Can- Future Days

After several albums of all out weirdness, for the fifth effort, Krautrock kings Can took a drastic change in direction. They eschewed the avant garde and fuzzy elements of their music and made an ambient album. 1973's Future Days took the band's prior minimalism and made it the focal point of the music, Czukay, Karoli, Leibezit and Schmidt make their instruments recede into nothingness. Damo Sazuki features less prominently, and he would leave the group after the album to become a Jehovah's Witness.

The album fades in with some very distorted symbols for the title track. There is almost no formal instrumentation here, just some strange effects layered on each other and a wispy vocal. Can defiantly sees the future as a fairly sterile, orderly place. Afterward comes the aptly titled "Spray", with an ocean like feel conveyed via the washed out keyboards and rhythmically pounding drums. ?It's a bit more active, but it still has that empty and power full feel. Juxtaposed in the mix is the three minute (the rest are all 9+) little pop dity "Moonshake." It's a nonsensical song, and although it's not to bad, it kills the mood of the album. This should have been a single.

On the B side is the side-long suite "Bel Air", which has many shorter movements instead of one long one. It starts of similarly to the title track, with even matching maracas. Then all of a sudden the rhythm section seals the show, with some layered keys and guitar chords to liven the mix. All goes quiet for a heavily fuzzy middle, then farm sounds, and afterwards there's cycle back to the beginning. This is a far cry from their prior side longers, and even casual fans might enjoy this. Good background music/

This is one of the first ambient albums ever created. Ahead of its time in many ways, Future Days is one of a handful of blueprint albums for electronic music. With just light sprinklings of lyrics, guitar, and even formal keyboards, the sparseness is the entirety of the album's embodiment. That does make it difficult to get in to the record until several listens, but there's a lot on offer. Not quite a Tago Mago, though.

This album is like a cloud, an interesting and beautiful object that passes by with so little fanfare it barely goes noticed. Grade: B+

Gong- Flying Teapot

Gong is a Canterbury collective which over its history has been home to tens of members. Australian guitarist and vocalist Daevid Allen (ex-Soft Machine) formed Gong in 1967 after being denied entry into the UK due to visa problems. As a result, Gong was based in France, but is best considered to be a British Band. They have a large back mythology known as Planet Gong. While it was hinted at on prior albums, this 4th effort is the first of the so called "Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy", focusing on the protagonist Zero the Hero. Like many psychedelic albums, it's difficult to follow it all. The members on Flying Teapot were Allen, Steve Hillage (guitar), Gilli Smith (vocals), Didier Malherbe (woodwinds), Tim Blake (keyboards/vocals), Laurie Allan (drums), Francis Moze (bass/keyboards), and Richard Houari (percussion).

The album starts off with "Radio Gnome Invisible", a catchy little tune that uses psychedelic saxophone to lure the listener into a trip. The lyrics sound sort of like babble to me. Evidently, a pig-farming Egyptologist named Mista T Being is sold a "magick ear ring" by an "antique teapot street vendor & tea label collector" named Fred the Fish. The ear ring is capable of receiving messages from ta certain Planet Gong via a pirate radio station called Radio Gnome Invisible. Noodling and noises that stoned people make ensue! Afterward, the close to 12 minutes of "Flying Teapot" carry us away from the Canterbury scene into pure, hard edged, Hendrix-esque tripping. If you're a fan of late 60's stoner rock, this is your dream. The story here is Mista T Being anf Fred the Fish go into a cave in Tibet and get very drunk while chanting "Banana Nirvana Mañana" over and over with a guru. Good stuff.

