Captain Beefheart – Ice Cream For Crow (1982) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2015]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 37:36 minutes | Scans included | 1,52 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 798 MB
With yet one final Magic Band lineup in place, featuring Richard Snyder on bass and Cliff Martinez on drums alongside returning vets Jeff Moris Tepper and Gary Lucas, Beefheart put the final touch on his recording career to date with Ice Cream for Crow. It’s a last entertaining blast of wigginess from one of the few truly independent artists in late 20th century pop music, with humor, skill, and style all still intact (as even the song titles like “Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian” and “Cardboard Cutout Sundown” show). With the Magic Band turning out more choppy rhythms, unexpected guitar lines, and outré arrangements, Captain Beefheart lets everything run wild as always, with successful results. Sometimes he sounds less like the blues shouter of lore and more of a spoken word artist with an attitude, thus the stuttering flow of “The Host the Ghost the Most Holy.” “Hey Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Coat” is even more entertainingly outrageous, Beefheart’s addictive if near impenetrable ramble about tobacco juice and straw hats and more backed by an insanely great arrangement. Magic Band members each get chances to shine one way or another – “Evening Bell” in particular demonstrates why Lucas went on to later solo renown, a complex, suddenly shifting solo instrumental that sits somewhere between background music and head-scratching “how did he do that?” intrigue.
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Captain Beefheart – Doc At The Radar Station (1980) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2015]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 38:47 minutes | Scans included | 1,57 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 790 MB
Generally acclaimed as the strongest album of his comeback, and by some as his best since Trout Mask Replica, Doc at the Radar Station had a tough, lean sound owing partly to the virtuosic new version of the Magic Band (featuring future Pixies sideman Eric Drew Feldman, New York downtown-scene guitarist Gary Lucas, and a returning John “Drumbo” French, among others) and partly to the clear, stripped-down production, which augmented the Captain’s basic dual-guitar interplay and jumpy rhythms with extra percussion instruments and touches of Shiny Beast’s synths and trombones. Many of the songs on Doc either reworked or fully developed unused material composed around the time of the creatively fertile Trout Mask sessions, which adds to the spirited performances. Even if the Captain’s voice isn’t quite what it once was, Doc at the Radar Station is an excellent, focused consolidation of Beefheart’s past and then-present.
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Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica (1969/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:47 minutes | 1,77 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Zappa Records
Trout Mask Replica is the third studio album by the American rock band Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, released as a double album on June 16, 1969, by Straight Records. The music was composed by Captain Beefheart (aka Don Van Vliet) and arranged by drummer John “Drumbo” French. Combining elements of R&B, garage rock, and blues with free jazz, avant-garde approaches, and other genres of American music, the album is regarded as an important work of experimental music and art rock.
Most of the album was produced by Frank Zappa and recorded in March 1969 at Whitney Studios in Glendale, California, following eight months of intense rehearsals at a small rented communal house in Los Angeles. The lineup of the Magic Band at this time consisted of Bill “Zoot Horn Rollo” Harkleroad and Jeff “Antennae Jimmy Semens” Cotton on guitar, Mark “Rockette Morton” Boston on bass guitar, Victor “The Mascara Snake” Hayden on bass clarinet, and John “Drumbo” French on drums and percussion. Beefheart played several brass and woodwind instruments, including saxophone, musette, and natural horn, and contributed most of the vocal parts, while Zappa and members of the band provided occasional vocals and narration. The well-rehearsed Magic Band recorded all instrumental tracksa for the album in a single six-hour recording session; Beefheart’s vocal and horn tracks were laid down over the next few days.
Trout Mask Replica sold poorly upon its initial release in the United States, where it failed to appear in any charts. It was more successful in the United Kingdom, where it spent a week at number 21 on the UK Albums Chart. In recent years, however, Trout Mask Replica has been widely regarded as the masterpiece of Beefheart’s musical career, as well as an important influence on many subsequent artists.[2] Its highly unconventional musical style, which includes polyrhythm, multi-octave vocals, and polytonality, continues to polarize audiences and has given the album a reputation as one of the most challenging recordings in the 20th century musical canon. It was ranked number 60 on Rolling Stone’s 2012 edition of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, and has appeared on the “best of” lists of many other publications.
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