Art Bears - Hopes And Fears (1978)

Artista: Art Bears

Álbum: Hopes And Fears
Año: 1975
Género: R.I.O. / Avant Prog
Duración: 64:33
Nacionalidad: Inglaterra

Lista de Temas:
1. On Suicide
2. The Dividing Line
3. Joan
4. Maze
5. In Two Minds
6. Terrain
7. The Tube
8. The Dance
9. The Pirate Song
10. Labyrinth
11. Riddle
12. Moeris, dancing
13. Piers
14. Collapse (Bonus track)
15. All Hail! (Bonus track)
16. Coda to Man and Boy (Bonus track)

Alineación:
- Fred Frith / guitars, violin, viola, piano, harmonium, xylophone, bass
- Chris Cutler / drums, electric drums, percussives, noise
- Dagmar Krause / singing
Guest musicians:
Lindsay Cooper / bassoon, oboe, soprano sax, recorder
Tim Hodgkinson / organ, clarinet, piano
Georgie Born / bass, cello, voice

Como no podía ser de otra manera, Alberto trajo otra genialidad musical, y cada vez que lo hace ésta esta más emparentada con lo más duro del R.I.O., y ahora vamos con un discazo de aquellos que en este mismo momento estoy escuchando y disfrutando. Tres músicos increíbles salidos del seno de Henry Cow en un disco imperdible: Fred Frith, Chris Cutler y Carolina Restuccia... ehhh, digo Dagmar Krause. Ahora recuerdo aquel comentario en el disco solista que comparaba a nuestra querida Carolina con Dagmar, y la verdad es que me imagino perfectamente a Caro cantando en este disco. Ese comentario está en la entrada del disco de Catukuá, por si lo quieren chequear, y en su momento no le había dado mucha veracidad, pero me quedó picando en mi cabeza...
El comentario del disco está a cargo de Alberto, que se largó a darnos su impresión este enorme trabajo.

Luego de la separación, desintegración, volatilización, o mutación de Henry Cow, tres de sus integrantes deciden dar forma a un nuevo proyecto llamado Art Bears,su baterista Cris Cutler,el multinstrumentista Fred Frith y la vocalista Dagmar Krause.
Si no existiera data alguna de este material y escucharas este trabajo hoy en 2015, no te iba a caber ninguna duda que esto es absolutamente nuevo, la mezcla, la producción musical, el sonido de la bata, los arreglos de guitarra, percusión, teclados, las cuerdas y las voces, todo suena a nuevo.
El resabio espectral de esa atonalidad generalizada de Henry Cow, de la cosa sincopada, de las escalas disonantes, del canto atemporal, sincero y con muchísimo estilo, todo esta aca en este material de hace 37 años, que por supuesto en esa época y aún en la actual, no es para cualquiera.
Quizás lo más cercano a Art Bears sea King Crimson o Renaissance pero aún asi y salvando las comparaciones, este trabajo no es para oídos tiernos, esto es para disfrutar segundo a segundo, para gozar de esas disonancias de otra dimensión, espaciales, cósmicas y de un canto que parece extractado de la mejor opera de Wagner.
Art Bears es una variante musical de lo años 70s que no encaja en la parafernalia del progresivo o del rock, podríamos asegurar que esto es un fiel material del movimiento Rock In Oposition, esta música deambulaba por el aire muy lejos de estar encuadrada dentro de la movida del momento, esto es distinto, es otra cosa, es un viaje de ida a universos que hoy siguen estando allí, y serán eternos a su manera, creo que no existiría hoy un movimiento como el R.I.O si antes no se hubiera plantado, germinado y multiplicado el gen de grupos como estos.
Art Bears es básicamente referencial y casi académico, estos muchachos estaban en esa época totalmente adelantados a su tiempo, quizás alguna experiencia ácida, chamanística, transgénica, de abducción extraterreste o intraterrestre moldearon esos cerebros en formas y sonidos que solo pasaba por ellos, y dieron vida a un material como éste.
Si sos openmind, éste es un disco para vos. Si todavia estas con algún poster colgado en la pared de tu habitación este disco no es para vos. Cortá la bocha!, y que conste que esta frase no es de Cutzarida.
Este es un disco que te atrapa, te sorprende y te activa zonas de tu pinche cerebro que tenías adormecida, quizás por inmadurez musical o simplemente porque te casaste con algún estilo musical que te hace sentir cómodo/a.
Este es un proyecto de 16 canciones que si invertís el orden de escucha o si ponés un random te vuela aún más la capocha. Si empezás por el track 16 hasta el 1 entrás básicamente en trance, y más si lo disfrutás tomando sol con los ojos cerrados, si el ejercicio de escuchar, lo hacés recostado en tu cama es muy probable que termines flotando con la nariz pegada al cielo raso.
Solo tres albumes de estudio entre 1978 y 1981 y una gira europea en 1979 fueron el rastro que dejo este trío. Una síntesis apretada de un trabajo que si le abrís tu corazón seguro te va a acompañar y te dará buenos momentos.

