Henry Cow - Unrest (1974)

Henry Cow are an obscure group of old guys that are nonetheless credited as the Godfathers of British Krautrock. I wouldn't have checked them out if one of the band members didn't have the same name as my dad, but I must say this stuff isn't bad. Especially considering the entire latter half of the album is just three or four hours of studio improvisation layered on top of itself. If you are the kind of person who cares what Christgau or Scaruffi think, they both love the record.

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Kind of like: Faust, Soft Machine, Neu!

3 Responses so far.

  1. Anonymous says:

    Wow!That's a good one!

    Thanks,
    Figueiredo.

    http://www.myspace.com/nossoqueridofigueiredo

  2. laslaw01 says:

    O meu querido, I've been listening to this on vinyl for about 25 years. Henry Cow has nothing to do with "krautrock" and anyway, there's no such thing as British "krautrock". Henry Cow could be loosely fit in with the tradition of British music that fuses improvisation, jazz and rock: Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt, Hatfield & the North, Caravan, Lol Coxhill and Steve Miller (not the American one), etc. Fred Frith (guitarist) went on to become a leading proponent of free improvisation.

  3. laslaw01 says:

    Correction - about 35 years. (Time flies when you're getting old.) I thought I would recommend some album essentials for anyone that liked this one:
    Henry Cow - Legend
    Slap Happy / Henry Cow - Desperate Straights
    Henry Cow - In Praise of Learning
    Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom
    Soft Machine 3
    Hatfield & the North (1st album)
    Hatfield & the North - Rotter's Club
    Lol Coxhill - Fleas in Custard
    Lol Coxhill & Steve Miller - The Story So Far...Oh Really? (re-released on Cunieform)
    Hugh Hopper - 1984
    Matching Mole (1st album 1972) (The joke on the name of this band formed by Robert Wyatt after he left Soft Machine is that 'machine molle' in french is Soft Machine.)
    Enjoy.

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