SLAPP HAPPY

The merger of ultra-serious Marxist collective Henry Cow and playfully subversive arty popsters Slapp Happy was one of the more unlikely artistic marriages of the 1970s. Predictably, the union soon foundered, but it did produce this wonderful album.

From the opening number, Some Questions About Hats, we seem to be in a Weimar era nightclub with Dagmar Krause, very much the star of this show, commanding the stage like Lotte Lenya's hip younger sister. The songs are concise and tuneful - at once irresistibly infectious and impeccably left-field. This is an emphatically European take on rock music with its roots in the songs of Brecht and Weill rather than Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. Desperate Straights offers a clue as to what rock music might have sounded like had the USA not been a twentieth century imperial power.

Though most of the songs are written by Anthony Moore and Peter Blegvad from the Happy contingent they are given their distinctive artistic shape and personality by the brass and woodwind arrangements provided by Cow and assembled company. Krause sings these absurdist songs about hats and hermaphrodites with the fanatical conviction of a Kamikaze pilot. This stuff, to borrow a phrase Peter Hammill has often used to describe Van Der Graaf Generator, is 'serious fun'.

The divorce came following the next release - In Praise of Learning. Unhappy with the heavy political emphasis of the record, Moore and Blegvad split, with Krause opting to remain with Cow. But the singular avant-pop of Desperate Straights, as catchy as it is challenging, could only have been made by these two very different bands combining as one.

Review Nº 249

One of the most original ensembles of the progressive rock music in the 70's was Slapp Happy. Slapp Happy was founded by the British experimental composer and keyboardist Anthony Moore to accompany his German wife Dagmar Krause's soulful melodies. Slapp Happy debuted with the notable in the original line up was the American guitarist Peter Blegvad, who was in Britain to complete his studies. Recorded with the input of the rhythm section of their friends, the members of the famed Krautrock band Faust, the trio issued their debut studio album 'Sort Of...Slapp Happy', in 1972. The commercial prospects of the album were severely limited as a result of the band's refusal to perform live. In 1974, Slapp Happy recorded their second studio album, 'Casablanca Moon'. After both albums, then the band merged with Henry Cow. The combined line up came up with two summaries of the vocabulary of progressive rock, 'Desperate Straights' and 'In Praise Of Learning', both in 1975. After that, both Moore and Blegvad pursued solo careers, although Krause continued singing with Henry Cow though their 1980 dissolution. However, in 1980, they reunited with Krause to record a new Slapp Happy album, 'Acnalbasac Noom', in the same year. A new Slapp Happy studio album, ''Ça Va', appeared only in 1998 and the last work of them 'Camera' was issued two years later, in 2000.

'Desperate Straights' is the third studio album of Slapp Happy and was released in 1975. As I wrote before, this album is a collaborative effort between Slapp Happy and Henry Cow. So, the line up on the album is: From Slapp Happy: Dagmar Krause (voice and wurlitzer), Peter Blegvad (voice and guitar) and Anthony Moore (piano). From Henry Cow: Fred Frith (guitar, violin and xylophone), Tim Hodgkinson (clarinet, organ and piano), John Greaves (bass guitar and piano) and Chris Cutler (drums and percussion). The album had also the special collaboration of some other musicians. So, here we have also the participation of the guest musicians: Geoff Leigh (flute), Mont Campbell (French horn), Mongezi Feza (tumpet), Nick Evans (trombone), Lindsay Cooper (bassoon and oboe) and Pierre Moerlen (percussion).

'Desperate Straights' left many listeners quite puzzled. Some compositions were now shorter, and more serious than the compositions of the two previous albums. The explanation for that is perhaps because the three founding members had collaborated with the highly esteemed and loved band Henry Cow and with some other friends, who provided some different instruments by adding clarinet, bassoon, oboe, flute, trumpet and trombone, besides bass guitar and drums, to Blegvad's guitar and Moore's piano. But, it was mainly the Dagmar Krause's new vocal attitude that did the main difference. It's more similar to the 'art song' approach, or to some modern classical music, than to the more common and traditional 'rock vocals'. That constituted the highest rock to climb by Slapp Happy on 'Desperate Straights'.

Though the bulk of the material here was composed by Blegvad and Moore, the results do feel like a genuine halfway house between the music of the two groups. Despite their reputation for being a difficult proposition, Henry Cow was keen to experiment with more conventional songs. Similarly Blegvad and Moore's avant-garde tendencies were given much room. The gluing together of pop sensibilities and avant-rock experimentalism results in rich and dynamic music.

