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Guest
·The Art Bears were a kind of avant-garde trio featuring Fred Frith, Chris Cutler and Dagmar Krause. I became particularly enamored with their 1979 release, Winter Songs. I later had an excellent Live in Prague album on vinyl. I can't find it on CD. Winter Songs is a collection of songs each written for a single different carving which I think are found at the Chartres Cathedral although I'm probably wrong on that--some European Cathedral anyway. The lyrics are written by drummer Christ Cutler. Dagmar Krause does all the singing and vocalizing. Every other instrument you hear is Fred Frith. Indeed, there is an undeniable medieval austerity to each song despite no medieval instruments being used. In fact, there doesn't appear to be anything in their material relating to medieval musical ideas--no heterophony, no conductus, no motet--and yet there it is, this strange medieval atmosphere.
Here is the entire album, if you want to hear it:
Fred Frith is well known to avant-garde lovers. He's played with Henry Cow, Brian Eno, Naked City, Massacre (with Bill Laswell and Fred Maher). Once, when I was stationed in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, B.B. King was scheduled to play in town that night. I had duty so I couldn't go but I was on the mess deck having breakfast at about 0600 hours and we had a TV up there and it was playing and one of the local tv stations ran a previously-recorded interview with B.B. At one point, he was asked who his favorite guitarists were. He answered that he liked a lot of newer blues artists as Robert Cray (this was 1985) but then he said, "But I like people who take the electric guitar into new territory and for that reason I listen to a lot of Fred Frith and Robert Fripp." I looked up sharply at the TV. Did he say what I just thought he said? Yes, he did. Just goes to show you.
Here is the entire album, if you want to hear it:
Fred Frith is well known to avant-garde lovers. He's played with Henry Cow, Brian Eno, Naked City, Massacre (with Bill Laswell and Fred Maher). Once, when I was stationed in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, B.B. King was scheduled to play in town that night. I had duty so I couldn't go but I was on the mess deck having breakfast at about 0600 hours and we had a TV up there and it was playing and one of the local tv stations ran a previously-recorded interview with B.B. At one point, he was asked who his favorite guitarists were. He answered that he liked a lot of newer blues artists as Robert Cray (this was 1985) but then he said, "But I like people who take the electric guitar into new territory and for that reason I listen to a lot of Fred Frith and Robert Fripp." I looked up sharply at the TV. Did he say what I just thought he said? Yes, he did. Just goes to show you.
