The surprise entry of the odd choral section as presented by the future "Northettes" is a bit discordant and disruptive, but no weirder than the solo organ play to the song's end. I guess it all works in the scheme of the whole "prelude" thing. This is a very strong section of the song--very solid and confident sounding.
Some nice medieval- like melodies and moods evoked here. This just makes the music a little colder, a little less accessible to me, the listener. No wonder Clive wanted his drums to be loud and forward in the mix!
This concludes the band's last album. Egg were a short-lived Canterbury band that definitely displayed the more classical side of the Canterbury jazz experimentation--and this while the members were only in their late teens and early, early 20s!
They just happened to produce, however, some of the most interesting and some of my favorite music from the Canterbury Scene. This is a mature effort of a band that gives impression of having little concern for fame or fortune. As always, most of the pieces are composed by Mont Campbell, although Dave Stewart brings in his own instrumental parts some of which he played on Hatfield And The North's debut a year before.
Civil Surface shifts towards a more typical Canterbury sound compared to Egg's previous work, although not entirely. The band's classical influences of Hindemith, Stravinsky, Bartok or Schoenberg, as presented on previous releases, still play a crucial role in Egg's sound.
Dave Stewart's organ playing is out of this world. Now it has a wider plethora of sounds, as he added a Hohner clavinet to his rig, which gave him a bright percussive sound. Bass playing of Mont Campbell is very unique and goes from funky grooves through classical upright bass-like to experimental fuzz bass passages.
Clive Brooks' drumming is precise and accurate. The drummer handles odd time signatures with unbelievable ease. All in all, the musicianship on this Egg release does not disappoint compared to their previous albums.
It features all of the characteristic elements of the band. The album consists of seven pieces. The album opener, "Germ Patrol" starts out with funny high-pitched "ant"-like sounds achieved by Jeremy Baines' work on a gramophone sort of what he did on Henry Cow's debut one year before. The piece uses a metronome with a bit of reverb to imitate sounds of a mine. The tempo it gives, remains more or less unchanged throughout the rest of the piece.
Only a few minutes in, "Germ Patrol" already succesfully sets the mood for the rest of Civil Surface , with its fuzz bass parts, odd time signatures, sophisticated harmonies and arrangements, and smooth, lush Hammond organ sounds. It only features a chamber horn section consisting of a flute, a clarinet, a bassoon and a French horn.
The overall sound reminds a bit of romantic-era anthem of 19th-century hunters, in the vein of Carl Maria Van Weber with a Paul Hindemith-like avant-garde chamber twist. The piece loses its agressive quality, but the opening theme still reverbrates in between those extremely varied, dynamic, intricate passages, however in different musical contextx. It has a very pastoral, liturgical character with gentle church-like organ, delicate bass fuzz, which plays a crucial role in the "Prelude's" darkness, and creepy, haunting choir work from The Northettes, which even might bring some of Magma's moments to mind.
Drums appear at one point, but play a minor role. Despite its very spiritual or religious character, influences of composers such as Messiaen or Stravinsky are evident throughout through its incredibly elaborate harmonic solutions.
After being repeated a few times, it turns into a jam over a motiff, which Dave Stewart also used on the piece "Gigantic Land Crabs in Earth Takeover Bid" on Hatfield and the North's debut album.
Stylistically, fairly simillar to it, however a bit mellower and more dreamy. Civil Surface is an outstanding album that is a masterpiece of progressive rock music. Lying on the crossroads of Canterbury scene, avant-prog, and eclectic prog, this album is probably not an essential progressive rock work, but an extremely original, well-composed, and well-played release. After Civil Surface , Egg broke up again to never be seen again. Mont Campbell briefly played in National Health and Gilgamesh.
Not for very long, however, as he eventually abandoned music completely, before releasing two Eastern-influenced world-music albums, utilizing only ethnic instruments, starting with Music from a Round Tower in He still remains a highly sought-after session drummer today. Dave Stewart remained a prominent figure in the Canterbury scene participating in musical projects such as Bruford or National Health to name a few, but also creating carefully-crafted techno-pop with Barbara Gaskin in the eighties.
All in all, Egg blessed us with three unique albums, all of which are different, but are time-worthy masterpieces of progressive rock fusing different influences to create a distinctive, unrepeatable sound. Highly recommended, five stars without hesitation. With no solutions presented to rectify the hurdles placed in front of the band, the three members decided to call it quits in Stewart would rejoin forces with Steve Hillage of Uriel and join on as keyboardist for his new project Khan, whereas Clive Brooks joined Groundhogs.
