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kebjourman 
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 26 2006
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 393
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 Topic: matching mole albums
Posted: July 25 2006 at 00:22 |
i got the first matching mole album on cd the other day and ive been listening to it so much.
i already want the second album, but i decided to check out what the prog archives said first.
it seems that most people tend to like the first album better than the second, but why?
is it too noisey and wierd? too poppy and conservative? too non canterbury?
Edited by kebjourman - July 25 2006 at 00:24
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Zac M
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: July 03 2005
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Points: 3577
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Posted: July 25 2006 at 00:36 |
No, the second album is great, definitely worth getting if you dig the first album. I've written reviews for both, and while I feel it's less essential from a general point of view, for the Canterbury fan, it's a necessity.
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"Art is not imitation, nor is it something manufactured according to the wishes of instinct or good taste. It is a process of expression."
-Merleau-Ponty
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Dick Heath
Special Collaborator
Jazz-Rock Specialist
Joined: April 19 2004
Location: England
Status: Offline
Points: 12797
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Posted: July 25 2006 at 10:58 |
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The 2nd, Little Red Book is worth getting too. The BBC Radio Live In Concert is MM doing free improv jazz (or it appears) so the most recent live album released on Cuneiform Records is worth having too.
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The Wizard
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 18 2005
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 7341
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Posted: July 25 2006 at 11:14 |
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I plan on getting the debut album soon, it looks great!
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BebieM
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 01 2004
Location: Germany
Status: Offline
Points: 854
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Posted: July 25 2006 at 11:57 |
 Dick Heath wrote:
The 2nd, Little Red Book is worth getting too. The BBC Radio Live In Concert is
MM doing free improv jazz (or it appears) so the most recent live
album released on Cuneiform Records is worth having too. |
Actually it's called Little Red Record in resemblance of the book of that same title. 
That live album you mentioned sounds very interesting! Should check it out soon 
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Syzygy
Special Collaborator
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Joined: December 16 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 7003
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Posted: July 25 2006 at 13:52 |
The two studio albums are both excellent, but rather different in character.
The debut is more like a Robert Wyatt solo album, with only one track not composed by the man himself and Wyatt also played some keyboards. The other band members bring their own brand of wizardry to the pieces, but Wyatt's is definitely the dominant voice.
Little Red Record is more of a group effort. The music was all written by the other 3 members of the band, with Wyatt writing the lyrics and singing the lead vocals (as well as drumming up a storm). Robert Fripp produced, and apparently Phil Miller was a little intimidated by his presence which may account for his slightly subdued contributions. The sessions were also notable for the first meeting of Fripp and Eno (guest musician), who would record No Pussyfooting shortly thereafter.
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'Like so many of you
I've got my doubts about how much to contribute
to the already rich among us...'
Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom
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Dick Heath
Special Collaborator
Jazz-Rock Specialist
Joined: April 19 2004
Location: England
Status: Offline
Points: 12797
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Posted: July 25 2006 at 18:34 |
BebieM wrote:
Dick Heath wrote:
The 2nd, Little Red Book is worth getting too. The BBC Radio Live In Concert is
MM doing free improv jazz (or it appears) so the most recent live
album released on Cuneiform Records is worth having too. |
Actually it's called Little Red Record in resemblance of the book of that same title.
That live album you mentioned sounds very interesting! Should check it out soon
|
Apologies - a lunchtime trawl through Progarchives with often a few
minutes to spare, means I'm reliant on memory for thread responses with
resource quite some distance away - hence the occasional slip. Little Red Book
came to mind because Wyatt was flaunting his Maoist Communist
philospohy by having the front cover of the LP imitate a
Chinese communist poster of the 60's, and the inescapable waving of
Mao's little red book.
