Kew. Rhone.[lower-alpha 1] is a concept album by British bass guitarist and composer John Greaves, and American singer-songwriter and guitarist Peter Blegvad.[2][3] It is a song cycle composed by Greaves with lyrics by Blegvad, and was performed by Greaves and Blegvad with vocalist Lisa Herman and others. The album was recorded in Woodstock, New York in October 1976, and was released in the UK in March 1977 by Virgin Records, credited on the front cover to "John Greaves, Peter Blegvad and Lisa Herman", but on the record label as "John Greaves and Peter Blegvad". It was issued in the US in 1978 by Europa Records.
Blegvad's lyrics on Kew. Rhone. are filled with "anagrams, palindromes and other verbal games".[2]
An enhanced CD version of Kew. Rhone., issued by Voiceprint Records in 1998, included an interactive multimedia track entitled "Kew. Rom.". The album was a critical success, but failed commercially; AllMusic called it "an unfortunately neglected masterpiece of '70s progressive rock."[2]
Background
John Greaves, from the English avant-rock group Henry Cow, and Peter Blegvad, from the German/English avant-pop trio Slapp Happy, first worked together during the merger of the two groups in England in 1974. Slapp Happy and Henry Cow recorded their first collaboration album, Desperate Straights in late 1974, and the song "Bad Alchemy" from the album was Greaves and Blegvad's first collaborative songwriting effort. After the two groups recorded their second album, In Praise of Learning in early 1975, the merger ended and Blegvad moved to New York City.[4] There Blegvad spent the rest of the year earning a living as an illustrator, which included drawing backgrounds for Peanuts animated films.[5] In March 1976 Greaves left Henry Cow and joined Blegvad in New York City to start work on Kew. Rhone.Virgin Records, Henry Cow and Slapp Happy's record label at the time, funded the project.[4] Greaves had begun composing fragments of the song suit in 1974 while still with Henry Cow.[6] The song "Kew. Rhone." evolved from a piece Greaves wrote called "York" that was performed by Henry Cow in the early 1970s, but never recorded.[7]
Greaves and Blegvad spent three months working on Greaves's compositions.[8] Blegvad wrote "surreal" lyrics that were filled with "anagrams, palindromes and other verbal games",[2] and illustrated them with explanatory pictures and diagrams that later appeared on the album's record sleeve, "to be used in conjunction with the words".[9] Some of the songs on the album are not fully comprehensible without reference to these pictures.[10] At the time Blegvad had begun experimenting with cartooning, an activity that later led to him doing a weekly comic strip for The Independent on Sunday called Leviathan, and he was fascinated with the relationship between text and image.[5]
Blegvad said that he and Greaves deliberately created a gap between the words and the music to make the album more interesting. "To [understand] the words you almost have to stop the record and read them, referring to the illustrations on the sleeve."[11] Blegvad also said in an interview that he created experimental and confusing lyrics as a way of coming to terms with Greaves's complicated music, which he found difficult to play.[12]
Greaves and Blegvad next worked together on each other's solo albums, Greaves' Accident (1982) and Blegvad's The Naked Shakespeare (1983), but did not record an album under their names again until Unearthed in 1995.[3] They also participated in several bands together, including The Lodge (1987–1989) and The Peter Blegvad Trio (with Chris Cutler).
Kew. Rhone.
Charles Willson Peale's painting, Exhuming the First American Mastodon (1806), used on the album cover and the subject of the track "Seven Scenes ...".
The album cover is a reproduction of a painting by Charles Willson Peale entitled Exhuming the First American Mastodon (1806–1808). The song it illustrates, "Seven Scenes from the Painting 'Exhuming the First American Mastodon' by C. W. Peale" interprets the painting with, according to Peter Blegvad, "a brazen disregard for the painter's original intent."[13] It is a song about "the perils of being named or defined" and describes a world in which "definition is acquired as liberty is lost".[13] This "naming" is referred to again in the Romanian proverb, "Names are not the pledge for things, but the things for names" that appears in the song "Twenty-Two Proverbs".[13]
The title track, "Kew. Rhone." is divided into two parts: the first is composed entirely of anagrams of the title, while the second builds up to a palindrome, "Peel's foe, not a set animal, laminates a tone of sleep." "Peel" is C. W. Peale and the "foe" is the mastodon. The animal is not "set" because it is enjoying the attention of its excavators, and it is probably "the tusker's finest hour".[13]
In "Pipeline", set to a bossa nova, a lady and two gentlemen pondering the implications of a dug-up pipeline. The first three "verses" of the lyrics are:[14]
Figure A.
Here are two gentlemen and a lady contemplating a length of dug-up pipeline.
"ambiguity can't be measured like a change of temperature"
Figure C. consists of a list of assorted equipage.
A gentleman imagines how the items on the list would look if only part exhumed (he thinks they wouldn't look unlike a length of pipe).
Amateur's Pamphlet on Kew. Rhone.