With the time, the songs on 'Desperate Straights' revealed a certain considerable charm. Just listen to the opening track, 'Some Questions About Hats', then to 'A Worm Is At Work', 'Europa', 'Apes In Capes' and 'Giants', to have an idea of the territory that was covered here by Slapp Happy. 'Bad Alchemy', whose music was written by Henry Cow's bass player, John Greaves, is a track that's impossible not to mention. This is a track destined to become a classic. It's the first one of his long and successful series of collaboration with Peter Blegvad. The lyrics on 'Desperate Straights' work on different levels and all the arrangements are noteworthy. The two instrumental tracks I have always regarded as peculiar, the title-track for not being an inspired vehicle, in the first place, and the long closing track, 'Caucasian Lullaby', because it doesn't sound as belonging to 'Desperate Straights', even due to is length on an album like this.

Conclusion: 'Desperate Straights' is a surprisingly melodic album, light on the art-school angst and heavy on the playfulness. 'Desperate Straights' hits a sweet spot between weird and nostalgic. 'Desperate Straights' is a very strange album. It reminds me the operas of Kurt Weil with his collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. By the other hand, and for what I can remember, this is more a Slapp Happy album than a Henry Cow album. Despite the collaboration of Henry Cow, I think this is an album more in the krautrock vein. Slapp Happy took a very simplistic and innocence mind set into the studio, crafting a primitive pop album complimented by the beautiful Degmar Krause's pure German tainted voice. In contrast to the sometimes quite similar aligned Art Bears' albums, additionally holds some humor and warmth. So, 'Desperate Straights' is a very original and beautiful album, one of the most original and bizarre album I've ever heard.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Slapp Happy's magnificent Desperate Straights, enhanced by Henry Cow volunteering themselves as a backing band, is an excellent counterpoint to the Cow-backed-by-Slapp album In Praise of Learning. Aside from the excellent War, In Praise of Learning was focused mainly on unwelcoming avant-garde soundscapes; here, though, Slapp Happy's more song- based approach reigns supreme, as does a more diverse musical aesthetic. Dagmar Krause turns in a vocal performance that's more diverse than the witchy rants required of her on In Praise of Learning, Peter Blegvad gets a turn on vocals on the frantic summer sensation of Strayed, and the instrumentalists show a deft instinct for when to add an experimental twist to the songs and when to play them straight. Of the two major fruits of the Slapp-Cow collaboration, I'd say this is by far my favourite.

Slappy Happy's self-titled album - called Casablanca Moon in some editions - was a rerecording of a harsher, rockier version of more or less the same material (with one song switched out) they'd prepared with the backing of Faust. Whilst I would be interested in hearing that version at some point along the line, at the same time I think the light, jazzy, soft approach taken on this version is interesting in itself, since it really teases out the beautiful, dreamy side side of these quirky, mutant progressive pop numbers.

Prog purists who come to the band via their collaborations with Henry Cow may find this a bit accessible for their tastes, but I don't think this rerecording is necessarily the case of "record company steamrollers artistic integrity" it's made out to be; after all, even this version of the album is hardly slick and commercial, and it fits neatly into the precedent set by the earlier Sort Of - indeed, it represents a polishing and honing of the approach of that album into a bona fide masterpiece.

Produced long before Slapp Happy crossed paths with Henry Cow to make thorny, avant-garde RIO material, their debut album Sort Of is still interesting as a brace of delightful art-pop tracks. Taking an eccentric approach to the sort of jangle pop singer-songwriter material in vogue at the time, and mixing up the lead vocals between Dagmar Krause, Peter Blegvad and Anthony Moore to avoid one contributor being inadvertently seen as the band leader, it's a delightful bit of subversive pop. RIO fans expecting something along the lines of In Praise of Learning may find themselves disappointed - gosh, they're even trying to sound accessible and enjoyable! - but most listeners approaching with an open mind may find there's hidden depths here.

Absorbing the egghead Rock in Opposition of HENRY COW must have been as much of a challenge for the Slapp Happy trio as it likely was for their fans. But, like the hats they sing about in the opening track here, this was clearly a band aspiring to higher things.

Slapp Happy with Henry Cow was a more lighthearted ensemble than Henry Cow with Slapp Happy (see: 'In Praise of Learning'), almost as if the parent band set the agenda for the project at hand. This first collaboration (by a matter of weeks) still shows a lingering influence from Slapp Happy's earlier Krautrock associations. Listen to the simple yet insistent beat of 'A Worm at Work', or the sideshow circus melody of 'Apes in Capes', and tell me that a little bit of FAUST didn't rub off on the group, in particular the eccentric song collages of 'The Faust Tapes', released two years earlier.

