Forum Home Forum Home > Progressive Music Lounges > Prog Recommendations/Featured albums
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - Recommend Henry Cow Albums?
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Events   Register Register  Login Login

Topic ClosedRecommend Henry Cow Albums?
 Post Reply Post Reply
Author
Message
  Topic Search Topic Search  Topic Options Topic Options
A Guy View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: October 25 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 127 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Recommend Henry Cow Albums?
    Posted: October 25 2005 at 15:43

Is this the right place for this topic?

Anyway, I bought the Henry Cow album "In Praise of Learning" recently and thought it was great, especially after listening attentively to it all the way through. So I was wondering which Henry Cow album I should get next. Which one do you think is the best? (And I'm not interested if people are going to start saying "Henry Cow is rubbish", I just want an actual answer!)
Back to Top
Syzygy View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Honorary Collaborator

Joined: December 16 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 7003 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 25 2005 at 17:37

The short answer is: all of them.

Leg End is their jazziest and probably most accessible album.

Unrest contains their most fearsomely complex composition, Ruins. Half of the album is composed, half is studio improv. Dark and sometimes disturbing, it's my personal favourite.

Desperate Straits is the other album they made with Slapp Happy, very song oriented. It sounds like the cabaret band from Mars.

Concerts includes an excellent Peel session, selections from a concert with Robert Wyatt and some very intense live improvisations.

Western Culture is their only wholly instrumental album and features Lindsay Coopers debut as a composer. Essential.

Start with Western Culture and work back, through and around to Art Bears, Fred Frith, Greaves and Blegvad's masterful Kew.Rhone and much else besides. Enjoy!
'Like so many of you
I've got my doubts about how much to contribute
to the already rich among us...'

Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom


Back to Top
Catholic Flame View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: September 17 2005
Status: Offline
Points: 295 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 25 2005 at 17:43

 

Leg End is very good -- Nirvana For Mice is one of the best songs on it.

If you like Henry Cow you may want to try the group Blast also.
“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

~Jack Kerouac
Back to Top
Evolver View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Crossover & JR/F/Canterbury Teams

Joined: October 22 2005
Location: The Idiocracy
Status: Offline
Points: 5482 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 25 2005 at 17:54
Unrest was the first I bought.  It's still my favorite.
Trust me. I know what I'm doing.
Back to Top
RoyalJelly View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: September 29 2005
Status: Offline
Points: 582 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 26 2005 at 07:40

I would say Concerts is my favorite, it has some pieces from "In Praise of Learning", but far better, and a lot of other gorgeous songs. "Western Culture" is all instrumental, and brilliant. I just discovered a Tim Hodgkinson album called "Each in Our Own Thoughts" that has a newer recording of a lengthy Henry Cow piece that they used to perform live, but never recorded, still with Dagmar Krause and Chris Cutler, fantastic. The Art Bears "Winter Songs" is also highly recommended, there's nothing like it, and it's influenced some newer bands like Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

For a modern take on Cow aesthetics listen to the first Science Group album, it has Fred Frith and Cutler, and is like a post-modern update, with a bit more humourous elements (never Cow's strong point).
Back to Top
Persona View Drop Down
Forum Groupie
Forum Groupie
Avatar

Joined: October 17 2005
Location: Spain
Status: Offline
Points: 45 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 26 2005 at 08:12

For me, Unrest its the album, and Half Asleep, Half Awake the song. Try Western Culture too...
Le pregunte,
y su sonrisa se desprendio
desgarrando al aire.
Back to Top
Elta31 View Drop Down
Forum Newbie
Forum Newbie


Joined: October 04 2005
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 12 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 26 2005 at 09:53
     I bought "In Praise of Learning" first and then I picked up "Legend". Perhaps then you should try their other albums since those two are the easiest to get into. There is an album that Peter Blegvad made called "Kew.Rhone" that is quite good, as already mentioned.
Back to Top
Phil View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: June 17 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 1881 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 26 2005 at 10:08
Originally posted by Syzygy Syzygy wrote:

The short answer is: all of them.

Leg End is their jazziest and probably most accessible album.

Unrest contains their most fearsomely complex composition, Ruins. Half of the album is composed, half is studio improv. Dark and sometimes disturbing, it's my personal favourite.

Desperate Straits is the other album they made with Slapp Happy, very song oriented. It sounds like the cabaret band from Mars.

Concerts includes an excellent Peel session, selections from a concert with Robert Wyatt and some very intense live improvisations.

Western Culture is their only wholly instrumental album and features Lindsay Coopers debut as a composer. Essential.

Start with Western Culture and work back, through and around to Art Bears, Fred Frith, Greaves and Blegvad's masterful Kew.Rhone and much else besides. Enjoy!



Just picked up on this thread. I've got Leg End which I think is excellent, was thinking of getting either Western Culture or Unrest next. Sounds like I'll probably end up with them all!!
Back to Top
Trotsky View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator

Honorary Collaborator

Joined: October 25 2004
Location: Malaysia
Status: Offline
Points: 2771 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 26 2005 at 12:05
Originally posted by Syzygy Syzygy wrote:

Leg End is their jazziest and probably most accessible album.



That's frightening ... I think it took me two years to get into it! ...

But now I really dig it ... although I can't offer much advice seeing as how it's still the only full HC album I've heard ...
"Death to Utopia! Death to faith! Death to love! Death to hope?" thunders the 20th century. "Surrender, you pathetic dreamer.”

"No" replies the unhumbled optimist "You are only the present."
Back to Top
oliverstoned View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Honorary Collaborator

Joined: March 26 2004
Location: France
Status: Offline
Points: 6308 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 26 2005 at 12:25
Start with Legend and Unrest. The "Ruin" piece on Unrest is excellent.
Back to Top
A Guy View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: October 25 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 127 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 26 2005 at 13:07
Okay.
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down



This page was generated in 0.641 seconds.
Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.