Alberto


Como dato adicional, "Hopes and Fears" debe su título a una conversación entre Caronte y Hermes en un texto de Luciano de Samósata que aparece recogido en su diálogo Caronte:

Caronte: "Todo lo que veo es un embrollo - un mundo lleno de total confusión. Sus torres son como colmenas en que cada abeja tiene su propio aguijón y lo usa contra su vecino - y algunas son como avispas, tomando como presa a los miembros más débiles de la comunidad- Pero ¿qué son esas ténues formas que vuelan a su alrededor?"
Hermes: "Esperanzas, Miedos, Locuras, Placeres, Codicias, Odios, Rencores..."

No es la primera vez que mencionan a Caronte pues ya aparecía en el tema "Beautiful As The Moon – Terrible As An Army With Banners" del disco "In Praise Of Learning" de Herny Cow.
Otro dato de color es que el primer tema, titulado "On Suicide" es una canción surgida de la colaboración en 942 entre el compositor Hanns Eisler y Bertolt Brecht. La atención se pone en el hecho del suicidio (obvio) y al menos en esta versión (no conozco otra) la instrumentación es escalofriante, como el tema a tratar.
"Joan" es un texto de Chris Cutler con música de Fred Frith con referencias directas a la historia delirante de Juana de Arco: la protagonista de la canción escucha voces y tras vencer el miedo puede ver la luz y dirigir ejércitos hacia la victoria. La actitud de Art Bears escogiendo a Juana de Arco debería ser entendida como contestataria pues son ingleses. Como en épocas de Henry Cow, los textos constituyen un violento vehículo de mensajes políticos que reflejan la posición totalmente radical asumida por los músicos, pero no se trata de simples panfletos sino de letras tan comprometidas y complejas como la estructura musical de las composiciones.
"In Two Minds" es el tema más largo y la verdad es que no tiene nada que ver con el estilo de Henry Cow, mientras que la letra narra las dificultades de una chica con sus padres, que tratan de convertir su displicencia en enfermedad mental.
bueno, y el disco tiene muchos momentos memorables como para citarlos a todos...

Y aquí vamos con lo comentarios de terceros que siempre les traemos para que conozcan las impresiones de otra gente y no se queden solamente con lo que nosotros decimos... el resto es cuastión de gustos, que como el culo, cada uno tiene el suyo, personal e intransferible.

