No. 2: Angus Mackinnon, NME
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NEW RESEARCH
RELAX, it's just Manzanera, Eno and Co furthering the boundaries of rock and roll again.
THE VIDEO Room, Island Records, Hammersmith.
"Can't we do something with this section in 13/8? I don't like counting it in. Maybe a tap on the cowbell as a call sign? All right, let's try it again. One, two, three ..." Take eight. Democracy in action. The laborious minutiae of refinement. Five musicians involved in a Chinese box game. Taking apart, piecing together again. Manzanera and Brian Eno need no introduction. Their accomplices include bassist Bill MacCormick who played with Manzanera in Quiet Sun, joined Robert Wyatt's Matching Mole, then Gong (for a hectic- ten days). Simon Phillips is a young session drummer, a refugee from Ann Odell's shortlived Chopyn he combines the exactitude of a Bill Bruford with the versatility of a Dave Mattacks. Guitarist (sometimes slide) Lloyd Watson supported Roxy Music and King Crimson on various tours, nearly electrocuted himself earlier this year, but survived to tell the unpleasant tale. Francis Monkman, who contributed electric keyboards, is absent; his credits embrace Curved Air and a short stay alongside MacCormick in Matching Mole II.
"Sol Caliente" began life as a Quiet Sun piece, a heady exercise in armour-plated manoeuvrability. It's been combined with "East Of Echo" and the snappily titled "Mummy Was An Asteroid, Daddy Was A Small Non-stick Kitchen Utensil" two other compositions from a similar period when Quiet Sun, who had everything going for them except interested promoters and record companies, finally resorting to playing village fetes for charity. When fully rehearsed and re-run one final time, "Sol" plays like unrepentant, arcane "Starless And Bible Black" Crimso - only without any of Fripp's predilection for wilful claustrophobics. Manzanera allows himself a short, ferrous solo over Watson's vital chording, Eno chip-chops his synthesiser keyboard and it's all up in six minutes. And you want more. Commendable concentration.
Manzanera's original intention had been to form a band and play open air festivals through the summer, in France mostly. However a riot at one such event in Arles - Christian Vander's cosmi-mythological Magma were due to appear - persuaded Giscard D'Estaing that all similar events should be cancelled for the duration. So no expense-paying festivals.
Meanwhile the unplanned but welcome addition of Eno has widened the already extensive amount of material (from Quiet Sun's "Mainstream" and Manzanera's "Diamond Head") still further. Eno's conscientiously oblique, 'non-musical' approach in rehearsal has brought about interesting developments. After an impromptu rendition of The Crystals' "Then He Kissed Me", the band place "Sombre Reptiles" under close scrutiny. There's a simple rhythm track on drum box with Phillips embellishing here and there, and Eno joins Watson and Manzanera on guitar. "This," Manzanera suggests, "is primarily an opportunity for tone control." "The only problem being," comments Eno, "that my guitar won't oblige. What can one expect from a £9 instrument? I suspect the controls don't work at all " A compromise is reached. Eno has to rest the machine heads of his guitar against an amplifier to maintain any feedback, then switches everything off for a precise fade out. The extemporisation seems to work, "Reptiles" ends up sounding as malevolent as anything off Can's autumnal "Ege Bamyasi."
Three weeks later the band's Queen Elizabeth Hall concert is recorded for a live album. The set is consistently enjoyable, occasionally stunning. "Diamond Head" itself has been overhauled, dominated by Manzanera's orbital guitar bled hazily through Eno's switchboard. "Fat Lady Of Limbourg" is mesmeric - Eno and "Warm Jets" - style apparel trapped in a single spot beam the coda is braced by an (intentionally?) brazen riff. "Third Uncle" and "Baby's On Fire" shudder and swirl as the guitars of Manzanera and Watson flail like the appendages of a mine-clearing tank.
Various moments make me wish that this, the band's first London date, wasn't also their last. For instance, MacCormick and Philips pace some outrageous rhythmic athletics as the lengthy intro to "Tomorrow Never Knows" swarms in; the two players attain a pulsing, Magic Band-like freefloat. Manzanera's own vitriolic solos seem so much better placed in this material than in post-"Stranded" Roxy. All six musicians evidently thrive in the environment despite the inevitable technical problems and the Hall's curiously 'live' acoustics. Nonetheless I suspect that the resultant album, however interesting, will relegate itself to the status of a comparatively innocuous souvenir of the evening's music and will also become, in many ways a mildly infuriating document.
Why infuriating? Because it will represent something of an underachievement. In a matter of weeks this band had mutated into an extremely sophisticated, adventurous unit - and this largely on the strength of rehearsing a preponderance of old material. But impressive though this process of 'reconstruction' has been all the evidence indicates that the sextet could (and would) achieve immeasurably more if awarded a longer lease of life and especially if let loose on new compositions, possibly in the shape of a group studio album. Apparently neither Island nor E.G. initially placed much confidence in the project - well, I hope they've found good reason to have a little more faith in the light of the QE Hall performance and the fact that it was sold out.
Manzanera of course, has his second solo album underway, but it remains in a state of semi-completion. Most of the backing tracks are finished and he's considering releasing it in two parts, one compromising songs, the other instrumentals, rather than alternate the two aspects as he did (albeit successfully) on "Diamond Head." But that album didn't sell as well as it might have done - and I doubt very much whether either the live record or his next solo will reach the audience they merit unless their release is supported by further live appearances.
But that's as may be. More important - in purely aesthetic terms - is the nature of the group beast. The Manzanera Band deal in a currency that tries and tests unorthodox structures without becoming so idiosyncratic as to be completely impenetrable. Since the demise of King Crimson there's been a noticeable dearth of experimental (rock) music in the UK that still remains helpfully accessible that may perhaps tax the listener but never antagonise. Manzanera and Eno themselves approach the theory and practice of making music in ways that are often diametrically opposed, but to find both these methods combined in a - group context seems to make for a purposeful, productive tension. empiricism can and does fulfill a vital function; it becomes a blood plasma for other musicians, in Eno's own phrase "musical Research and Development" - an infusion that's always needed. If the Manzanera Band do curtail their activities now, then the outlook could be euphemistically described as bleak.
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