Trout Mask Replica
By Richard C. Walls
Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Straight STS 1053
There are twenty-eight selections on this 2-set record for your redoubtable delectation, all of them with equally crazed titles.
Zoot Horn Rollo, glass finger guitar, flute; Antennae Jimmy Semens, steel-appendage guitar; Captain Beefheart, bass clarinet, tenor sax, vocal; The Mascara Snake, bass clarinet, vocal; Rockette Morton, bass, narration.
With this record Beeflteart a Co. will hopefully rise from the underground cavern of complete oblivion to the more hospitable soil of relative charity. Thick with images, thick with rhythm innovations, the band lays a heavy better on the curves of your consciousness turning the furthermost flexions of your wisdom to goo (the record makes ya think that way).
Although at first blast the records may sound a bit-well-strange, the sound for sound's sake of acid reflections are identifiable at any level of perception, and the interplay and feeling for dramatics (i.e. changes of pitch, tempo) are the result of talent. Talent being a gift to the listener. The instrumental aspect is very accomplished and the extreme looseness seems to be the result of much rehearsal or just playin' together for a long time.
The range of the record is raunchy – there are diddy bop teen thrill songs like “Ella Guru”, more surrealistic than Zappa’s Wayback trips but just as funny, solo Beefheart breath control backwater vocals like “Well” and “Orange Claw Hammer” that will turn your gourd a deep pink ( if you're lucky), down home wipe-outs (“China Pig”) and strange sound factors (“Hair Pie”). There are also more explicit references – “Neon Meate Dream Of a Octafish” sounds like a parody of Allen Ginsburg's style of recitation, and Beefheart, like Zappa, is aware of the fact that “bulbous” is a one word joke, just like “Dachau” is a word that begs to be mercilessly satirized.
Free association is the best backdrop for putting the words
in a safe perspective. And why this doesn‘t sound like your
normal
rock 'n' rolly bond despite the normal instrumentation is even
simpler – the bass and drums usually play an accompanying line
with the lead guitar rather than a straight rhythm line that the
lead guitar can play against. Also the lead instrument will
change, instruments will drop out, tempos will shift at
unforeseen intervals.
This record may be hard to cope with for some people since taken in large doses (one listening) it's bound to induce some feeling. The band‘s totally mad, of course, insane teeth gibbering like jellied thimbles – but then, doesn't every one?