COLD CUTS

NICHOLAS GREENWOOD ( born Sean Nicholas Greenwood ) is a British musician who had his day in the late 1960s and early 1970s during the heyday of the early evolution of the English progressive rock scene. As Sean Nicholas he was the bassist for The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and appeared on that band's hit album of 1968 and stuck around until the next year when the band broke up but quickly moved on to join ranks with Steve Hillage and the crew in Khan in time to release that band's lauded prog classic "Space Shanty" in 1972 while the same year also contributed bass and vocals to the newly formed Jonesy which released its debut "No Alternative the same year.

The year 1972 was a busy one as GREENWOOD also found the time to recruit an interesting group of musicians and record his one and only album COLD CUTS which also came out in the year. Some of the recruits from GREENWOOD's past included members from Khan: drummer Eric Peachy and keyboardist DIck Henninghem as well as woodwind maestro Bunk Gardner who played with Frank Zappa and Tim Buckley. Henninghem also played with GREENWOOD along with Atomic Rooster founder Vincent Crane with Arthur Brown. All in all GREENWOOD had a very productive late 60s and early 70s but after this album he completely disappeared from the music scene altogether but as far as i know he is alive and well in his native UK.

COLD CUTS featured GREENWOOD on vocals and bass but also hosted eleven extra musicians who contributed two guitar parts, keyboards, woodwinds, violins, viola, cello, percussion and harmonic vocal additions. While many of these musicians had played together many times in the past, COLD CUTS sounded nothing like any of the bands that any of these guys had played in. While lumped into the British Canterbury Scene due to GREENWOOD's involvement in Khan, this album does not come off as an immediate candidate for that quirky subgenre that mostly focuses on off-kilter jazz-rock however many artists such as Steve Hillage himself, Khan and others somehow got lumped into the Canterbury crowd by mere association rather than musical stylistic approaches.

This is one of those albums that has a varied approach ranging from proto-prog bluesy rock to orchestrated prog with heavy emphasis on keyboards sounding something like a mix of Atomic Rooster, Hillage's first band Arzachel and well, the brass rock style of bands like Blood, Sweat and Tears. This is a Hammond organ dominated album mostly with strong rock guitar and bass led grooves along with heavy psych keyboard heft. A careful listen though will reveal moments of Canterbury stitched into the overall tapestry of the musical flow albeit subtle and fleeting but then again i would never associate Steve Hillage's "Fish Rising" or even Robert Wyatt's "Rock Bottom" as Canterbury jazz-rock either and yet they sit comfortable in that pigeon-holed subgenre.

For all the sophisticated arrangements and instrumentation this album has a lot of soul as there are lots of funky grooves and best of all GREENWOOD himself delivers excellent vocal performances with a wide range which is a surprise considering his career was as a bassist. His singing style is actually better than many supposedly "real" singers in various prog bands! While the album sounds a tad retro in some ways especially following in the footsteps of the cutting edge Khan project, COLD CUTS is chock filled with excellent musicianship with tight knit playing that delivers a beautiful mix of prog rock, blues and jazzy brass rock. Add to that the atmospheres are impeccable. They excel at creating a certain mood without ever sounding cheesy, forced or insincere. Perhaps not the top of the heap of what the Canterbury artists had to offer, COLD CUTS is a fascinating and unique contribution to the world of prog where several stylistic approaches intersect.