NICK MASON'S FICTITIOUS SPORTS

I saw this album in the record shops when it was released in 1981. I never bought it. At that time, I was listening more to GENESIS, YES, and other bands than to PINK FLOYD. But finally I could listen to this album recently, not being disappointed by it, despite the fact that NICK MASON did not write any of the songs in this album. The songs were composed by CARLA BLEY, an artist from the U.S. whose style of music is more towards Jazz-Rock music (and maybe somewhat Avant- Garde) than Rock music or Progressive Rock, and very far from PINK FLOYD`s musical style in many ways. Maybe Mason was tired of PINK FLOYD and Roger Waters (at that time, in late 1979, they were reaching the final stages of the recording of "The Wall" album, and Mason went to New York to co-produce this album with Carla Bley, in October 1979). I have to say that the music in this album is somewhat complicated, with some influences from FRANK ZAPPA (even in the use of some humour in some songs like "Can`t Get My Motor to Start" and "Boo To You Too"). All the musicians played very well and the recording and mixing of this album is very good, and maybe it took to them some time to learn the songs in the right way to record them, so maybe they took a considerable time for rehearsals, but maybe I am wrong. Anyway, this is a good album, an album which maybe needs some repeating listenings to really like it. The lead vocals by ROBERT WYATT are very good and very well adapted to this kind of music, not sounding very far from his own style of music. The song which sounds more close to Rock music is "Hot River" which has some very good guitars played by Chris Spedding. But the main instruments in all the other songs are the wind instruments and the keyboards. Mason plays the drums very well, I can say that I can listen to this album a lot of times more than to "The Wall".