Hopper, Hugh

Hopper Tunity Box

Label: Cuneiform Country: USA

Hugh Hopper left Soft Machine in 1973 to pursue a solo career, an apparently wise move considering the wealth of his catalog. His 1977 "Hopper Tunity" was Hopper's second release, after the excellent "1984." It's an extremely strong album for the period, as the increasingly confident artist took control of the music and the studio. With sophisticated melodies and great grooves, Hopper created a work that combined prog with both the fusion movement of the time, but also with more serious work, such as the cover of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman". With an occasional experimental bent and a little sonic trickery, it's mostly a set of solid tunes, taking the listener in some odd directions but using a broad compositional framework. The band for these sessions included both Gary Windo on reeds and Soft Machine's Elton Dean, with Egg/Hatfield/National Health's Dave Stewart on organ. This reissue is remastered from the original master tapes and produced by Hopper himself, with new liner notes also from Hopper, and images from the original score.