Meanwhile the album wanders happily all over the avant-rock map. Songs like 'Riding Tigers' are almost (but not quite) Rock 'n' Roll, while the title track resembles a semi-Jazz Fusion orchestration of a minor Erik Satie objet d'art. But the thorny rhythms of 'Bad Alchemy' are pure Henry Cow; ditto the 8-minute epic 'Caucasian Lullaby' (well, it's an epic by Slapp Happy standards, anyway). The latter track closes the album on a repeated variation of near-ambient ascending scales, sounding like one of the Cow's more bovine improvisations, although I suspect it was all carefully notated throughout.

It also proves to be an exception to the very succinct organization of music. None of the remaining songs is allowed to outstay its welcome by more than a few stray seconds, and most of them clock in around the two-minute range: in 1975 the antithesis of Prog Rock scale and ambition. The very brevity of each selection, and of the album itself, may prompt newcomers to undervalue it, but don't be fooled: the music here is as demanding as it is playful, and all the more valuable for embracing both ends of that spectrum.

Slapp Happy's 1974 album is a long way from the quirky Rock in Opposition of the band's later collaborations with HENRY COW. What it presents instead is an equally quirky set of oddball cabaret pop tunes, simple yet sophisticated (in true Old World European fashion) but with a more contemporary sense of whimsy.

The nearly one dozen melodies are often very catchy, but too lightweight for long-term appeal. Maybe that was a consequence of having to record the album twice, with a little record label arm-twisting. (The original version, featuring more input from the Krautrock provocateurs of FAUST, was later released with the title spelled backward.)

Whatever else it may or may not be, this is definitely a fun album, as you might have guessed after studying the instrumentation (jugs? sausage bassoons?) And Dagmar Krause's voice was a musical instrument all by itself, perfectly matched to such pleasantly eccentric songwriting. The sound throughout is very intimate, very natural, as if a bunch of good friends were recorded performing an ad-hoc concert in your modestly furnished basement game room.

The title track merits special attention, if only because it's been stuck in my head for weeks: a foreign intrigue tango from the alleyways of Morocco to the mean streets of New Jersey. Lyrically the song suggests a collaboration between crime novelist Eric Ambler and songwriter Colin Meloy, because where else besides in a DECEMBERISTS tune would you expect to hear references to cabalistic innuendo, cocaine stains on the upper lip, and a headless body stuffed into a ventilator?

I don't subscribe to the bias that complexity equals quality, an equation sometimes taken for granted in Prog Rock circles. The early work of Slapp Happy supports my point: the music here may not be very ambitious, but a surplus of charm and character has kept the album from becoming stale for more than 35 years now.

Woodstock Berlin

Maybe due to the band's unwillingness to promote this album with live gigs and everything else one would assume goes hand in hand with a music career, - Slapp Happy remained somewhat obscure at the time of this release. It's kinda sad, especially when you start to listen to this riveting and unassuming debut album simply called Sort Of......Slapp Happy. The meaning behind the title escapes this listener, but what does shine through in the most charming way, is the feet thumping, psychedelic whiskey shooting straightforwardness of this thing. Sure, you probably saw the RIO avant sticker applied here on PA, and thought to yourself: "Ahhh it's one of those unlistenable albums with people playing drainpipes and castrated frogs.... Count me out!" - upon running screaming in the opposite direction. Such thinking is pure madness though, and if anybody out there is reading this review and maybe even feels on the fence about this sort of music - or just think they've pigeon-holed the entire genre by listening to a couple of albums from Zappa and Henry Cow, I urge you to take a chance with Sort Of. It could well be your introduction into a world of shiny things with teeth.

Having said that, you could be lead into thinking otherwise, as Sort Of sports a couple of big hitters inside the more experimental side of rock music. 3 members from Faust lend a helping hand in this recording - and you also meet a young Peter Blegvad who back then sounded far more occupied with dirty gritty hard rock, than what he later got associated with. Finally there's the tiny pixie named Dagmar Krause, who sings like a female version of David Surkamp. Allrighty then....

The thing is - this debut is far from being an avant garde release. It's only in the details you hear traces of what was to come. The Faust input feels strangely in line with the surrounding psychedelic blues rock n' folk style, and if I didn't know any better, I'd say it sounded like a quirkier Big Brother with Janis singing from the insides of a helium bubble.