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/mjacobs/Images/ChinaImages/PaintingofMao.JPG
Now with resource in hand the live album is called Smoke Signals (Cuneiform Records CUNE 150, issued in 2001)
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Dick Heath
Special Collaborator
Jazz-Rock Specialist
Joined: April 19 2004
Location: England
Status: Offline
Points: 12797
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Posted: July 25 2006 at 18:55 |
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One difference between Matching Mole and Little Red Album , is the
former has Robert's old Canterbury mate and Caravan's
keyboardist Dave Sinclair on board, while the latter had New Zealander
Dave McRae. Sinclair left (or perhaps was fired) since Wyatt discovered
Sinclair had limited facility to improv, preferring to stick to the
rehearsed music. McRae was a jazz keyboardist had no problem with that
aspect of MM's live performance - so is found on 3 of the four MM
albums so far mentioned above. This difference I have long believed
marked Caravan as prog rockers, and Soft Machine and Matching Mole for
most of its short life as jazz rockers. Ironically in our research for
the Soft Machine biography, we identified comedian and now twitcher
Bill Oddie as the source of Machine's Stanley Stamp's Gibbon Catalogue tune title - which caused us to dig out some info on Bill Oddie's Funky Gibbon no. 1 hit: turns out the same Dave McRae is responsible for the its arrangement
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kebjourman
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 26 2006
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 393
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Posted: July 25 2006 at 23:06 |
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does little red record have anything like 'beer as in braindeer' or any other free jazz like that?
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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk
Joined: April 29 2004
Location: Heart of Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 19597
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Posted: July 26 2006 at 07:14 |
Syzygy wrote:
The two studio albums are both excellent, but rather different in character.
The debut is more like a Robert Wyatt solo album, with only one track not composed by the man himself and Wyatt also played some keyboards. The other band members bring their own brand of wizardry to the pieces, but Wyatt's is definitely the dominant voice.
Little Red Record is more of a group effort. The music was all written by the other 3 members of the band, with Wyatt writing the lyrics and singing the lead vocals (as well as drumming up a storm). Robert Fripp produced, and apparently Phil Miller was a little intimidated by his presence which may account for his slightly subdued contributions. The sessions were also notable for the first meeting of Fripp and Eno (guest musician), who would record No Pussyfooting shortly thereafter. |
Actually Phil Miller is a very unintrusive individual. I saw him last year with Hafield and his contributions were barely audible and very diminutive (not to say minimal), to the point that he was almost invisible.
I absolutely hate Oh Caroline, which is one of Wyatt's most reprised/covered song
Dick Heath wrote:
One difference between Matching Mole and Little Red Album , is the former has Robert's old Canterbury mate and Caravan's keyboardist Dave Sinclair on board, while the latter had New Zealander Dave McRae. Sinclair left (or perhaps was fired) since Wyatt discovered Sinclair had limited facility to improv, preferring to stick to the rehearsed music. McRae was a jazz keyboardist had no problem with that aspect of MM's live performance - so is found on 3 of the four MM albums so far mentioned above. This difference I have long believed marked Caravan as prog rockers, and Soft Machine and Matching Mole for most of its short life as jazz rockers. Ironically in our research for the Soft Machine biography, we identified comedian and now twitcher Bill Oddie as the source of Machine's Stanley Stamp's Gibbon Catalogue tune title - which caused us to dig out some info on Bill Oddie's Funky Gibbon no. 1 hit: turns out the same Dave McRae is responsible for the its arrangement |
I am much more a fan of Sinclair than McRae (which will explain why I do not really like LRR). Bassist McCormick is also to be found in Quiet Sun (and its latter incarnation 801).
As fot the three live posthumous releases, the two Cuneiform releases are rather hard fusion with major improv (sometimes leading to Free jazz moments and oth have relatively poor sound quality. The BBC sessions is 21 mins long (which is simply too short) is obviously much better recoded and include the best version of Instant Pussy
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let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
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anael
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: September 09 2005
Location: Mexico
Status: Offline
Points: 825
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Posted: July 26 2006 at 13:21 |
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Official:
-Matching Mole
-Little Red Record
-BBC Radio 1 In Concert
-March
-Smoke Signals
Hey but what about the bootlegs? They're excellent ones and every one with good sound quality:
-BBC March 6, 1972
-Live 1972
-Radio & TV Sessions
-Paris L’Olympia
-Cantenbury Anthology
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matching mole albums