Just for kicks, the entire story that was going on on side A gets thrown out the window, as we shift away from it, leaving them having a good ol' time in the cave. The stuff about Zero the Hero starts up, as he receives a vision of Pot Head Pixies from the planet gong. The Pixes are green with propeller heads, and they fly around in teapots. The song "Pot Head Pixes" is amongst the best pop songs in Prog history. The "I am, you are, we are crazy" chorus is extremely catchy and wonderful to listen to, and it jumps around with a pleasant Canterbury feel."The Octave Doctors and the Crystal Machine" is a transition piece of synth noise. Next up is"Zero the Hero and the Witches Spell." Zero does not feature here, instead there's some interesting scat vocals, Latin percussion, sax, guitar distortion, and more psychedelics for 9 and a half minutes. The story then resumes with the last track, "Witches Song- I am your Pussy". Zero the Hero offers his Fish and Chips to a cat who turns out to be the Good Witch Yoni, who gives him a potion. The story is continued on the next album in the series, Angel's Egg. "Pussy" is another very Canterbury Scene song, with lots of sax. The lyrics are also discretely sexual and the f bomb is used freely.

Flying Teapot is hard to classify. While it has the defining elements of the Canterbury Scene: it includes some of the 15 or so core members (Allen and Hillage), uses lots of woodwinds, has some jazz like structure, and has its overall feel at parts. However, there's a good 25 minutes of pure psychedelia here to space out to. By breaking the traditional structure, Gong is amongst the most progressive of the progressive rock bands. The only problem here is the ridiculous story which adds nothing.

Seaming two styles together effortlessly into a unique work of Prog, Flying Teapot earns a higly respectable Grade of A-.

National Health- National Health

National Health were the last of the Great Canterbury Scene bands, with a brief two album career in 1977-78. Formed earlier in 1975, the band mostly centered around Alan Gowen, formerly of Gilgamesh, and Dave L. Stewart, formerly of many Canterbury bands like Egg and Hatfield and the North. Phil Miner on Guitar, Neil Murray on Bass, and Pip Pyle on the Drums rounded out the lineup. Since it was a super group of sorts, expectations were high for this 1977 debut. It was extensively toured, and featured contributions from Jimmy Hastings (Woodwinds), John Mitchell (Guava/Congos), and Amanda Parsons (vocals).

The first song on National Health, “Tenemos Roads”, fades in with synths before going into a keyboard and bass driven main melody. It’s a rather lighthearted one, but the bass really does sound menacing underneath. This song perfectly shows how the jazz influences in the Canterbury scene can work well in a rock context, and it was done during the rise of punk at that! When the vocal finaly does come in after nearly 6 minutes, it’s high pitched and a bit hard to understand at times, but it suits the light “day out” melody. One of my favorite Prog songs. Next up comes “Brujo”. This one is similar to “Tenemos Roads” with its light jazz influences, heavy bass, keyboard lead, however, rather than getting the listened involved, it meanders along with an adagio tempo, and latter speeds up but doesn’t pick up. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend much here, except for the jazzy guitar workout towards the end.

Side B opens with “Borogroves”, which has several movements. Some are slow and bass-filled, some showcase Miner’s guitar, some are keyboard driven. Interestingly, the digital version I purchased of National Health has this song cut in two; with part two coming before part one. Overall, a nice piece with few movements that are not up to scratch. The album wraps up with “Elephants”. Here they used some weird trickery in stereo to make some strange percussive effects. The guitar moves around well, also. This piece has the darkest mood of all involved. Midway through, we have a reprise of “Tenemos Roads”, leading to similar but slightly different patterns mixing themes from the two.

Where this album is strong comes from the great skill of each individual musician. You can tell they all really have taken time to perfect their craft extensively. As a result, there are many advanced structures spread through the album. However, many of them aren’t entirely interesting, especialy some of the more cliché parts of “Elephants” and the slower parts of “Brujo”.

On the whole, a solid album. “Tenemos Roads” alone is worth the price of admission. In the modern age of fast forwarding, it won’t surprise me if you skip some some parts, but it still has lots to offer. National Health gets a Grade of C+.

