LITTLE RED RECORD

MATCHING MOLE's second and final studio album was produced by Robert Fripp and featured a guest appearance from Brian Eno. This is more of a band effort than their debut was and the lone lineup change is David Sinclair going back to CARAVAN to record "For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night" and being replaced by Dave McRae who guested on the debut album.

Rather an awkward opening track in my opinion "Starting In The Middle Of The Day We Can Drink Our Politics Away" is my least favourite song on here. The song features piano and vocal melodies with organ coming in late. "Marchides" and the next three songs all blend together like they are one long suite. "Marchides" opens with someone speaking and laughter before guitar or fuzz organ comes in with an uptempo soundscape. It sounds great ! Some atmosphere 3 1/2 minutes in as the melody stops. For 2 minutes we get different sounds that come and go. We then get a nice melody to conclude the song that is a little slower than the original one. "Nan True's Hole" opens sounding very much like GENTLE GIANT. We then hear a conversation between a supposed prostitute and her 40 year old customer as angular guitar melodies are played. Nice. This sure sounds like Fripp playing. "Righteous Rhumba" features male and female vocals that are spoken. More great guitar in this one as drums pound away.

"Brandy As In Benj" has some amazing drumming from Wyatt. The instrumental middle of this song is very enjoyable, and it ends with organ. "Gloria Gloom" is sort of an odd experimental song. Eno is on synths here. There are conversations going on as the music is playing. The last couple of minutes feature Eno on synths in a calm but dark ending. "God Song" like "Nan True's Hole" would be easy targets of my complaining but this is Canterbury and these lyrics though perhaps offensive to some are silly and not to be taken too seriously. As for the music it's typically beautiful with Wyatt's unique vocals and acoustic guitar. Both songs in question are so good instrumentally but lyrically, well... "Flora Fidgit" features electric piano, guitar, bass and drums. I really like this tune. It blends into the final track "Smoke Signal" that seems like the same melody only slower. The drumming after 4 minutes is incredible. It has a spacey, psychedelic ending.

Tough one to rate really. There is so much great music here reminding me of the middle part of their debut album. It's the talking and conversations, along with the first song that bring it down a little for me. If you want to hear what a great drummer Robert Wyatt was, this is the album to check out.