Hablar de Art Bears suele significar hablar tambien de la incalificable, ambigua y eclectica etiqueta de RIO (Rock In Opposition), idea surgida alrededor de las filas de Henry Cow para la organizacion de un festival musical (tal y como afirma Chris Cutler en su obra "File Under Popular: theoretical and critical writings on music" de 1984, muy recomendada su lectura) y posteriormente extendido como concepto musical por las bandas coetaneas de un ideario similar. La musica de Art Bears es una fuente de evocaciones varias, segun el estado de animo del oyente, moviendose de manera fluida por las dos caras de la emocion mas sensitiva posible: puede haber oscuridad y a la vez un atisbo de algo diafano; crudeza y sofisticacion; complejidad y sencillez; vanguardia y tradicion... Musicalmente es un grupo que ha conseguido crear un universo muy particular con un vocabulario propio y con muy pocos codigos reconocibles por el consumidor de musica masiva, por sus propios referentes esteticos (sobre todo la musica de vanguardia academica europea -y en concreto la de autores alemanes-, la danza folklorica tradicional y la musica popular experimental, de corte progresivo, de aquella epoca, con especial atencion al "Kraut" aleman y a la escena de los grupos de Canterbury). Los interpretes y creadores de este "Hopes & fears" venian de colaborar y trabajar con musicos y grupos como Egg, David Bedford, Hatfield & The North, Robert Wyatt, Brian Eno, Mike Oldifled, National Health, por lo que de alguna manera su impronta quedaria patente en este trabajo... entre otras muchas.
Para contextualizar correctamente a los Art Bears, primero hay que referirse a la agrupacion Henry Cow, padrinos del RIO, y en donde ya estaban los instrumentistas Fred Frith y Chris Cutler (dos integrantes del trio base de Art Bears). Desde Henry Cow ya se empezo a mostrar una linea popular de tendencia oscura, con muchos referentes academicos como Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono, Kurt Weill o Frank Zappa. Tras una serie de muy recomendables discos, Cutler y Frith decidieron en 1978 que su material de mas reciente composicion ya no podia aparecer bajo el nombre de Henry Cow (en aquel momento con Hodgkinson, Cooper y Born en sus filas), ya que el tipo de piezas (mas breves y con referencias al folk tradicional junto con la opera serial) y de letras (habian abandonado los textos de tendencia mas politica, mas caracteristicos de Henry Cow, por otros de contenido mas filosofico y cultural, ademas de no ir asociados a un concepto general que diese cohesion a los textos entre si) no encajaban en el concepto grupal y se dispusieron a grabarlo bajo el nombre de Art Bears (denominacion sacada de una frase de la obra "Arte y ritual" de Jane Harrison "[...] even today, when individualism is rampant, art bears traces of its collective social origine"). Dagmar Krause, miembro del grupo experimental Slap Happy y colaboradora habitual de Henry Cow se estabiliza tambien en la formacion, ayudando a perfilar el sonido del nuevo grupo. Tim Hodgkinson, Lindsay Cooper y Georgie Born aparecen acreditados como colaboradores, separados del trio nuclear que luego seguira sacando albumes (Dagmar Krause, Fred Frith & Chris Cutler). Poco despues Henry Cow editaria su album "Western culture" en 1979, con algunas piezas que surgieron durante estas sesiones y que se desecharon para el concepto de Art Bears. Concretamente cuando se grabo en enero de 1978 la casi totalidad de los temas de este album los musicos estaban pensando en un nuevo trabajo de Henry Cow, mientras que en marzo, momento en el que se graban los ultimos temas ("Terrain", "The tube", "The dance" y "Piers") ya se hace con la mentalidad del proyecto Art Bears... !En solo dos meses como cambia la historia!
Tras este album, el trio Art Bears sacaria otros dos albumes de estudio en los que trabajaran una estetica cada vez mas personal: "Winter songs" (1979) y "The world as it is today" (1981). Musicalmente, su discurso musical se mueve por varios caminos: Dagmar Krause utiliza su voz como un instrumento mas, moviendose en diferentes registros, con diversas intensidades, haciendo en muchas ocasiones uso del "Sprechgesang" (o canto-declamado muy desarrollado en obras vocales de autores alemanes dodecafonistas, como "Pierrot Lunaire" -1912- de Arnold Schönberg o "Wozzeck" -1922- de Alban Berg) y reflejando estados de animo a menudo extremos (lo que se acentuara en sus discos posteriores): epico ("On suicide"), dramatico ("In two minds"), operistico ("The tube"), susurrante ("Maze"), jovial ("Moeris dancing")... mientras que Fred Frith y Chris Cutler configuran una atmosfera bastante tenebrosa mediante registros poco explorados de sus instrumentos: la guitarra suena a ratos Frippiana ("Joan") como al sonido aleman mas salvaje ("The dividing line"), y las baterias de Chris Cutler presentan en todo momento un sonido muy salvaje, muy abierto. Un tipo de sonido mas cercano a la concepcion de las obras de la Velvet Undeground, por ejemplo.
