Main » 2011 » April » 24 » G.F. Fitz Gerald - 1971 - Mouseproof
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G.F. Fitz Gerald - 1971 - Mouseproof
Knowing that people/labels did not know what to do with this album is an understatement. Even for a listener after having read the liner notes first, the description in the booklet notes gives a very confusing idea of the album at a first listen. After having read "One of the most unconventional records ever recorded. This avant-garde psychedelic suite…” which for the first 5 tracks at that point this still sounds completely irrelevant, even nonsense, while after that the music more and more builds up, for an English album, into rather unconventional and original ideas. Even when similar experiments were happening more often in those days (in a similar way more likely in France for instance where avant-garde and ‘musique concrete’ was normal in mixing with rock now and then), the whole context and the abstract shapes mixed with a avant-rock opera idea, the album will in the end evolve to something rather unique. "Many years ago, no doubt in the dead of night, some intrepid freak climbed fly-like up the walls of the defunct International Film Theatre in Westbourne Grove and pasted up a poster which read "Mouseproof Is Music". Many times did I gaze fixidly from the top of a number 15 bus at the mysterious cat wearing shades, peering through the bars in the poster. And now the mystery is perceived; Mouseproof is an album by ace alchemist and cat-handler Gerry Fitzgerald, featuring some very notable little riffs by such famed performers as Lady June Campbell-Cramer on Etheopian Nose Harmonium and Cochise Brian Cole on Electric Hair slide and coal scuttle. Listening to Mouseproof the first time it's very easy to recognise traces of Zappa, Dylan, Bonzo Dog, Tod Dockstader and Capt. Beefheart." This album was recorded with help from Rod Herman (guitar), Alan Place (guitar), B.J. Cole (pedal steel guitar), Rik Kenton (bass, later in Roxy Music), Ian Andrews (bass), Geoff Leigh (sax, he appears in avant-garde albums by Slap Happy, Henry Cow, Hatfield & The North, etc.), Tony Turnbull (drums). 01 - April Affair 02 - New Lodger 03 - Country Mouse 04 - It Takes More Than A Clear Day To See It 05 - May Four 06 - Ashes Of Anm Empire 07 - The End 08 - Under And Over The Waterfall 09 - Movement Lost In Twighlight Stone 10 - Political Machine LINK (RS) or LINK (FS)
