BEFORE A WORD IS SAID

In many ways England's Canterbury Scene was a membership club that included a small but dedicated group of musicians who primarily engaged in the unique psychedelically tinged progressive jazz-rock sounds that made this particular strain of fusion so utterly unique. All throughout the 70s the main players that included Soft Machine, Caravan, National Health, Hatfield & The North and Gilgamesh had seen members come and go with every Canterbury musician seemingly joining every other band at one time and rarely saw two albums in a row with the same lineup. It was like a rotating exhibit of Canterbury splendor during the golden era so a wellspring of new collaborative efforts was continuously spawning new sparks of creativity with the regenerative efforts of simply working with new musicians.

While the majority of newbie collaborative efforts adopted proper band monikers, every so often a group of similarly minded musician maestros released an album or two with each member receiving equal billing with no need for pesky band names to cloud the musical vision. Such is the case of ALAN GOWEN, PHIL MILLER, RICHARD SINCLAIR & TREVOR TOMKINS who for a brief moment in time had pooled their talents into a gathering of kindred spirits and relived some of the past glories that they had each contributed to in the previous decade. The quartet convened in the spring of 1981 and set forth to close some loose ends that weren't quite resolved in the members' past endeavors. The results were this album BEFORE A WORD IS SAID which was released in 1982.

These sessions would prove to be the very last for keyboardist ALAN GOWEN, the mastermind behind Gilgamesh as well as a key member of National Health, Soft Head and Soft Heap, who had succumbed to leukemia shortly after these recordings at the age of 33. Guitarist PHIL MILLER who reunited with bassist RICHARD SINCLAIR after the legendary Hatfield & The North project also had his share of expertise in Matching Mole, his own In Cahoots as well as a major player in the Canterbury pinnacle of National Health. Drummer TREVOR TOMKINS was somewhat of the odd man out having primary carved out a career in Ian Carr's Nucleus but honed his Canterbury creds along with GOWEN in Gilgamesh.

A decidedly jazzy affair, this quartet of seasoned veterans crafted eight tracks that captured the spirit of the multitude of Canterbury projects they had all contributed to throughout the 1970s. An overall relaxed dreamy mode of operandi with each member adding the proper Canterbury ingredients for the ultimate celebration of the unique style they had collectively forged the decade prior. Much of the material had been written by various members in the past and simply brought back to life in these sessions. While the tracks do showcase an adequate display of variety throughout with strange darkened processions like the rather gloomy title track, the majority of the material is more out of the Hatfield & The North playbook with GOWEN paying respect to the keyboard style of Dave Stewart's classic playing techniques while the closing "A Fleeting Glace" displays all the classic Hatfield traits only set to a more robust rock format with TOMKINS delivering one of the more energetic percussive moments.

While primarily an all-instrumental affair, "Umbrellas' also harkens back to the Hatfield & The North glory days with Sinclair contributing those classic wordless vocalizations that punctuated that band's two albums throughout. The album is almost like a greatest hits of the Canterbury 70s starting with the unique keyboard runs and time signature familiarities as delivered on the opening "Above And Below" and then followed by the more jazzy upbeat swing of "Reflexes In The Margin." The GOWAN contributions such as "Silver Star" and the title track exhibit a sense of melancholy which in retrospect reflected his worsening health issues. The MILLER contributions such as "Above And Below," "Fourfold" and "A Fleeting Glance" on the other hand deliver some of the most upbeat energetically delivered moments with a stronger emphasis on the guitar and groovy pulsating tempos.

When all is said and done the overall impression of BEFORE A WORD IS SAID is that of resolution as if the team was in collaborative observance of their past accomplishments and gathered lost moments and wayward concepts that hadn't successfully been incorporated into the Canterbury glory days. It's a beautifully competent album but rather than feeling like an innovative evolutionary leap that would bring the Canterbury Scene into the 1980s, rather feels more like a band reliving past glories with a sad reverence of a passing era and the melancholy of entering a new musical landscape of which the members felt like fish out of water. However despite not redesigning the Canterbury classics in 80s regalia, BEFORE A WORD SAID is still a compelling tribute to all those idiosyncrasies that created an entirely new genre of progressive rock. The album offers moments of comfort that reflect the past as well as offering a few twists and turns that aren't expected. An enjoyable album from beginning to end even if not one of the top specimens of the Canterbury sound. Personally i love this one.