Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem
- Author: Piekut, Benjamin
Henry Cow: The World Is A Problem provides an exhaustive account of an incomparable group pushing music to its limits, on a linear mission to change civilization and its culture forever
Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem
- Author: Piekut, Benjamin
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Henry Cow: The World Is A Problem provides an exhaustive account of an incomparable group pushing music to its limits, on a linear mission to change civilization and its culture forever
About
In its open improvisations, lapidary lyrics, errant melodies, and relentless pursuit of spontaneity, the British experimental band Henry Cow pushed rock music to its limits. Its rotating personnel, sprung from rock, free jazz, and orchestral worlds, synthesized a distinct sound that troubled genre lines, and with this musical diversity came a mixed politics, including Maoism, communism, feminism, and Italian Marxism. In Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem Benjamin Piekut tells the band’s story-from its founding in Cambridge in 1968 and later affiliation with Virgin Records to its demise ten years later-and analyzes its varied efforts to link aesthetics with politics. Drawing on ninety interviews with Henry Cow musicians and crew, letters, notebooks, scores, journals, and meeting notes, Piekut traces the group’s pursuit of a political and musical collectivism, offering up its history as but one example of the vernacular avant-garde that emerged in the decades after World War II. Henry Cow’s story resonates far beyond its inimitable music; it speaks to the avant-garde’s unpredictable potential to transform the world.
Contents
- Preface vii
- Acknowledgments xi
- Introduction. Feral Experimentalism 1
- 1. You Can't Play This Music at Cambridge | 1968-73 29
- 2. Faust and the Virgins | 1973 76
- 3. Contentment Is Hopeless, Unrest Is Progress | 1974 119
- 4. Death to the Individual: Slapp Happy | 1974-75 157
- 5. Europa | 1975-76 199
- 6. The Roads Leading to Rome | 1976-77 242
- 7. No Joy Anymore | London 1977 293
- 8. Henry Cow Always Had to Be Henry Cow | 1978 345
- Afterword. The Vernacular Avant-Garde 387
- Notes 409
- Bibliography 455
- Index 479
Awards and reviews
Henry Cow: The World Is A Problem provides an exhaustive account of an incomparable group pushing music to its limits, on a linear mission to change civilization and its culture forever
It's hard to think of another group that did as much as Henry Cow to distance themselves from the usual Dionysian image and activities of your typical rock band. . . . All things considered, it doesn't sound like it was much fun at all. But this book is." -- Daniel Spicer