Campbell on the other hand was content to play as a session musician with a fledgling Henry Cow. These guys were getting their feet wet in new projects but EGG was highly prolific and produced more material than they were allowed to record. After a couple of years Dave Stewart had the itch to revive the EGG project so they could record and release some of the material that was supposed to have been included on a third album that never was.
The old gang returned to their respective roles and brought along a lot of new talent as guest musicians. One of the most noticeable differences is the absence of vocals with only "Wring Out the Ground Loosely Now " having any lead vocals at all and that is the 5th of 7 tracks. Both vocally and compositionally this track is a virtual rough draft for the super group that followed. Another clear difference is that the band had moved beyond its dominate 60s organ shtick and embraces a much wider display of progressive musical compositional flow.
Of all the tracks only "Germ Patrol" and "Enneagram" evoke a sense of the past with the organ dominated rhythmic flow, jazzy drum rolls and angular time signature rich Canterbury fueled melodies. New to the band's sounds are two tracks entirely dedicated to wind instruments.
Logically titled "Wind Quartet 1" and "Wind Quartet 2," the tracks sound more like something off of the first Gryphon album only with more of a Henry Cow take on avant-garde angularity. Only the crumhorn is missing. Another clear reference to the Hatfield years to come is on the rather detached "Prelude" which wends its way down angular alley only to break into the heavenly choir which would become known as The Northettes on the Hatfield albums.
Despite these nascent origins, these girls already have their divine diva harmonies down pat and add an extra dimension to the album, one that should've been included on other tracks. Overall, EGG delivered an excellent batch of loose fodder that would've forever been locked up in the archives for decades only to find a release some time in the 90s however due to the band's commitment to the project and the sublime material they crafted, the album found an actual release in the 70s.
While bands like The Nice, The Moody Blues and Deep Purple were creating new exciting sounds by mixing 60s psychedelic rock with symphonic classical music, EGG took those early aspirations into a much more demanding field and into the arenas of the big boy's club with early bands like King Crimson, East of Eden and Marsupilami.
EGG's debut was built around Baroque classical chops inspired by J. Bach as well as the overarching prowess of Igor Stravinsky but accompanied those classical workouts with a heavy groovy bass and a sophisticated jazzy drumming style that took EGG into its own world from the very start.
The band's quirky whimsy as evidenced by the hilarious track titles such as "The Song Of McGuillicudie The Pusillanimous or Don't Worry James, Your Socks Are Hanging In The Coal Cellar With Thomas " along with a healthy love of avant-jazz interpolations earned them a coveted seat in the Canterbury Scene due to Hillage's connection but this debut album at least comes off more as some fo the earliest symphonic prog.
With a trippy series of noises leading the way, the album then kicks off with Stewart's distinct organ talents as he riffs a rather accessible and hook filled run while Campbell adds a groovy bass line and lower register vocal style. The first two tracks set the groove of the organ led rock sounds no guitar here whatsoever but tracks like "Fugue In D Minor" and the sprawling 22 minute plus "Symphony No.
Also adding some bizarre variations to the album are short little filler numbers such as the piano dominated "They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano," "Boilk" and the opening "Bulb" which offer some of the earliest industrial sounds that i've heard. While these short avant-garde snippets may have been added for an interesting contrast, it seems likely that many of the later Nurse With Wound type projects were possibly influenced by them.
For the most part the album is based on organ fueled melodies with an accompanying lyrical vocal delivery. At least until "Symphony No. After the freaky industrial bleakness of "Boilk," which implements a concentrated delivery of avant-garde progressiveness, the final "Symphony No. While "Movement 1" is a continuation of the Western classical interpretations with parts of Grieg's "In The Hall Of The Mountain King" and in all honesty wouldn't have sound out of place on one of The Nice's albums with the Emerson styled keyboards, by the books rock backing in the vocal free zone, "Movement 2" lets the experimentation begin.
While Stewart focuses on classical organ runs to keep the melodic drive going, Clive Brooks delivers some stellar drumming styles that take jazzy rolls and rock standards and juxtaposes them into a mishmash of wizardry.
The track works its way into a very strange atmospheric frenzy which paves the way for the next track "Blane" which deviates completely from the classical rock formula.