Almost eight years after the release of the album Peter Blegvad wrote a pamphlet on Kew. Rhone. under the moniker "the editors of Amateur". It was published in the May 1985 issue of RēR Quarterly.[15]Amateur is an online "publication" edited by Blegvad, and is a collection of his writing and art.[16]
In the pamphlet Blegvad provides additional information on Kew. Rhone. and the song texts. It includes the lyrics to the songs, the record sleeve artwork, plus additional artwork and diagrams related to the songs. The pamphlet also includes the lyrics of "Frenzy", an outtake from the Kew. Rhone. recording sessions that did not appear on the album. The song, which describes Peale's painting, is analysed here by Blegvad.[13] "Frenzy" was released in May 1982 by Recommended Records on their Sampler EP.
Music critic Stewart Mason of AllMusic called Kew. Rhone. "an unfortunately neglected masterpiece of '70s progressive rock."[2] He described the album as "a brilliant amalgam of Slapp Happy's skewed pop sense, the collective improvisation approach of Henry Cow, the sly wit of the Canterbury prog rock scene" and said it is "a challenging but surprisingly accessible album that rewards as much attention as the listener offers it."[2]
In a review on BBC Online, Peter Marsh called the album "one of the great lost albums of the seventies", saying that it is "surreal, infuriating, complex and silly in just about equal parts."[19] English musician Robert Wyatt reportedly liked it so much that he bought two copies of the LP "just in case the first got worn out!"[8]
John Greaves later recorded two songs from the album, "Kew. Rhone." (with Robert Wyatt singing) and "Gegenstand" for his 1994 solo album, Songs. In May 2008 Kew. Rhone. was performed live in its entirety for the first time in 31 years since its original release at Les Abattoirs in Bourgoin-Jallieu, France. The full line-up was: John Greaves (piano, vocals), Peter Blegvad (vocals, computer), Lisa Herman (vocals), Jef Morin (guitar), David Lewis (trumpet, flugelhorn), Daniel Yvinec (bass), Simon Goubert (drums) and Cecile Bohler (additional vocals).[20]
Kew. Rhone. book
In 2014, Uniformbooks published a book about the album, written by Blegvad and edited and designed in collaboration with publisher Colin Sackett. It includes contributions by Amy Beal, Carla Bley, Franklin Bruno, Sheridan Coakley, Jonathan Coe, Jane Colling, Andrew Cyrille, François Ducat, John Greaves, Doug Harvey, Lisa Herman, Jeff Hoke, Dana Johnson, Andrew Joron, Glenn Kenny, Frank Key, Simon Lucas, Karen Mantler, Harry Mathews, Tanya Peixoto, Benjamin Piekut, Margit Rosen, Philip Tagney, Robert Wyatt, Rafi Zabor and Siegfried Zielinski.
"...its authors and some of its connoisseurs have broken silence to discuss the record and to reflect upon the times in which it and they themselves were forged. Peter Blegvad, Kew. Rhone.’s lyricist and illustrator, excavates each song in turn, uncovering themes and sources. In the second part of the book, a consortium of writers and artists respond to the album in various ways, illuminating without dispelling the mystery of a work designed to resist interpretation even as it invites it."[21][22] In February 2015 Blegvad was interviewed by Marcus O'Dair about the book.[23]
In 1998 Voiceprint Records issued an enhanced CD version of Kew. Rhone. with an added interactive multimedia track, "Kew. Rom." that includes background information, interviews with people who made the album, alternate versions of two of the songs and an unreleased track.
In 2004 Le Chant du Monde re-issued Kew. Rhone. with two bonus (demo) tracks.
Notes
↑ The album title includes a full stop after each word.[2][3]
Related Research Articles
Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler, bassist John Greaves, and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members alongside Frith and Hodgkinson.
Dagmar Krause is a German singer, best known for her work with avant-rock groups including Slapp Happy, Henry Cow, and Art Bears. She is also noted for her coverage of songs by Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler. Her unusual singing style makes her voice instantly recognisable and has defined the sound of many of the bands with whom she has worked.
Slapp Happy was a German/English avant-pop group, formed in Germany in 1972. Their lineup consisted of Anthony Moore (keyboards), Peter Blegvad (guitar) and Dagmar Krause (vocals). The band members moved to England in 1974 where they merged with Henry Cow, but the merger ended soon afterwards and Slapp Happy split up. Slapp Happy's sound was characterised by Dagmar Krause's unique vocal style. From 1982 there have been brief reunions to create an opera called Camera, record the album Ça Va in 1998, and perform shows around the world.
Peter Blegvad is an American musician, singer-songwriter, writer, and cartoonist. He was a founding member of German/English avant-pop band Slapp Happy, which later merged briefly with Henry Cow, and has released many solo and collaborative albums. He is the son of Lenore and Erik Blegvad, who were respectively, a children's book author and illustrator.
Anthony Moore is a British experimental music composer, performer and producer. He was a founding member of the band Slapp Happy, worked with Henry Cow and has made a number of solo albums, including Flying Doesn't Help (1979) and World Service (1981).
