The Canterbury Appreciation Thread

I've been listening to plenty of Caravan as of late. Apparently my copy of Caravan's eponymous album had a few scratches in it that messed up "Love Songs with Flute." When I had first heard it I had thought there was something wrong with the CD, but it actually worked pretty well within the song. I got accustomed to this defective version of "Love Songs with Flute" and finally listened to a copy where it didn't skip and I prefer my defective copy so much more. Weird stuff.

TheCaptain wrote: I'm a newcomer to the Canterbury scene and haven't yet stepped outside of Caravan. It seems as though I like more of their not-quite Canterbury stuff such as their first album (especially Place of My Own, Love Song With Flute, and Cecil Runs). I also recently got In The Land Of Grey and Pink. So far I really like Love to Love You, and Winter Wine. Golf Girl doesn't tickle my fancy nor does the titular track. After a couple listens I am starting to like Nine Feet Underground more but it's still just ok.

You may have seen this already (posted in another thread), but I'll just cut/paste.

Some of this is redundant.

Starting with bands you know, IMO you're missing their best albums:

Caravan - If I Could Do it All Over Again, I'd Do it All Over You
Gong - You

Then, because I am an unabashed Dave Stewart fanboy, you will need:

Egg - s/t, The Polite Force, The Civil Surface
Hatfield and the North - s/t and The Rotters' Club
National Health - s/t and Of Queues and Cures
Khan - Space Shanty (a curious but fun album, actually more of a "heavy prog" sound)

Other essential records:

Soft Machine - Third
Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom

The Soft Machine's "Moon in June" reminds me a bit of "Nine Feet Underground", but I prefer "Moon...." I used to love "9 Feet" though. In part, Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom really got me into exploring Canterbury Scene music.  I started with Caravan too, come to think of it.   Then Hatfield and the North with Rotter's Club, which I loved.  It's definitely one of my favourite categories here; so much excellent music.

This album is absolutely wonderful:


1977
Kew Rhône
4.48
(5 ratings)

For a modern album/project, this is worth getting:


2007
Soft Mountain
4.00
(2 ratings)

And VOLARÉ from the US is well-worth checking out.

I don't know but I guess I need some Canterbury recomendations. I already know most of the top 20 records and groups like the Softs , Caravan , Hatfield , National Health , Gilgamesh . Ain Soph , Khan , Matching Mole , Supersister ,Egg , Picchio dal pozzo , Gong , Soft Heap and some others.

crimson87 wrote: Which is better in terms of progressive music , BestBuy or Virgin? He went to Virgin and could get Tago Mago , Phallus Dei , and Jean Luc Ponty plays the music of Frank Zappa.

Virgin is okay (i.e. bites the big one) but Tower was far better, shame they went down  ..Best Buy is fine for DVDs but I don't remember being impressed by the music selection

at this point there's only one place in the U.S. to go to find a great selection of new and used music and movies:  Amoeba   (L.A., S.F. and Berkeley)

Raff wrote: So many great suggestions to look for... Luckily, I've noticed that most Soft Machine-related albums are relatively easy to find here in Italy, especially if one looks into the Jazz section of music stores. I have to take advantage of the situation as long as I live in Italy, because I'm afraid lean days will come once I move to the US... I've seen music stores like FYE and Best Buy, and I call them 'compilation heaven'!

Raff wrote: Canterbury a softer version of RIO? Now I've really heard it all...

Not far from the mark as far as I'm concerned : Robert Wyatt's End Of An Ear, Hugh Hopper's 1984 are definitely early forms of RIO. Whilst Henry Cow's Legend, takes its lead from Machine's Volume2 (and one reason I bought the album, after they won John Peel's Rockatunity Knocks competition)..

fixed mr. pedant

June wrote: NaturalScience wrote: June wrote: If you'll excuse my trollness... what's RIO? Compared to the Canterbury scene, that is. A brief history.   Okay then, thanks. I hadn't not picked up on that section yet. I'd already heard a few tracks from 5 or 6 bands mentionned, but hadn't figured out that they were in any way "related". So if I get this right, it's more of a "political" organisation of avant-garde bands than anything while the Canterbury scene is mainly geographically based? Unless the Canterbury bands had some "treaty" too that I haven't read about so far?

No, that's pretty much it, although the "Canterbury" moniker has always been a bit unfortunate as pretty much none of the musicians had much to do with the town city of Canterbury, located in eastern Kent in the South East region of England, you can read more at the wiki entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canterbury_scene

There was also some overlap, the RIO movement was founded by Henry Cow, who are sometimes also considered a Canterbury band...the true narrow definition of RIO was the small group of bands during the late 70s, "avant prog" is the more (appropriate) generic label for a certain kind of wacky music.

Henry Cow's first album is one I find to be a natural transition to RIO/Avant when coming from the Canterbury scene (data point = myself).  But if you've heard samples from Belgian chamber prog masters Univers Zero or Present, well then jump right in!





Edited by NaturalScience - November 07 2008 at 15:20