Unlike anything else on the album, "Blane" delves into the bizarre freaky world of electronic manipulation and bizarre experimentation. The track babbles and bloops and bleeps on for over 5 minutes and yet provides enough moments of melody to keep the listener grounded despite the intense industrial bleakness that ends it.
Rightfully nixed due to the fact that borrowed too heavily from the Stravinsky classic and had legal issues because of it but still provides a decent series of organ runs, a stomping decent drum and bass delivery and sounds like something right out of Gustav Holst's playbook from his orchestral suites in "The Planets. The newer CDs have two bonus tracks "Seven Is A Jolly Good Time" and "You Are All Princes" which are well worth the inclusion as they include a wealth of off-kilter time signatures and fit into the original album's flow perfectly.
EGG is a phenomenal album considering all three of its members were only in their teens. Despite the youthful energy on board, this debut is surprisingly mature as if it was created by a band of seasoned professionals. The album finds the perfect balance between symphonic prog bombast, traditional classical interpretations, 60s psychedelic rock vibes and touches of otherworldly avant-garde mind freakery. While excellently performed the album does sound like a product of its time with those instantly identifiable sounds of the organ, mellotron and tone generators that pinpoint it to the timeline.
If there is any weakness in EGG's debut, it would have to be the vocals. Mont Campbell gets the job done and in all fairness allows the lyrics to be focused upon that may not be so easily done had he been an operatically trained singer but nevertheless the dynamics of the music far exceeds those in the vocal department but in the end is quite ignorable due to the most phenomenal parts of the album being swallowed up by the instrumental technical workouts led by Stewart's amazing keyboard prowess.
Despite EGG's debut being overshadowed by the admittedly better sophomore release "The Polite Force," this first chapter is by no means one to be missed. This is quite an interesting slab of early prog that offers lots of exciting twists and turns. One of 's finest moments for sure.
A Visit To Newport Hospital starts with a basic chord progression with a hammond organ through fuzz to give it one of the earliest examples of 'progressive metal' just because it's slow doesn't mean it can't be metal.
I would even consider it Doom Metal due to the usage of extremely heavy and low minor chords. After this it turns into the greatest track ever. A jazzy introduction to the main song itself.
When the song actually begins about 2 minutes in, it's got some of the best chords repeated possible. Absolutely hypnotic and Dave Stewart is a master of dissonance. After the verse we have an absolute EPIC organ solo, with a really interesting compositional structure. Stewart basically plays fuzz wah through the left and right channel two different solos, one in each ear against the standard chord progression of the track.
Absolute genius. It's rare to hear a solo that's actually 2 solo's at once that fuse absolutely perfectly together.
The notes struck are perfect from beginning to end, and they invoke a nostalgia in me that I can't explain, and that very few songs can achieve for me. I never really enjoyed Boilk until I listened to it extremely loud, and that's how it is meant to be played. It's purely psychedelic when played loud enough to cause crustal deformation and really piss off the neighbors who probably grew up listening to punk.
This goes for Boilk 1 and 2 from the first album. Long Piece no. Meanwhile Stewarts organ is playing a different time signature that introduces interesting poly rhythm that persists for most of the song. Overall, this is hands down a masterpiece and all 3 band members are legends and amongst the most musically talented of the era. Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved.
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The music is very structured and composed, with classical pieces BACH and some light jazzy influences. The band explored a variety of time signatures and key relationships, sometimes explored classical ideals, and even composed their own symphony. Canterbury band that released three organ-prominent albums. If you like that, go on and get the other two eventually.
Fans of organ-driven progressive rock with a perfect 70's atmosphere will eat it up. Again, very jazzy and more excellent organ by Dave Stewart. Nearch is also a bit of an oddity. It begins with what seems to be a nod toward Lizard era King Crimson. About two and a half minutes into the song it just stops and for about a minute drum beats occasionally pop up through the silence.
I would assume that this is here as a joke of some sort? A few minor discrepancies aside, I really enjoyed this album. I can't really say I have heard anything quite like it. If you are into older prog like the above mentioned bands, than this is a no brainer. Also, for those like me who are curious to see were many great bands, like The Tangent, got their influence from. Pick this up. Highly recommended. Brain Police May 15, at PM.
Marios May 20, at PM. Newer Post Older Post Home. Subscribe to: Post Comments Atom.
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