Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser.
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.
Timothy "Tim" George Hodgkinson is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds, lap steel guitar, and keyboards. He first became known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group Henry Cow, which he formed with Fred Frith in 1968. After the demise of Henry Cow, he participated in numerous bands and projects, eventually concentrating on composing contemporary music and performing as an improviser.
The Henry Cow Legend is the debut album of British avant-rock group Henry Cow. It was recorded at Virgin Records' Manor studios over three weeks in May and June 1973, mixed in July 1973, and released in September 1973.
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.
Concerts is a live double album by English avant-rock group Henry Cow, recorded at concerts in London, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway between September 1974 and October 1975. Sides one and two of the LP record consist of composed material while sides three and four contain improvised pieces.
Western Culture is a studio album by English avant-rock group Henry Cow, recorded at Sunrise Studios in Kirchberg, Switzerland in January and July–August 1978. It was their last album and was released on Henry Cow's own private label, Broadcast, in 1979. Later editions appeared on Interzone in the US and Celluloid in France. Only the UK Broadcast pressing used the custom label artwork design.
Guitar Solos is the debut solo album of English guitarist, composer, and improviser Fred Frith. It was recorded while Frith was still a member of the English experimental rock group Henry Cow and was released in the United Kingdom on LP record by Caroline Records in October 1974. The album comprises eight tracks of unaccompanied and improvised music played on prepared guitars by Frith without any overdubbing.
Gravity is a 1980 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith from Henry Cow and Art Bears. It was Frith's second solo album and his first since the demise of Henry Cow in 1978. It was originally released in the United States on LP record on the Residents's Ralph record label and was the first of three solo albums Frith made for the label.
Hopes and Fears is the debut album by the English avant-rock group Art Bears. It comprises tracks by Henry Cow, Art Bears's predecessor, recorded at Sunrise Studios, Kirchberg in Switzerland in January 1978, and tracks by Art Bears, recorded at Kaleidophon Studios in London in March 1978.
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.
"Erk Gah" is a song written by Tim Hodgkinson for the English experimental rock group Henry Cow. "Erk Gah" was performed live by the band between 1976 and 1978, but was never recorded in the studio; three live performances of the song would later be released on the live album Stockholm & Göteborg in 2008 and the compilation The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set in 2009. In 1993, fifteen years after Henry Cow disbanded, Hodgkinson recorded the composition under the title "Hold to the Zero Burn, Imagine" for his solo album Each in Our Own Thoughts (1994), featuring former Henry Cow members Chris Cutler, Lindsay Cooper, and Dagmar Krause.
The Orckestra were a 12-piece English avant-garde jazz and avant-rock ensemble formed in March 1977 with the merger of avant-rock group Henry Cow, the Mike Westbrook Brass Band and folk singer Frankie Armstrong. They gave two performances in London in March and June 1977, and then embarked on two tours of Europe between September 1977 and May 1978, where they performed in Italy, France and Sweden.
The Last Nightingale is an album by various artists recorded and released in 1984 to raise money for striking coal miners in the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike. It features Chris Cutler, Tim Hodgkinson and Lindsay Cooper from the English avant-rock group Henry Cow, singer and musician Robert Wyatt, and poet Adrian Mitchell. The cover artwork was done by British cartoonist and caricaturist Ralph Steadman.
The Virgin Years – Souvenir Box is a three-CD limited-edition box set by English avant-rock group Henry Cow. It was released in 1991 by Recommended Records and East Side Digital Records, and contains three albums Henry Cow made for Virgin Records between 1973 and 1975: Legend, Unrest and In Praise of Learning. Included in the box set is a 24-page souvenir booklet and a Henry Cow fold-out family tree.
Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem is a 2019 book by American academic Benjamin Piekut. It is a biography and analysis of the English experimental rock group Henry Cow and their turbulent existence between 1968 and 1978. The book is Piekut's second and was published in September 2019 in the United States by Duke University Press in both hard- and soft-cover.
"Ruins" is a 1974 instrumental composed by Fred Frith for the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. It was recorded in February and March 1974 by Henry Cow, and released on their May 1974 album, Unrest by Virgin Records.
"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.
The Henry Cow Box Redux: The Complete Henry Cow is a seventeen-CD plus one-DVD box set by English avant-rock group Henry Cow; it was released by RēR Megacorp in November 2019. The box set comprises the previously released 2006 Henry Cow Box and the 2009 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set, totalling over sixteen hours. A bonus CD: Ex Box – Collected Fragments 1971–1978 was given to advance subscribers of the 2019 Box Redux, and contains newly recovered and previously unreleased recordings, plus the contents of the 2006 box set bonus CD-single: "Unreleased Orckestra Extract". The 2019 Box Redux plus the Ex Box bonus CD contains all the officially released studio and live recordings of Henry Cow, excluding "Bellycan" as released on the 1991 East Side Digital version of Legend, and the complete version of "The Glove" from the 1991 East Side Digital version of Unrest.
"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.
