CANTERBURIED SOUNDS (1998/2013)

TRACKLIST

Disc One = Volume One
1 Caravan - Feelin', Reelin', Squealin' (10:16)
2 Robert Wyatt & Brian Hopper - Mummie (4:27)
3 Mike Ratledge & Robert Wyatt - Da-Da-Dee/Bolivar Blues (11:51)
4 Brian Hopper & Robert Wyatt - Orientasian (4:01)
5 Wilde Flowers - You Really Got Me (3:52)
6 Wilde Flowers - Thinking Of You Baby (5:19)
7 Brian Hopper, Hugh Hopper, Mike Ratledge & Robert Wyatt - Man In A Deaf Corner (5:04)
8 Zobe - If I Ever Leave You (6:14)
9 Robert Wyatt - Stop Me & Play One (3:43)
10 Mike Ratledge - Piano Standards I (3:35)
11 Brian Hopper, Hugh Hopper & Robert Wyatt - Belsize Parked (9:18)
12 Caravan - Summertime (7:13)
Disc Two = Volume Two
1 Caravan & Zobe - Carazobe (16:17)
2 Robert Wyatt - Instant Pussy (3:14)
3 Soft Machine - Esther's Nose Job (9:21)
4 Robert Wyatt & Brian Hopper - Moorish (8:33)
5 Mike Ratledge & Robert Wyatt - Summertime (4:23)
6 Zobe - Indian Rope (4:34)
7 Robert Wyatt - Drum Solo (1:38)
8 Pye Hastings - Mirror For The Day (1:26)
9 Robert Wyatt - Love Song With Cello (4:17)
10 Caravan - As I Feel I Die (5:02)
11 Caravan - Where But For Caravan Would I (11:38)
Disc Three = Volume Three
1 Robert Wyatt & Jimi Hendrix - Slow Walkin' Talk (2:59)
2 Mike Ratledge & Robert Wyatt - Frenetica (4:21)
3 Mike Ratledge & Robert Wyatt - Idle Chat (1:30)
4 Mike Ratledge & Robert Wyatt - 3/4 Blues Thing In F (4:15)
5 Zobe - More Idle Chat (3:46)
6 Zobe - The Pieman Cometh (6:00)
7 Robert Wyatt, Brian Hopper & Hugh Hopper - Liu-Ba (8:34)
8 Brian Hopper, Hugh Hopper & Pete Lawson - Kansas City/Rip It Up (2:23)
9 Brian Hopper & Hugh Hopper - That's Alright Mama (2:10)
10 Brian Hopper, Hugh Hopper & Robert Wyatt - Tanglewood Tails (15:54)
11 Zobe - The Big Show/Central Park West/Songs (16:41)
12 Caravan - If I Could Do It All Over Again I'd Do It All Over You (4:07)
Disc Four = Volume Four
1 Zobe - Slow Walkin' Talk (5:41)
2 Mike Ratledge, Brian Hopper & Robert Wyatt - Some Of The Time (14:43)
3 Robert Wyatt & Mike Ratledge - Ghosts (5:22)
4 Caravan - With An Ear To The Ground You Can Make It (8:46)
5 Brian Hopper & Robert Wyatt - Dalmore Rode (7:56)
6 Mike Ratledge - Piano Standards II (13:13)
7 Wilde Flowers - Johnny B Goode (3:09)
8 Brian Hopper, Hugh Hopper, Mike Ratledge & Robert Wyatt - Cecilian (11:56)
9 Caravan - Austin Cambridge (13:42)
LINE UP
Richard Coughlan (drums)
Pye Hastings (guitar, vocals)
Dave Sinclair (keyboards) (except disk 4 track 9)
Richard Sinclair (bass, vocals) (except disk 4 track 9)
Stuart Evans (bass, keyboards) on disk 4 track 9
Geoffrey Richardson (viola)
VERSIONS
year/format/label/cat/country
2013/4-CD/Voiceprint/VPBOX101/UK
All CDs were previously released separetely in 1998.
1998/CD/Voiceprint/VP201CD/UK (Volume 1)
1998/CD/Voiceprint/VP202CD/UK (Volume 2)
1998/CD/Voiceprint/VP203CD/UK (Volume 3)
1998/CD/Voiceprint/VP204CD/UK (Volume 4)
REVIEWS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

