fusion leanings. Caravan and to a lesser degree Soft Machine are obvious references, but Hatfield and The North found their own niche of the Canterbury progressive rock sound. It´s predominantly focused on the instrumental part of the music, or at least on many of the tracks featuring vocals, the voice is almost used as an extra instrument. Bassist/lead vocalist Richard Sinclair, who had just come out of a stint with Caravan has an easily recognisable voice and singing style, but the album also features a guest performance by Robert Wyatt (Soft Machine, Matching Mole) on the "Calyx" track, which is quite memorable. In addition to Wyatt guesting, the songs "Son of 'There's No Place Like Homerton'" and "Lobster In Cleavage Probe" feature a female choir.

The structure and tracklist of the album is a bit unusual with many shorter tracks and a few longer ones. 15 tracks and a total playing time of 46:11 minutes. Some of the tracks aren´t even a minute long and some quite frankly sound a bit unfinished (or musical ideas born out of jamming, but never finalized in terms of adding finished compositional elements), but some seque into each other to form longer musical structures and make more sense in that context. As the case for example is with the four opening tracks of the album which work like an intro phase to the 10 minutes long "Son Of "There's No Place Like Homerton" (which features quite prominent use of saxophone and some flute is also heard). Although the music is often nice, laid-back, and mellow semi-jazzy progressive rock, it´s not easy listening music by any means. The band toy with time signatures and various timbres and dynamics which require attention from the listener.

The album features a soft, organic, and detailed sound production, which perfectly suits the material. To my ears it´s quite brilliant production work. Upon conclusion "Hatfield and The North" is an incredibly well performed and well produced release, but the compositional part of the album is lacking coherence and a lot of the album simply sounds like the band noodling along to unfinished musical ideas. Thankfully they are musicians on such a high level that even random musical noodling ends up sounding great. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.