El disco se abre de forma majestuosa con "On suicide", con la personal declamacion vocal de Dagmar Krause sobre una base musical formada con instrumentos de viento (destacando pasajes mas liricos del clarinete) y cello, lo que dara paso a "The dividing line". El oscuro inicio de esta pieza constituira un motivo que se repetira en diversos momentos del album, otorgando una cierta idea de continuidad musical. Krause muestra aqui registros muy cercanos a la estetica del cabaret de principios de siglo y de las canciones de Kurt Weill (estoy pensando en las magistrales interpretaciones de Ute Lemper), mientras que las lineas bateristicas de Cutler son muy sobrias, con aires marciales; "Joan" presenta una alternancia entre una oscura melodia vocal y salvajes contrapuntos instrumentales con rapidos cambios de tempo, muy en la linea de los grupos de Canterbury, con importante protagonismo de los instrumentos de viento. Su simbolico texto, segun cuenta el propio Cutler, fue defendido por Krause ante las protestas de Cooper y Born, quienes no acababan de convencerse de su efectividad; por otro lado, "Maze" es un brillante collage de ideas musicales en donde aparecen atmosferas creadas por los teclados y la bateria, polifonias misticas entre Krause y Born (me recuerdan en ocasiones a las armonias de The Northettes), pasajes instrumentales progresivos y esa mencion al inicio de "The dividing line" a la que antes aludia (a partir del minuto 03:35).
"In two minds" es una de las piezas mas elaboradas del grupo. Sus fuentes emanan directamente de los textos de R.D. Laing ("Sanity, Madness and The Family", de 1964) presentando una teatral oposicion de disonancia (melodia declamada de Krause, acordes iniciales de guitarra) y consonancia (mediante la progresion tonal del piano y la melodia vocal sobre esa parte, dandole a veces un aire de musical oscuro); "Terrain" es una pieza instrumental de caracter progresivo (en cuanto a la armonia), muy similar al estilo de The Mahavishnu Orchestra o al "Larks' tongues in Aspic part 1" de King Crimson ("Larks' tongues in Aspic", 1973), con un importante grado de participacion del violin, junto a algunos momentos de la guitarra acustica y de los instrumentos de viento en armonizacion; "The tube" vuelve a la oscuridad de "The dividing line", creando una atmosfera de caos electronico a partir de la distorsion de las guitarras sobre el que emergen las poderosas melodias vocales de Dagmar Krause; "The dance" alterna los aires de danzas mas tradicionales del folklore con las atmosferas mas oscuras (con un cierto toque jazzistico de Canterbury); "Pirate song" presenta uno de los momentos mas lirico-expresivos del grupo, con un soberbio trabajo de Dagmar Krause (en un registro mas sosegado aunque no por ello menos activo) con acompanamiento al piano de Tim Hodgkinson.
"Labyrinth" vuelve a retomar la sensacion de tension armonica (unisonos sin aparente rumbo armonico, repeticion de ostinatos y sprechgesang, todo sobre una cortina efectista de percusion con retoques electronicos), la cual culmina con "Riddle", que retoma el material musical de "The dividing line" acentuando su caracter oscuro y tribal; "Moeris dancing" se abre con un expresivo scat vocal de Krause, en el que dobla la melodia de guitarra de Frith. Los instrumentos demuestran aqui su faceta mas sinfonica, sobre todo las lineas de guitarra electrica y el gran trabajo del violin (dejando ciertos ecos de National Health y de la primera epoca de Mike Oldfield), contando ademas con ciertos guinos con diversos folklores, como los mas europeos (a partir del trabajo de Frith en guitarra acustica y violin) e incluso el Gamelan (con la magica y espiritual parte de percusion hipnotica final); el album se cierra con "Piers", cuyo cluster inicial va a anunciar la apertura (en cierto modo) de su siguiente album, "Winter songs", y que adquiere un cierto caracter ritual (similar a algunas piezas de Magma).
"Hopes and fears" constituye el primer exponente de la discografia de un atipico grupo como Art Bears y de alguna manera deja mostrar la transicion entre el estilo de Henry Cow y lo que luego se perfilara en "Winter songs". Este es un album muy recomendado, sobre todo para aquellos que gocen con las aventuras sonoras de los grupos enmarcados en el RIO, el Kraut Rock y el Jazz-rock con ecos de folklore y vanguardia academica. Si te gustan grupos como Faust, Henry Cow, Can, Hatfield & The North, Magma o la primera epoca de Mike Oldfield, aqui puedes encontrar un contrapunto la mar de interesante.

