NATIONAL HEALTH

What's better than a band with a keyboard wizard at the centre? A band with two keyboard wizards at the centre, of course! This is National Health, an English band that was around for less than a decade, barely had an audience to speak of and was basically on life support throughout all of its existence, and yet managed to create three of the most wonderful albums I've laid my ears on. They're among my biggest musical influences and it's a darn shame that few people have heard of them, so with your permission I'd like to ramble about them for a while.

As an introduction, let's take a visit to the Canterbury of 1975, the cradle of a musical scene consisting of many small bands and musicians operating on the margins of prog rock, folk rock and jazz rock. National Health was a fusion of two of these bands: Hatfield & The North, a folk- and classical-influenced rock band led by keyboardist Dave Stewart, and Gilgamesh, a more jazzy group led by keyboardist Alan Gowen. National Health, their consolidated form, started off with no less than nine members and included drummer Bill Bruford (from Yes and King Crimson) and guitarist Steve Hillage (from Gong and System 7), but the line-up was constantly shifting and after two years was reduced to a sextet consisting of Amanda Parsons on vocals, Phil Miller on guitar, Neil Murray on bass, Pip Pyle on drums, and the keyboard duo of Dave Stewart and Alan Gowen (with Gowen handling the Moog synthesizer, Stewart handling his trademark distorted organ and both gentlemen sharing duties on electric and acoustic piano). Times were tough for progressive rock in the late seventies, when the genre was generally dismissed as snooty pretentious rubbish. The band was unable to secure themselves a record contract or even a healthy number of gigs, which was the main reason band members kept walking away left and right. Eventually, in 1977, the band managed to enter a studio and record fifty minutes of music but then struggled to find a label that would release such uncompromising and market-unfriendly material. When National Health's self-titled debut album finally saw the light of day in February 1978, two key members, Alan Gowen and Amanda Parsons, had already given up hope and left the group, although their contributions were still captured on the album. So, under these acrimonious circumstances, how did this album turn out?

Pretty damn sweet would be an understatement. This album is a combination of everything great about progressive rock. It encompasses the idealistic and pastoral elements of prog as well as the more ominous and experimental ones, incorporates a wide variety of influences and ends up in my opinion as one of the genre's most concise and most convincing statements.

The tone is set by the 15-minute long opening track, "Tenemos Roads", composed by Dave Stewart. It's a coup de maître from start to finish. After a dreamy synthesizer introduction, the organs kickstart the tune and lead into its unforgettable main melody, played simultaneously on synth and guitar and inspiring the most positive of emotions. It's wonder of wonders, gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh, but the beauty doesn't stop there: after some solos on organ and guitar, Amanda Parsons steps in near the 6-minute mark to show off her extraordinarily high and yet incredibly soothing soprano voice, which adds even more to the song's optimistic nature. This section serves as an interlude to bring the song back from its soaring heights and down to earth. Afterwards, the song settles down even more, turning into an almost ambient piece featuring a flute solo from guest musician Jimmy Hastings (who shows up a number of times throughout the album). But in the end, the tension gets raised once again until the song finally closes with a reprise of the main theme, this time accompanied by Parsons' angelic singing.

The next track, "Brujo" (Spanish for "wizard"), was written by Alan Gowen, whose composing style is far less extravagant than Stewart's, but no less interesting. Trying to analyse the first minute alone drives me insane: It's a peaceful but very intricate knitting of notes that constantly leaps from one rhythm or key to the next in a subtle manner. Parsons has a prominent role on this song, but she has no lyrics to sing outside of "la la la". Instead, her voice takes the role of a lead instrument, used in the same way as the guitar and the synthesizer. Kudos to her for her amazing vocal range and equally amazing precision. The song gradually grows faster and more ferocious over the span of its 10 minutes. As a jazzman, Gowen was known to intentionally leave prolonged open spaces in his compositions as a means of encouraging the musicians to improvise. "Brujo" is no exception to this and dedicates a lot of time to blistering solos from Gowen, Stewart and Miller.

Next up is Stewart's "Borogoves", which is divided into two parts: "Excerpt From Part 2", followed by "Part 1". I'm a little confused by this too, but thankfully "Excerpt From Part 2" is the least confusing song on the album. It starts as quiet little bass guitar solo with electric piano backing and then turns into a slightly louder guitar solo before it ends rather abruptly. A little pointless, but not bad. "Part 1" doesn't bear too much resemblance to it, but it's a lot better. It's a nutty piece that mixes Stravinskian motifs, military march rhythms and circus music influences, and effectively switches on and off between a playful and a sinister mood.

The final track, "Elephants", lives up to its title and starts with a bunch of distorted electric piano noises imitating (or rather attempting to imitate) the titular animal. The track is once again written by Gowen, and it's probably the most free-form composition on the album. The elephant trumpeting is followed by a bit of free improvisation that was taken from a live recording, and then by a couple of dissonant solos on guitar and synthesizer. After that, it sounds like the guys finally start playing a good old-fashioned straight forward rock 'n roll tune, except they add one extra beat to the rhythm, thus rendering it completely undanceable, as if to say "Yeah yeah, you may have made it through 90% of this album, but we're not gonna give up and make it more accessible and marketable for you now!" It's a musical symbolism for the band's trend-defying attitude. True enough, even by progressive rock standards this album is a tough cookie, and the band makes it as challenging as they can for its audience to soak in the music. But once you manage to dig through and embrace the complex song structures, unusual harmonies and unintuitive rhythms, they will never again leave your memory.

And hey, if you make it to the end of the album, you're rewarded with a final reprise of the theme from "Tenemos Roads". It's as if that song is an allegory of the album itself: It starts you off in nirvana, then takes you on a fascinating musical journey to all the corners of the earth before leaving you back where it picked you up, with tons of new experiences.