Faust are a German rock band from Hamburg. Formed in 1971 by producer and former music journalist Uwe Nettelbeck, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier (b.1949), Hans Joachim Irmler (b.1950), Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron (b.1949), Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with engineer Kurt Graupner. Their work was oriented around dissonance, improvisation, and experimental electronic approaches, and would influence subsequent ambient and industrial music. They are considered a central act of West Germany's 1970s krautrock movement.
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.
Chris Cutler is an English percussionist, composer, lyricist and music theorist. Best known for his work with English avant-rock group Henry Cow, Cutler was also a member and drummer of other bands, including Art Bears, News from Babel, Pere Ubu and (briefly) Gong/Mothergong. He has collaborated with many musicians and groups, including Fred Frith, Lindsay Cooper, Zeena Parkins, Peter Blegvad, Telectu and The Residents, and has appeared on over 100 recordings. Cutler's career spans over four decades and he still performs actively throughout the world.
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.
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.
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.
Slapp Happy is a studio album by German/British avant-pop group Slapp Happy, recorded at Virgin Records' Manor Studio in 1974.
Acnalbasac Noom is a studio album by German-British avant-pop group Slapp Happy, recorded in Wümme, Bremen, Germany in 1973 with Faust as their backing band. It had a working title of Casablanca Moon but was never released at the time because it had been rejected by their record label, Polydor. Slapp Happy later re-recorded the album in 1974 for Virgin Records, who released it in 1974 as Slapp Happy. The original 1973 recording of Casablanca Moon, was released as Slapp Happy or Slapphappy by Recommended Records in 1980, and reissued as Acnalbasac Noom in 1982. The title Acnalbasac Noom appears in the lyrics of the song "Casablanca Moon", and is Casablanca Moon with the words written backwards.
Ça Va is a studio album by German/British avant-pop trio Slapp Happy, featuring Anthony Moore, Peter Blegvad and Dagmar Krause. It was recorded in London in 1997 and released by V2 Records in April 1998. The Japanese release of the album included a bonus track, "Hello Dagi". It was Slapp Happy's first album in 23 years.
Sort Of is the debut studio album by the avant-rock band Slapp Happy. It was recorded in Wümme, Bremen, Germany in May and June 1972 with Faust as their backing band, and released on LP by Polydor Records in 1972. In 1980 Recommended Records released a limited edition of Sort Of on LP, and the album was reissued on CD by Blueprint Records in 1999 with one bonus track.
The Manor Studio was a recording studio in the manor house at the village of Shipton-on-Cherwell in Oxfordshire, England, north of the city of Oxford.
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.
Uwe Nettelbeck was a German record producer, journalist and film critic. He was best known as the creator and producer of the German krautrock band Faust and changed the face of German rock music in the early 1970s. He was also one of Germany's leading film critics in the 1960s.
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.
"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".
Kew. Rhone. is a concept album by British bass guitarist and composer John Greaves, and American singer-songwriter and guitarist Peter Blegvad. 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.
"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.