Eduardo Garcia Saluena

Hopes & Fears' was recorded in 1978 and is the first record of the 'Art Bears', a band freshly created out of former Henry Cow members, Fred Frith ( who signed for the majority of the compostions), Chris Cutler (drums and lyrics) and Dagmar Krause on vocals.The other 'Henry Cow' members Georgie Born, Lindsay Cooper and Tim Hodgkinson are mentionned as guests.
There are obviously a lot of common points between the music of 'Henry Cow' and 'The Art Bears', the political-philosophical lyrics, the abstract compositions mixed with Jazz or Free-Jazz improvisations, but on the whole 'H & F' is a more stripped down affair, the songs a shorter and more focused. Most lyrics are realistic or pessimistic, depending on your point of view. The overall concept is stated in the booklett, a citation of Lucian's 'Satirical sketches' a dialogue between Charon and Hermes - Charon : "All I can see is complicated muddle - a world full of utter confusion. Their towns are like beehives in which every bee has a sting of his own and uses it against his neighbor - and some are like wasps, preying on the weaker memmbers of the community. But what are those dim shapes flying around them?" Hermes :"Hopes and fears Charon..."
Singer Dagmar Krause is strongly influenced by the German composer Hans Eisler (and his coorporation with poet-playwriter Berthold Brecht) and his wife Lotte Lenya , who had developpeed a form of 'realistic' opera singing ('Dreigroschenoper) The opening track of the record 'On suicide' is a Brecht/Eisler song. Krause's vocal style together with Frith's compositions creates often a dense and sometimes claustrophobic athmosphere like in 'Maze' or 'Riddle'. Sometimes the athmosphere reminds me the japonese 'No' theatre pieces.'The Dividing line' a Cooper composition and 'Pirate Song' and 'Labyrinth' two Hodgkinson compositions go in the same direction. The two Frith instrumentals 'Terrain' and 'Moeris Dancing' are strongly influenced by Zappa in particuler 'Uncle Meat' and the more 'lighthearted' tracks of the record. A masterpiece that needs time to be dicoverd!