The crunching spillonking guitar antics of Peter Blegvad are what's running things here. Often coming off as a distorted blues man, he propels this venture forward with a steadfast easy digestible Chuck Berry lick. Much of what you hear wouldn't feel out of place in a Woodstock setting, where the rhythm n' blues framework got stretched to fit whatever agenda put on the menu, whether that was the Latino spicings of Santana or the hippedi hop pop of Sha-na-na. On here, you are faced with the German lineage of the blues. What the Amon Duuls proposed to do with it - that underground gelatinous raw blues feel, even if you won't find much in the way of free-form composition or amazing LSD freak-outs on Sort Of. The sound is very much an echo of the psychedelic blues rock happening in the late 60s.

It's first when you dig a little deeper that you start to hear those quirky bits. The side of the record that screams for unorthodox measures and iron fisted koalas. Like I mentioned earlier, it is indeed a subtle shading to the proceedings, but it helps pull the album up from the everyday blubber of 1970s blues rock. It's in the spastic percussion touches that continue to embellish the music throughout the album. Something that Faust were masters at. Just hearing the drums on some of these tracks makes me think of the wilder side of Ginger Baker. Keeping a straight beat without implementing the high hat or snare drum like they were meant to is a very hard thing to do - especially when the track you're supposed to be backing is a rockabilly tune with a severe need of a 1 and 4. Yet on here it works, and does so beautifully and with refined subtlety. What? We're talking about Faust here - aren't we?!?!?!

This is what sets the album apart from other such psychedelic blues rock affairs of the time: unusual backing ornamentations like a twittering saxophone, bar-room piano, mumbling snuffling percussions, unorthodox drumming and the unique vocals of Madame Krause. For those of you who've heard horror stories about this woman's vocal chords, don't believe any of it! She's as charismatic and powerful as she is integral to this band's sound. The minuscule traces of German accent that lie at the tail-end of her phrasings are abnormally beautiful, and I honestly wouldn't have it any other way, and just so you know: I usually despise accented vocals. Furthermore, she doesn't even sing that much on this debut. Blegvad belts out his booming blues voice just as frequently, and the flip flopping effect of the Minnie Mouse tinged psychedelics of Krause and the big meaty elk booms from Blegvad match perfectly the music surrounding them.

Sort Of is far away from being representative of this band's future career, but it is a wonderful meeting between the States and Europe. This is where the blues fuelled psych rock dances with the quirkier side of the European avant garde eccentricities, yet without ever loosing it's natural heritage.

Since their previous album (Casablanca Moon) Slapp Happy united with Henry Cow, the result of which is this album. Strangely, even though the songs are less accessible than in Casablanca Moon, they are generally short - ranging from just under 2 minutes to just over 3.

The change in style is immediately apparent from the first track. Dagmar's singing style has changed a lot - her singing actually makes me think of a witch, but in a good, interesting way. The style has changed from being as melodic to a lot more experimental, leading to the use of odd chord progressions and rhythms. To my ears, this is a welcome change, for while Casablanca Moon was enjoyable, it was rarely exciting. On this album, there is a lot more interesting things going on, and a total of 11 really interesting tracks.

Unfortunately, there are two tracks on this album that kind of mess with the flow, each being longer than the other tracks and each being an instrumental. The first is the title track, Desperate Straights, which eventually settles on a rather un-interesting segment of music, which it then repeats for a while before fading out. It feels like it was not properly fleshed out. The other is the last track, Caucasion Lullaby, which I think actually creates a really cool, eerie atmosphere - it just doesn't sit well with the rest of the album.

Despite these two tracks, this is definitely an enjoyable album, and a step up from their previous. Unfortunately, this would be the last album that the band would record until the late '90s (although they would all participate on Henry Cows next album).

The band had already actually recorded this album once, but their record label refused to release it because they didn't think it had wide enough appeal. So when Slapp Happy found a new record deal, they recorded this, perhaps the first time ever a band has written a cover album that includes only covers of songs they had already recorded but that no one else had heard.

The original recording had been an attempt at being pop-like, and you can tell listening to this recording. The music is in general good, although a few songs are a bit too repetitive (like Half Way There). The songs range from around 3 to around 4 minutes, so they're pretty consistent in length.

Strings accompany the band on a few songs (like the opening track), and there are occasional weird noise as well, but the stand out feature of this album are the unique vocals of Dagmar Krause. She has a lot of charm and just the perfect amount of edge to give the music a unique sound.

My favorite tracks are the first (Casablanca Moon) and a couple near the end (The Drum (great feel, makes me think of a bunch of friends hanging out around a drum), Haiku (one of the few songs utilising male vocals)), but in the middle there is little that really excites me. It's very rarely dull, so it kind of sits at "pleasant but forgettable" for a lot of the album.