Soft Machine- Third

Before beginning the meat of this article, I’d like to take some time to note the loss of Hugh Hopper, bassist with Canterbury Scene giants Soft Machine, as well as lesser known but equally good bands like Gilgamesh, Isotope, and Soft Heap (a band now completely passed on). He died on June 7th of Leukemia. Hopper was a truly great bassist, contributing greatly to the development of the rhythmic bass sound of Canterbury prog. Additionally, Hopper was well respected and always kind and generous to the fans who loved him back.

In honor of Hugh, my first Album feature will be Soft Machine’s Third, released in 1970. This album is really jazz, and barely rock at all. The lineup for Soft Machine at the time of Third consisted of Hopper, Robert Wyatt on drums and vocals, Mike Ratledge on Keyboards, and Elton Dean on Sax (Third features some guests on trombone, clarinet, flute, and violin). Third is, well, the third album by the group. Forming out of the remnants of the Wilde Flowers in 1966, Soft Machine initially played psychedelic pop on their eponymous debut (1968). Ratledge was a big jazz fan, however, and on Second (1969) had begun to implement jazz into the Soft’s sounds, creating what could be considered the first Canterbury album. By now, the Soft Machine was almost purely jazz, and this is the last album that could be considered prog. Only 4 tracks are on this Double album, each a side long Jazz fest lasting 17 to 19 minutes.

The first track, “Facelift”, written by Hopper, starts out with literally 3 minutes of amp dissonance. Don’t fear, for soon Dean and Ratledge take you away on a spacey sax and synth workout. At 6:40, the sound suddenly crashes into a heavier, aggressive onslaught, led by power drumming from Wyatt. Later, after 5 minutes, this dies down into guitar-like fuzz, on which flute plays melody on top of. Later Hooper and Ratledge join back in, leading to a disorganized yet beautiful finish, with reversed keyboard effects. This song was actually pasted together from various concert performances. Trippy.

Side B contains “Slightly All the Time”, a much more conventional Jazz piece. Hooper’s humming bass defines the rhythm of this track, and he starts us off. 45 seconds later, Dean comes in with a fantastic sax performance. The song moves through many varied sax movements, and is slow paced but rich in sound. The track’s bass is the most redeeming feature, and Hugh Hopper certainly stars. There are some nice keyboards and flute here also, and the last three minutes start a speed up for a grand finale. Overall, a nice Jazz Fusion piece.

“Moon in June” is the least Jazz and most prog song. This makes sense, as Robert Wyatt was the writer, and he was disinterested in the extremely jazz direction the others were heading, preferring prog. This is the only cut to feature vocals on the album. Wyatt’s fantastic tenor and drums lead the song in. Since the other members did not want to record this song, they only jump in at various parts. Robert carries himself very well. This song is most typical of what would become the Canterbury scene. Since Wyatt plays many of the instruments, I’m not really sure who did what, but the keyboards and the bass make this light ballad-like jazz song go down very easy. Some shrieking violin helps to close the song.

Last but not least, there is “Out-Bloody-Rageous”, which fades in with five minutes worth of lots of electronic noises, into another jazz fusion track like “Slightly All the Time”. This one features all four members prominently, especially the entrapping sax from Dean. The piano’s usage achieves much, as does the rhythm sections’ diligent and strong backing. This one also flows through sax led moments. Probably the most minimalistic and passive of Third’s tracks, it nonetheless is just as strong as what came before.

Third is hailed as the high water mark of Soft Machine’s career, and an essential Canterbury album for all prog fans. The Jazz metamorphosis continued onward, and after Fourth the next year, Wyatt left the group. due to this direction. He would found Matching Mole, a more rock-oriented band. In 1973, he fell out of a third story window while drunk, paralyzing him from the waist down. Despite no longer being able to drum, he continued to sing as a solo artist, and to this day he continues to produce strong and well-received music. After Fifth (1972), Dean would leave (he passed away in 2006), and Hooper would follow suit after Six (1973). By 1976, Ratledge was also gone, though the group continued with no original members under Karl Jenkins until 1984.

In short, an innovative, interesting, and great addition to any Prog or Jazz collection, I give Third a Grade of A-.