Martin Horst

Sonically speaking, you couldn't really tell if you're a Henry Cow album or on an Art Bears record. Especially given that behind Fred, Chris and Dagmar, are invited Lindsay, Tim, Georgie, Peter and Marc Hollander (Aksak). Hey!! 8O They forgot to invite Geoff Leigh. Behind the superb artwork (changed a bit from the original vinyl) and splendid ReR label booklet, Hope And Fear is definitely HC's heir, although slightly stripped down (Frith is the main composer here), as the other half of HC is only here as guests, even if they appear on most tracks, including the three bonus tracks from the ReR Cd reissue. Actually part of the tracks of this album were recorded under the Henry Cow banner. As for the rest of them, I will cite Chris Cutler: "These pieces were recorded track by track, starting with a click and the essential bass or chord parts and then adding vocals and filling in the other parts - using the studio itself as a generative medium. In general, drums were added last. This was to be the method we adopted for all future Art Bears projects". Considering most bands starts with drums, you might understand how weird or odd Art Bears may sound.
As said above the songwriting is handled mainly by Frith, and Cutler's lyrics, there is a real continuity between IPOL (rather than WC, even if WC came from the same sessions) and H&F, even if Dagmar's crazed vocals are toned down (all things remaining relative, because she remains an acquired taste), but Frith's guitar is getting wider spaces than previously as indicated by the Fripp-ian lines Terrain that followed the unusually accessible (and incredibly wild "rock") In Two Minds, these two forming a first highlight into the album. Frith's guitars are also able to be gloomy as heck in The Tube. However if you want to know how HC handles a jig, please feel free to listen to The Dance. While keeping on track with its own direction, the rest of the album slowly veers towards Piers, which is arranged in such a way that it announces what's coming up in Winter Songs. But this album could be called a lost HC album somewhere between In Praise and Western Culture, it you didn't know better.
The bonus tracks are actually adding value to an already good album and fit moderately well with H&F, especially the closing Coda piece where Blegvad and Hollander come in to add their lunacy). But first we must deal with the astounding madness of All Hail and the beat-heavy Collapse where Dagmar double tracks and dubs herself. Amazing sounds. But the real "gift" is the lengthy Coda To Man And Bo, where the tension on frith's guitar strings is so unbearable that the guitar is starting to jerk tears uncontrollable and soon enough its crying out loud over a divine three note piano and semi-thunder bass crashes (courtesy of Peter and Marc). Astounding sounds. With the addition of these bonus tracks, I can't help but give this album its fourth star, even if it Art Bear's least resembling album, in part due to the presence of almost all of Henry Cow's personel.

Sean Trane

Art Bears' debut album emerged from the same sessions that produced the brilliant Henry Cow album Western Culture, and indeed the remaining members of the last Henry Cow line up are present as guest musicians and occasional co-writers. The album was, and remains, a remarkable achievement, and had a phenomenal impact when it was first released, but with hindsight it was the first step towards an artistic vision that would only be fully realised on subsequent albums.
A number of common elements recurred throughout Art Bears discography: Chris Cutler's lyrics were indebted to Brecht and informed by an interest in the middle ages, mythology and left wing politics; Frith's music reflected his interest in assorted arcane folk traditions, which would also influence his solo career; and Dagmar interpreted their vision like an updated Lotte Lenya. The move towards relatively normal songs took some people by surprise, but on his website Cutler stresses that he and Frith had both started out in straightforward rock groups, so the desire to play short songs had always been there.
The album opens with a short version of the Brecht/Eisler song On Suicide, which Dagmar declaims over a stark cello/bassoon/clarinet arrangement. This lasts for less than 2 minutes, but effectively sets the stage for the band's subsequent career. The Dividing Line brings in the full band and a theme that is to recur throughout the album (it originated from the backing track of the Cooper composition Riddle being played at half speed) and is another sparse, Brechtian song. Joan is introduced by a searing Frith electric guitar motif and retells the story of Joan of Arc, and is one of the pieces which would not have sounded out of place on a Henry Cow album. The most remarkable song closed side 1 of the vinyl original, and at over 8 minutes long In 2 Minds was the longest track Art Bears recorded. The lyrics were inspired by Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing's book Sanity, Madness and the Family and the music alternates between a slowly strummed and slightly out of tune acoustic guitar and a rock out which recalls The Who - it's midway between Pinball Wizard and Won't Get Fooled Again, and all the more effective for being so unexpected.
The second half of the album continues in a similar vein, including two uptempo instrumental tracks (to be strictly accurate, one contains a wordless vocal by Dagmar) which would sit nicely on the Frith solo albums Gravity or Speechless - hummable, danceable but still 100% Rock In Opposition. Some of the lengthy instrumental breaks also sound like a RIO take on traditional country dancing tunes, such as the lengthy coda to The Dance - Frith playing a mournful jig over Cutler's strict tempo snare and bass drum, with Dagmar slowly chanting a counter melody in the background. Elsewhere, The Pirate Song is sung to an imaginative piano accompinament played and composed by Tim Hodgkinson, while the subsequent Labyrinth (Daedalus Lamenting) pushes Cutler's hyperactive drumming to the fore. The album closes with a brief piece about the Medieaval English poem Piers the Ploughman, with an arrangement which recalls On Suicide and which also points to the direction of Winter Songs, their next album.
Compared with what was to follow, Hopes and Fears is something of a flawed gem. There are pieces which sound more like Henry Cow or Frith solo, and the presence of additional musicians makes some of the arrangements sound comparatively cluttered (all future Art Bears releases featured only the core trio). Taken in isolation, it's one of the key albums of the Rock In Opposition movement and shows that, although Henry Cow had ground to a halt, the key members were only just beginning to realise their potential as composers and performers. Highly recommended.

