Part of the Henry Cow boxset, now available for individual purchase, compiled from live recordings, radio transcription, or early recordings, remastered and presented to give a complete look at the history of Henry Cow.
Label: Recommended Records Catalog ID: RERHC15 Squidco Product Code: 23558
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2016 Country: UK Packaging: Jewel Case Tracks 4-1 to 4-4 and 4-10 (source unknown, but probably Italy, outdoors, and certainly in June or July 1978).
Tracks 4-5 to 4-9 were recorded at the Rock In Opposition Festival at the New London Theatre, Drury Lane, London on March 12th 1978 on a Revox A77 with a pair of Nakamichi microphones.
Track 4-11 was almost certainly recorded in Cervia on the 23rd of July, 1978. Source of recording unknown but probably a cassette made in the auditorium.
"A collection of performances from June and July 1978, plus Henry Cow's set at the inaugural Rock in Opposition Festival in March 1978.
"Joy of Sax" is a saxophone trio of Lindsay Cooper, Tim Hodgkinson and David Chambers from the Orckestra, which was a merger of Henry Cow, the Mike Westbrook Brass Band and folk singer Frankie Armstrong that took place in 1977. "Jackie-ing", also featuring Chambers, is a Westbrook arrangement of a Thelonious Monk composition that the Orckestra had performed. "The Herring People" is a Fred Frith instrumental he wrote to "counterbalance" the increasingly complex Hodgkinson and Cooper compositions. It was later recorded by Henry Cow during the July and August 1978 Western Culture sessions, but was only released for the first time, as "Waking Against Sleep", on the 1990 CD re-issue of Frith's solo album, Gravity (1980). It was also recorded by Curlew under the title "Time and a Half", and appeared on their album, North America (1985), which was produced by Frith.
The improvisation "RIO" and Cooper's "Half the Sky" was Henry Cow's set at the inaugural Rock in Opposition (RIO) festival that took place on 12 March 1978 at the New London Theatre. RIO was a collective of "progressive" bands that were united in their opposition to the music industry. Henry Cow initiated the movement and the other inaugural members, who also performed at the concert, were Stormy Six (Italy), Samla Mammas Manna (Sweden), Univers Zero (Belgium) and Etron Fou Leloublan (France). Dusted Magazine described Henry Cow's "RIO" improvisation at this event as "one of their most cacophonous and cataclysmic". Cooper's "Half the Sky", which had been recorded in January 1978 at Sunrise in Switzerland and was later released on Western Culture, was named for Chairman Mao's dictum "Women hold up half the sky"."-Wikipedia
"Assembled over 15 years, this collection gives for the first time some idea of the breadth and depth of Henry Cow's work. Always very much a live band, performance was their metier, and a concert might range far - always driven by an intense dialogue between tightly knit compositions and radically open improvisation. The officially released LPs tell at best only half this story, and one purpose of this definitive collection is to set the work back into its broader context.
These are all previously unreleased recordings, that include many compositions and improvisations new to anyone who only knows the official releases, documentation of a number of one-off projects and events and - where different or remarkable enough to justify inclusion - live versions of parts of the LP repertoire. Many of these recordings are high quality radio transcriptions taken directly from the original masters, others are less hi-fi, but justified we think by their historic and musical quality. And everything has been carefully transferred and re-mastered by Bob Drake to the best audio quality that current technology allows without interference or tampering. It's all a million times better than the terrible bootlegs that are swimming around.
Altogether, the 9 CDs embody some extraordinary, and occasionally prescient music. Taking this box together with the officially released albums, it is possible at last to get some impression of the extensive ground Henry Cow covered in it's 10 short years. Finally, there is the DVD: 80 minutes of the 1976 Cow (with Georgina Born and Dagmar Krause) performing many unreleased pieces as well as Living in the Heart of The Beast, Beautiful as the Moon &c. This is the only known video recording in existence - professionally made, multi camera - and has not been recovered since its original broadcast (just scour U-Tube, HC is conspicuous by its total absence). And last but not least, there is a great deal of written, photographic and textual documentation."-ReR Megacorp