Desperate Straights is a collaborative studio album by British avant-rock groups Slapp Happy and Henry Cow. It was recorded at Virgin Records' Manor Studio and Nova Sound Studios in November 1974, and released in February 1975. It was Slapp Happy's second album for Virgin, and they had invited Henry Cow to record with them.
In Praise of Learning is a studio album by British avant-rock group Henry Cow, recorded at Virgin Records' Manor studios in February and March 1975, and released in May 1975. On this album, Henry Cow had expanded to include members of Slapp Happy, who had merged with the group after the two had collaborated on Desperate Straights in 1974. The merger ended after recording In Praise of Learning when Peter Blegvad and Anthony Moore from Slapp Happy left the group.
John Greaves is a British bass guitarist, pianist and composer who was a member of Henry Cow and has collaborated with Peter Blegvad. He was also a member of progressive rock band National Health and jazz-rock supergroup Soft Heap, and has recorded several solo albums, including Accident (1982), Parrot Fashions (1984), The Caretaker (2001) and Greaves Verlaine (2008).
Slapp Happy is a studio album by German/British avant-pop group Slapp Happy, recorded at Virgin Records' Manor Studio in 1974.
Michael Mantler is an Austrian avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer of contemporary music.
Henry Cow Box is a seven-CD limited edition box set by English avant-rock group Henry Cow. It was released in December 2006 by Recommended Records and comprises the six original albums Henry Cow released between 1973 and 1979, including those recorded with Slapp Happy. A bonus 3" CD-single was given to advance subscribers of the box set which contains previously unreleased material taken from live performances in Europe by the Orckestra, a merger of Henry Cow, the Mike Westbrook Brass Band and folk singer Frankie Armstrong in 1977. The two bonus CD Orckestra tracks were later reissued on the 2019 Henry Cow Box Redux: The Complete Henry Cow bonus CD, Ex Box – Collected Fragments 1971–1978.
Karen Mantler is an American jazz pianist, singer, and composer. She is the daughter of Carla Bley and Michael Mantler.
Flying Doesn't Help is a solo album by Anthony Moore, released by Quango in 1979. The album was remastered and re-released on CD by the Voiceprint label in 1994.
The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set is a nine-CD plus one-DVD limited edition box set by English avant-rock group Henry Cow, and was released by RēR Megacorp in January 2009. It consists of almost 10 hours of previously unreleased recordings made between 1972 and 1978 from concerts, radio broadcasts, one-off projects, events and the studio. Included are new compositions, over four hours of free improvisation, and live performances of some of Henry Cow's original LP repertoire.
The Lodge were a 1980s British/Welsh/American art rock band based in New York City, but performing mainly in Europe, which briefly united members of Henry Cow, Slapp Happy, Art Bears and Golden Palominos. It was centred primarily around Peter Blegvad and John Greaves, and drew strongly on their previous collaborations and projects.
"Living in the Heart of the Beast" is a 1975 song written by Tim Hodgkinson for the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. It was recorded in 1975 by Henry Cow with Slapp Happy, who had recently merged with Henry Cow after the two groups had recorded a collaborative album, Desperate Straights the previous year. The song was released on In Praise of Learning in May 1975 by Virgin Records. The song's title is a quote from the nineteenth-century Cuban poet and liberation fighter José Martí. "Living in the Heart of the Beast" was the first of two "epic" compositions Hodgkinson wrote for Henry Cow, the second being "Erk Gah" (1976), later known as "Hold to the Zero Burn, Imagine".
"War" (originally entitled "War (Is Energy Enslaved)") is a 1975 song composed by Anthony Moore with lyrics by Peter Blegvad for the English avant-pop group Slapp Happy. It was recorded in November 1974 by Slapp Happy with Henry Cow for their collaborative album, Desperate Straights, but was only released in May 1975 on their second collaborative album, Henry Cow's In Praise of Learning.
"Beautiful as the Moon – Terrible as an Army with Banners" is a 1975 song composed by Fred Frith with lyrics by Chris Cutler for the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. It was recorded in February and March 1975 by Henry Cow and Slapp Happy, and released in May 1975 on their collaborative album, In Praise of Learning by Virgin Records.
"Nine Funerals of the Citizen King" is a 1973 song written by Tim Hodgkinson for the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. It was recorded in May and June 1973 by Henry Cow, and released in September 1973 on their debut album, Legend by Virgin Records.
"Teenbeat" is a 1973 suite of three instrumentals, "Teenbeat Introduction", "Teenbeat" and "Teenbeat Reprise", by the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. The three pieces were composed by Henry Cow, Fred Frith and John Greaves, and Fred Frith respectively. They were recorded in May and June 1973, and released on Henry Cow's debut album, Legend by Virgin Records in September 1973.
↑ Leroy, Aymeric (17 June 2001). "John Greaves Biography". Fireflies in the Dark. Archived from the original on 29 December 2007. Retrieved 7 April 2009.
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