Frith
in Retroperspective
Cheap at Half the Price
by Fred Frith
ReR Megacorp, London, UK, 2004
Audio CD-ROM, FRO 06, $13.00
Distributors website: http://www.rermegacorp.com.
Allies
by Fred Frith
ReR Megacorp, London, UK, 2004
Audio CD-ROM, FRO 07, $13.00
Distributors website: http://www.rermegacorp.com.
Reviewed by René van Peer
Bachlaan 786, 5011 BS Tilburg, The Netherlands
r.vanpeer@wxs.nl
These titles start off the second batch
of Fred Frith re-issues through the ReR
Megacorp imprint Fred Records. Cheap
at Half the Price was originally released
in 1983 as the third and last solo album
Frith recorded for Ralph Records. Allies
was apiece commissioned by Bebe Miller
to accompany a dance performance in 1989,
and was released in a revised version
(the rhythm track, for which a drum computer
had been used, was replaced by Joey Baron's
drumming) by RecRec Music in 1996.
After the demise of the groundbreaking
British impro-rock group, Henry Cow, by
the end of the 1970s, Frith embarked energetically
on an incredible variety of projects.
Among these were the groups Art Bears,
Massacre, and Skeleton Crew, and collaborations
with Material, The Residents, and with
numerous individual musicians. And, of
course, solo exploits. These included
the Ralph albums, but also improvised
concerts, such as those in a tour through
Japan in 1981, which was captured on a
magnificent double LP-set.
Up till then, Frith's music had sounded
like a tightrope act that had him balance
between the production of uncompromisingly
intense sounds and sumptuously beautiful
melodies that could easily be danced to.
The sounds he accomplished were very often
the result of having to work under low
budget circumstances. The need to adapt
to limitations set by non state-of-the-art
studio equipment pushed his creativity
to uncommon levels. He made extensive
use of recordings captured at home and
around town and processed these tapes
with scissors and glue. On the two previous
solo albums for Ralph, he had invited
guest musicians from bands he was working
with; the instruments he himself played
included (apart from guitar, bass guitar,
violin and keyboards) all manner of homemade
contraptions.
These instruments also made their appearance
on Cheap at Half the Price. What
was new, however, was that besides these,
he played a Casio 101, and that he actually
sang. Moreover, on the face of it most
of the tracks (half of them songs, half
of them instrumentals) seemed to exude
a happy-go-lucky moodwith
backing vocals going 'ooh' in the refrain
to the opening song Some Clouds Don't.
As Chris Cutler writes in the ReR online
catalogue, it caused "raised eyebrows
at the time (from, as Fred calls them
'progressive music snobs'of
which I guess I was one) for its apparent
simplicity and departure from what was
then thought of as Fred Style."
I have to admit that I was also one of
those snobs. Listening to this re-issue
more than 20 years later, I am astonished
and embarrassed to find how little I grasped
back then of what Frith had put into it.
Not only was it to a large extent consistent
with what he had been doing, traces of
earlier albums made their way onto this
one. Some Clouds Do is built on
the same driving rhythm of Pauls Sears'
drumming as What a Dilemma on Gravity.
The fun and dance at the end of Don't
Cry for Me on that same album surfaces
on Cheap at Half the Price in Absent
Friends. Sometimes collaborations
he was doing with other musicians seem
to filter through in his own music. The
keyboard melody of Walking Song sounds
like it might have come from a Residents
album.
On the other hand, Cheap at Half the
Price foreshadowed the work he was
about to do with Tom Cora in Skeleton
Crewdeceptively simple catchy
songs with melodies that grow from Scandinavian
and Eastern European traditional music
styles that they both loved, danceable
rhythms, an inventive use of basic tools
(during a concert at the Moers festival
Frith at one point played percussion by
quickly stroking a microphone with a paint
brush), and prerecorded tapes of voices
of power that lose much of their authority
in this setting.
Tracing this lineage makes clear that
this album was very much part of the complex
of musical activities Frith engaged in
at the time, rather than a departure.
More than that, he wove lots of those
strands together into one coherent work.
It bursts with inventiveness, and eradiates
the irrepressible joy of playful creativity.
It does have its darker side as well,
however. Same old Me is gloomily
introspective, thrust forward by relentless
bass and percussion, a litany of helpless
discontent capped with a delirious fanfare.
It is one of the examples of the complexity
flowing underneath the seemingly carefree
and beaming surface. It is only toward
the end that this strange spell of contradictory
moods is broken by the elated guitar and
violin solos in Absent Friends.
Allies (minus the drums) was made
six years later, and released (with drums
added) in 1996. Again, as on Cheap
at Half the Price, inventive studio
work plays a role on this album. Frith's
guitar melodies are immediately recognizable,
but the overall effect is totally different
from the earlier title. No catchy tunes,
but rather a careful and thoughtful development
of basic material, making the music sometimes
reminiscent of The Necks. What is different,
though, is that the ongoing movement of
the music often gets ruffled by sudden
intrusions, like a train of thought temporarily
disoriented by flashes of insight, before
doggedly moving on; and that Frith is
seconded by George Cartwright on alto
sax, Tom Cora on cello, and Joey Baron
on drums.
Frith himself provides the backbone of
the music on bass, keyboards and guitar.
Cora and Cartwright join him, sometimes
with solos, sometimes strutting the central
structure, sometimes falling through the
roof. The opening track Rifka,
for instance, is built around long soft-toned
chords on the keyboard and strings of
the guitar being hit at a medium pace.
Cora's cello, initially following Frith's
guitar picking, plays a whimsical melody
of brief hocketing notes, interspersed
with outbreaks on the guitar and the saxophone.
Every now and then the whole thing breaks
down and starts again with a long drawn
out glissando slicing through the ensemble
like a hot knife through butter. And all
the time Baron imperturbably ticks, pats,
and hits around his kit, undaunted by
bouts of excitement or disarray. This
detached mode is of course absolutely
appropriate, as Baron added his playing
years after the others had committed their
music to tape.
The way in which Baron's drumming fits
seamlessly in the music is indicative
of the meticulous work that went into
constructing Allies. Listening
closely, you'll hear with how much care
Frith worked on the finer details of the
recording. Although the album has six
cuts, the efforts of the musicians unite
these into one consistent flow, even when
chord structures and melodies vary. It
does have a longer span than Cheap
at Half the Price, which consists
of separate tunes, but the energy of the
former seems more restrained, subdued.
Allies is a river of sound to float
around in. Cheap is an album to
wryly tap your toes to.