Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem - Softcover

Piekut, Benjamin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1478004665 ISBN 13: 9781478004660

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 2019

Synopsis

In its open improvisations, lapidary lyrics, errant melodies, and relentless pursuit of spontaneity, the British experimental band Henry Cow pushed rock music to its limits. Its rotating personnel, sprung from rock, free jazz, and orchestral worlds, synthesized a distinct sound that troubled genre lines, and with this musical diversity came a mixed politics, including Maoism, communism, feminism, and Italian Marxism. In Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem Benjamin Piekut tells the band’s story—from its founding in Cambridge in 1968 and later affiliation with Virgin Records to its demise ten years later—and analyzes its varied efforts to link aesthetics with politics. Drawing on ninety interviews with Henry Cow musicians and crew, letters, notebooks, scores, journals, and meeting notes, Piekut traces the group’s pursuit of a political and musical collectivism, offering up its history as but one example of the vernacular avant-garde that emerged in the decades after World War II. Henry Cow’s story resonates far beyond its inimitable music; it speaks to the avant-garde’s unpredictable potential to transform the world.

About this title

About the Author

Benjamin Piekut is Associate Professor of Music at Cornell University, author of Experimentalism Otherwise: The New York Avant-Garde and Its Limits, and editor of Tomorrow is the Question: New Directions in Experimental Music Studies.

Review

"Henry Cow: The World Is A Problem provides an exhaustive account of an incomparable group pushing music to its limits, on a linear mission to change civilization and its culture forever." (Jazzwise 2019-07-01)

"A fascinating and pacey read, stitched together painstakingly from over 90 original interviews and both public and private texts including Hodgkinson's extensive diaries. The combination of narrative background, musical analysis and critical insight should open the door for a new generation of listeners."  (Phil England The Wire 2019-08-01)

"Exhaustive and illuminating." (Kurt Gottschalk New York City Jazz Record 2019-09-01)

"Mixing a highly readable musicological analysis with fascinating details about the band's often-turbulent existence, Piekut's book is a fitting tribute to Henry Cow's importance and legacy in a notable but marginalised movement of 20th century music." (Sid Smith Prog Magazine 2019-09-15)

Edition details

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1478004665
• ISBN 13: 9781478004660
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 512