Of Historical Interest
"Canterburied Sounds" is a 4-disc compilation of home tapes and dodgy live recordings made 1962-1972 in Canterbury England, the birthplace of so much great music. Brian Hopper is to be commended for assembling this set -- but truth be told, the sound quality is marginal at best (unlistenable at worst!) and the quality of the music is rarely above "for SERIOUS collectors only."
Robert carlberg 2/5 04.07.2009 (AMAZON)

Volume 1
The Canterburied Sounds collection is alternately edifying and disappointing, nowhere more so than on its first volume. This volume is primarily focused on the Wilde Flowers, gathering odds and ends that hadn't appeared on the excellent overview of this under-recorded prototype of all Canterbury bands. This includes such potential gems as the earliest known recording of any of this creative axis: two songs recorded in late 1962 by Brian Hopper and Robert Wyatt (the bizarrely droning, folkish "Mummie"); one, "Man in the Deaf Corner," also features keyboardist Mike Ratledge and bassist Hugh Hopper, making it in essence the very first Soft Machine recording. The problem -- aside from the forgivably but nevertheless annoyingly dodgy sound on most of these home-recorded demos -- is that many of these songs are aimless jams and tiresome experiments that even the most die-hard fans might find kind of dull; one would have to be monomaniacally devoted to the Canterbury Scene to make it over halfway into the 12-minute Mike Ratledge/Brian Hopper duet "Da-Da-Dee/Bolivar Blues," and the live rehearsal/jam of "You Really Got Me" and "Thinking of You Baby" sounds like the work of a sloppy garage band that's broken into dad's beer stash. Two early psychedelic explorations by Caravan bookend the album, but while neither is actually bad, they're not lost treasures, either. For historical purposes only.
Stewart Mason (ALLMUSIC)

