Content
When Henry Cow began recording Unrest, they found they did not have enough composed material to fill the LP. Because of studio time constraints, they were forced to "improvise" and developed a "studio composition" process that involved improvising to tape, tape manipulation, loops, layering and overdubbing. The balance of the LP (tracks 2 to 5 on side 2) were "composed" in this manner. On parts of "Ruins" and "Linguaphonie", the bassoon, alto saxophone, drums and voice were recorded at half or double speed.
The Fred Frith composition "Bittern Storm over Ülm" was a "perversion" of one his favourite Yardbirds songs, "Got To Hurry" (1965) into which he added bars, beats and half-beats. For "Ruins", Frith used Fibonacci numbers to establish beat and harmony, after reading about Hungarian composer Béla Bartók's use of the Fibonacci series. "Solemn Music" was from Henry Cow's music for John Chadwick's play, The Tempest, and is the only piece from that suite to be released.
The vocal/piano piece at the end of "Deluge" is sung and played by John Greaves.
Read more about this topic: Unrest (Henry Cow Album)
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