Chris Gleeson

This is one of the most difficult albums to listen to in my collection. And that is not a bad thing. Sometimes music should challenge the ear. While I'm not much of a fan of Dagmar Kraus (I find her vocals usually detract from the music she is singing with), I can still enjoy the underlying music. Most of the time. There is a bit too much of Kraus' Lotte Lenya impression with only guitar behind it for my taste. It is when the musicians play together that this album shines.

Scott

An excellent album that should not be heard by everyone and especially not on every occasion!
The debut album from Art Bears is merely a continuation of the already well established Henry Cow sound. The story goes like this - Hopes And Fears began as a Henry Cow album but the early sessions in Switzerland split the band due to some members dislike for a vast amount of song-oriented material. A compromise was reached when the members agreed upon splitting the material into two different releases. The song-oriented material was released under a new moniker, Art Bears, while the instrumental compositions would make up the final Henry Cow studio album.
This basically means that Hopes And Fears is as close to a Henry Cow record as one could ever get. Besides the fact that the band was comprised of Chris Cutler, Fred Frith and Dagmar Krause, we also get noteworthy contributions from Tim Hodgkinson, Lindsay Cooper and Georgie Born. The music is dominated by Dagmar Krause's haunting vocals and the instrumental arrangements which often remind me of the Residents due to their minimalistic approach that exists all throughout the album.
The most notable track out of this very mixed bunch comes right towards the end of side one with the 8+ minute thought-provoking suite called In Two Minds. It's difficult for me to understand how such a long composition can be almost entirely built around one chord but Art Bears completely nail that format and show that excellent music can come in all shapes and forms. Plus, the Pete Townshend-sounding guitar chords towards the chorus turn this tune into a complete masterpiece for me!
In Two Minds is an easy album to get into for beginners but it will take a while for it to expand beyond those initial stages of excitement and right into the excellent album I consider it today. There are definitely certain mood requirements for these kind of releases which make it strenuous to hear in passive receptive state. This is a perfect example of an active-listening album experience that should be an obligatory part of any Avant-Prog music collection!

Alexander Peterson

What can I say about this record? The setting is perfect; the intention is clear (or in this case obscure); the whereabouts are well known; the where? is the mystery. I had to suffer like hell to overcome the horrible "arty" voice of Dagmar Krauze to enjoy the astounding environment this guys had painted. One perfect case of first image association with later criteria. The voice-less/music; as the art-cover is austere, dimmly lit promising all kinds of thrills that in time will be delivered. So;. it is hard to review an astounding musical effort when one of its elements is organically rejected by my own body and the other half not... ( That is one of the main reasons I turned towards electronic-prog; they rarely sing over there; less have Main Vocalist!) Art Bears: "Hopes and Fears" is the perfect 4 Star album for people who are not pissed off with this kind of impossing type of singing; and also like early obscure post-Henry Cow; Frith. Hodgson or Cutler efforts. I wish I was one! But I can´t!....If you have a karaoke player 3.5; if you are like me; 3... towards; "how would it have sounded in an only instrumental environment?..... Great!

