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Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem
Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem is a 2019 book by American academic Benjamin Piekut. It is a biography and analysis of the English experimental rock group Henry Cow and their turbulent existence between 1968 and 1978. The book is Piekut's second and was published in September 2019 in the United States by Duke University Press in both hard- and soft-cover.
Piekut analyses Henry Cow's music, their political stance and how they functioned as a collective. He sourced material for the book from interviews with members of the band and their notebooks and diaries, from magazine and newspaper articles, and from journal papers and books. The World Is a Problem was generally well received by reviewers, although one found sections of the book "heavy going", and another felt it should have addressed issues like "why Henry Cow thought their awkward and somewhat mannered music could ever be popular with audiences".
Piekut is a historian of experimental music and an associate professor of music at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He had previously written Experimentalism Otherwise: The New York Avant-Garde and Its Limits (2011), had edited Tomorrow Is the Question: New Directions in Experimental Music Studies (2014), and co-edited with George E. Lewis Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2016). Piekut has also published several papers on Henry Cow, including "Music for Socialism, London 1977" (2019), and "Another Version of Ourselves: The Enigmas of Improvised Subjectivity" (2018).
Piekut sourced the content of The World Is a Problem from interviews (published and unpublished), notebooks and diaries, magazine and newspaper articles, journal papers, and books. He conducted his own interviews between 2011 and 2016 with all living members of Henry Cow and those associated with the band, and was granted access to personal archives of several players, including Fred Frith, Tim Hodgkinson, Chris Cutler, Lindsay Cooper and Peter Blegvad. Piekut wrote in the book's Preface that where written records and memories disagreed, "only by reading many of them together and against one another has it been possible to determine what actually happened with any accuracy."
The sock painting on the book's cover is by artist Ray Smith and was originally used on the cover of Henry Cow's second album, Unrest (1974). Piekut took the book's subtitle, "The World Is a Problem" from a statement Hodgkinson made in one of his notebooks, paraphrasing Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that Henry Cow wants to "transform the world; the world is a problem, not a given".
The World Is a Problem chronicles the history of Henry Cow and their exploration of music and activism, from their inception in 1968 to their break-up in 1978. It explains how Henry Cow were at odds with the status quo, the music industry and the world at large. They were politically outspoken and embraced Marxism and Maoism. They were not content to settle and continually experimented with new ideas. The brief merger with Slapp Happy in 1975, the formation of the Orckestra with the Mike Westbrook Brass Band and folk singer Frankie Armstrong in 1977, and the establishment of the Rock in Opposition movement in 1978, were some of several ventures they initiated.
Henry Cow's approach to composing, including collective composition, is discussed. The musical structure and lyrics (where present) of many of their more prominent works, including Frith's "Ruins" and Hodgkinson's "Living in the Heart of the Beast", are also analysed in detail. The band improvised much of their music, particularly during live performances, and this style of playing included free improvisation, studio improvisation to tape (for example on their 1974 album, Unrest), and open improvisation.
The book analyses of the nature of the band and the way they functioned. They were a collective with a strict work-ethic that demanded total commitment from its members. They held regular meetings where all aspects of the group, its music and activities were debated. This tended to suppress individualism, making the band more important than its members, which strained relationships within the group, and with partners on the outside.
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Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem
Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem is a 2019 book by American academic Benjamin Piekut. It is a biography and analysis of the English experimental rock group Henry Cow and their turbulent existence between 1968 and 1978. The book is Piekut's second and was published in September 2019 in the United States by Duke University Press in both hard- and soft-cover.
Piekut analyses Henry Cow's music, their political stance and how they functioned as a collective. He sourced material for the book from interviews with members of the band and their notebooks and diaries, from magazine and newspaper articles, and from journal papers and books. The World Is a Problem was generally well received by reviewers, although one found sections of the book "heavy going", and another felt it should have addressed issues like "why Henry Cow thought their awkward and somewhat mannered music could ever be popular with audiences".
Piekut is a historian of experimental music and an associate professor of music at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He had previously written Experimentalism Otherwise: The New York Avant-Garde and Its Limits (2011), had edited Tomorrow Is the Question: New Directions in Experimental Music Studies (2014), and co-edited with George E. Lewis Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2016). Piekut has also published several papers on Henry Cow, including "Music for Socialism, London 1977" (2019), and "Another Version of Ourselves: The Enigmas of Improvised Subjectivity" (2018).
Piekut sourced the content of The World Is a Problem from interviews (published and unpublished), notebooks and diaries, magazine and newspaper articles, journal papers, and books. He conducted his own interviews between 2011 and 2016 with all living members of Henry Cow and those associated with the band, and was granted access to personal archives of several players, including Fred Frith, Tim Hodgkinson, Chris Cutler, Lindsay Cooper and Peter Blegvad. Piekut wrote in the book's Preface that where written records and memories disagreed, "only by reading many of them together and against one another has it been possible to determine what actually happened with any accuracy."
The sock painting on the book's cover is by artist Ray Smith and was originally used on the cover of Henry Cow's second album, Unrest (1974). Piekut took the book's subtitle, "The World Is a Problem" from a statement Hodgkinson made in one of his notebooks, paraphrasing Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that Henry Cow wants to "transform the world; the world is a problem, not a given".
The World Is a Problem chronicles the history of Henry Cow and their exploration of music and activism, from their inception in 1968 to their break-up in 1978. It explains how Henry Cow were at odds with the status quo, the music industry and the world at large. They were politically outspoken and embraced Marxism and Maoism. They were not content to settle and continually experimented with new ideas. The brief merger with Slapp Happy in 1975, the formation of the Orckestra with the Mike Westbrook Brass Band and folk singer Frankie Armstrong in 1977, and the establishment of the Rock in Opposition movement in 1978, were some of several ventures they initiated.
Henry Cow's approach to composing, including collective composition, is discussed. The musical structure and lyrics (where present) of many of their more prominent works, including Frith's "Ruins" and Hodgkinson's "Living in the Heart of the Beast", are also analysed in detail. The band improvised much of their music, particularly during live performances, and this style of playing included free improvisation, studio improvisation to tape (for example on their 1974 album, Unrest), and open improvisation.
The book analyses of the nature of the band and the way they functioned. They were a collective with a strict work-ethic that demanded total commitment from its members. They held regular meetings where all aspects of the group, its music and activities were debated. This tended to suppress individualism, making the band more important than its members, which strained relationships within the group, and with partners on the outside.