So I went looking through the archives (because I was at one point one of those losers who saves a copy of everything they write) for a review of the Giles, Giles, and Fripp LP I wrote ten years back, and I found this one, which I wrote around the same time. Here it is in its entirety, and if it sucks, that's because I was a loser ten years ago. Also, I was a great deal more sweary back then, so please excuse the bad language.
I admit it- the only reason I bought this thing was because I found it on sale at a domestic price (usually you only see Voiceprint CDs for high prices like $22.99 a pop in stores, a price I would NEVER have paid for something I knew beforehand to be of such limited interest) when I was up in Columbus for the Roger Waters concert (still fucking great, IMO, but then I knew mostly what to expect beforehand). Magnolia Thunderpussy also had Vol. 1, but the tracklisting looked better on Vol. 2, so I got that. While I was there I also picked up a couple other things of marginal interest to progheads, like the Giles Giles and Fripp album, which I will not review here on the grounds that I have a short attention span, I can't find the nail clippers, my teeth hurt, and there are all-around better things I could be doing than analyzing "The Crukster". I have overcome such qualms as pertains to this release, though.
It has been said regarding this series of releases that it doesn't stand up to even bootlegs in quality or selection. I have to disagree on this count; the volume I have holds up pretty well as a bootleg, about on the level of Syd Barrett's "Rhamadam"- more likely to irritate those who are not fans more than anything else, but with some immense rewards for those into this stuff. Like "Rhamadam", though, this release has its share of just plain crap. Song by song:
Carazobe: Well, I guess it says a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of this release, or at least the nature of it, that the album opens with a 17-minute jam between Caravan and Zobe. While this does include the infamous Zobe, it also has the benefit of including Caravan, who are known for generally kicking booty and suchlike. It's not bad jamming- not in the league of Phallus Dei, no, but pleasant to listen to. Far more psych than prog, I'd say.
Instant Pussy: Well, maybe a misnomer, as the theme that is generally known as "Instant Pussy" (from the first Matching Mole album) only comes into play in the last minute or so. The first two minutes or so aren't otherwise released in any format, AFAIK, and feature Wyatt's piano playing and singing. A brilliant composition, marred only by the truly crap sound quality on it. The lyrics I can make out:
and later we had coffee and the cream spilled on the sheets and you said leave it i can clean it when you [inaudible] and underneath the chaos of your hair around your face and shoulders you were thinking 'bastard, you bastard'
i woke up in the morning saw you face upon the pillow where you dribbled in the night like a baby and the way you draped the sheets around your head above your soft and fragile body then i wanted to stay with you forever
and i caught your naked eyelid by the makeup i'd been ...
...oh, hell, I give up. There are two more verses. Maybe I'll try again later to make them out. Brilliant, completely.
Esther's Nose Job- A hotel room demo from January '69. Not as full-fledged as the version that appeared on Volume Two, recorded a month later (only about 7 minutes plus two minutes worth of retakes in this incarnation), but more fleshed out than the Kevin Ayers live versions from '68. They had, at least, finished writing the ending at this point. Anyway, particularly fascinating for me as I'm a great fan of this era, and a great cut besides. Sound quality is, of course, bootleggy.
Moorish- Some people would probably characterize this is another iteration of the endless quasi-experimental wanking that apparently fills this series- an 8-minute instrumental jam between Brian Hopper and Robert Wyatt- but I actually rather like this. Based on a simple, yet moody, Brian Hopper chord progression, Wyatt creates some nice multi-instrumental sound atmospherics on this cut. Not a standout on this CD, but not a total dud either.
Summertime- Well, no, I wouldn't characterize this as a total dud either. OK, it's just another rendition of a jazz standard, and there's nothing of intrinsic interest here, particularly not anything prefiguring the Soft Machine or anything like that (I believe it's Ratledge and Wyatt playing on this track), but is a nice version.
Indian Rope Man: Ah! Finally! A total dud! Brian Hopper would perhaps like to think that his band Zobe is lamented as one of the lost unrecorded Canterbury greats, and people will flock to this release to get some taste of the splendor that was Zobe. No such luck. Zobe is pretty much a crap blues band, and I can't imagine that anybody would particularly want to hear them, especially the low-quality live tapes represented here. Of course, following an inviolable Usenet law, somebody will now followup and say they bought the whole Canterburied Sounds set specifically for Zobe's contributions, that Zobe is the best band ever, etc. However, I am betting that that person will be Brian Hopper's mum.
Drumsolo: I hate drum solos. Even if Robert Wyatt's playing them. Oh well- at least it's short.
Mirror for the Day: Damn shame it's short. I haven't heard the released songs, but the guitar fragments Pye Hastings is working out here are beautiful.
Love Song with Cello: Some people took a shine to this on the grounds that, in opposition to many of the tunes on this set, Wyatt actually SINGS on it. Well, yes, he does sing, but that doesn't redeem it from being wanky experimentalism at its worst. Nothing remotely "lovely" about it. The liner notes point out that this was an excerpt from a much longer session. If this is the best thing that came out of this session, I shudder to hear the rest of it. Everybody has failed experiments, and I'm sure this kind of thing helped a lot to develop the Canterbury sound, but I still have no great desire to hear it.
As I Feel I Die (Caravan): I admit it; I'm almost completely unfamiliar with Caravan. But this song is magnificent. Quintessential Canterbury. If I had the original album this was on, I probably wouldn't rate it nearly so high, but as it is, it's a highlight.
Where But For Caravan Would I?: The second longest track on the album, clocking in at a good 12 minutes; I don't like this one as much as "As I Feel I Die", but it's not bad, at that. A good way to finish.
Overall judgment? Fairly nice, worth having from my vantage point, for the price I got it at. Volume 1 might be worth checking out, too, judging from the tracklist. There are only about three tracks, none very long, on the whole CD that I would judge as completely worthless, totaling about 10 minutes of a 70 minute running time. 3 and 4 look almost totally worthless. Outtakes from rehearsals that didn't make it on the "Wilde Flowers" CD, and, oh joy, more ZOBE! Obviously not a good starting place for the Canterbury-curious, but there's enough here to make it worth having for the true aficionado or just plain fanboy.
"Business is great. People are terrific. Life is wonderful." - seen on the back of a dump truck on the Watterson
rushomancy 28.03.2009 (RATEYOURMUSIC)