Alan

Just as Henry Cow's In Praise of Learning is part of a symbiotic pair with the more Slapp Happy-focused Desperate Straights, so too is the first Art Bears album a symbiote with Henry Cow's Western Culture.
Specifically, during the recording sessions for a followup to In Praise of Learning, it was clear that the band members no longer saw eye to eye, with some wanting to refine their complex instrumental work whilst others wanted to apply their avant-garde techniques to song-oriented material. The instrumentals were tinkered with further and eventually emerged as Western Culture; the songs were bequeathed to the Art Bears as a sort of inheritance and came out as Hopes and Fears.
For my part, whilst I consider Western Culture to be the pinnacle of Henry Cow's accomplishments, I think Hopes and Fears is equally good, so I'm glad the band decided to develop in both directions even if it led to the disintegration of the Cow as a single unit. Opening with a little Brecht (On Suicide), the Bears reveal themselves to have excellent instincts when it comes to refining the abrasive avant-garde ideas developed by Henry Cow into the basis for songs, and there's more melody here too.
I feel that Henry Cow often spent too much time being weird for weird's sake, often going so far as to deliberately shun anything melodic or attractive or approachable as compromising their vision (this tendency seemed to reach its peak on In Praise of Learning), whereas the Art Bears see no reason to limit the tools available to them, taking the best of the avant-garde and the mainstream alike. Ultimately, this results in pieces which are at once more accessible than Henry Cow's work yet, at the same time, also manage to be just as revolutionary in their own way.

W. Arthur

Really, there's not much more to say that other reviewers haven't said already. But, mainly out of love for the genre, this is the second shift in this great revolving doorway that came out of Henry Cow.
I, for one, enjoy this even more as it is so much focus on composition, and by god, Dagmar absolutely is now in her element. The stripped down arrangements are magical and yet hard hitting. The Rock element is also in full swing on a few tracks, and this is why I love these performers - they do what the music calls for, regardless of expectations or prejudices.
As this (and HC) introduced me to my first taste of RIO (which I now can't get enough of!) I am still stunned every time I listen to this masterwork. The Art Bears box is worth pursing if you haven't any of these, or what the definitive mastering of the gifts from these talented individuals.
I appreciate the disclaimer that pops up when giving 5 stars on Progarchives, but I must give it the High Five!
Long live RIO in this purest form.

Thomas May

I didn't always think highly of this album, but time has caused it to grow on me. The various phases of this extended lineup - from Henry Cow to Slapp Happy/Henry Cow to Art Bears to News from Babel to...is in large part one of continual progress. Henry Cow was a great band, but that incarnation was only the beginning. The songwriting here is more mature, less "scatter-brained" than your typical Henry Cow affair (minus Western Culture, which was written around the same time) - all of the diverse elements of jazz, folk, rock, and chamber music are still present, but they are employed towards writing interesting music, where Henry Cow would sometimes lose itself in a jumble of brief, interchangeable jam sessions that were complex but ultimately uninteresting.
This record is rather uninviting to initial listening for several reasons. The first is the RIO love of atonality and dissonance; the second is the sparse instrumentation, compared with the busy approach of traditional progressive rock and previous efforts by the band; the third is the fact that the instruments were recorded in the studio at separate times and before the songs themselves were completed, so the pieces were composed without an initial cohesion between all of the members. Nevertheless, not all music has to be warm and fuzzy, and if you penetrate the austere veneer, there are a couple songs that are strikingly emotional (On Suicide and Piers being my favorites).
The record is not without flaws. There is one track in particular, In Two Minds, that I see as an utter failure. Everything is bad about it - it drags, its melodies are overwrought and pretentious, its lyrics are laughable (and you thought LIving in the Heart of the Beast was stupid...). It tries to pick things up with a Who-sounding piano bridge, but Dagmar's voice is just not suited to what is going on at all - her acrobatics come off as desperate, and she can't hold the song together. Some fine instrumental work near the end does come close to salvaging it. This is the album's only real low point - other flaws in the record are rather minor (such as the lyrics to "Joan," which sound like something off the worst 80's metal cheese - yuck).
Other than those minor pitfalls, this is for the most part great stuff. It's still not as good as News from Babel, nor the Cutler/Krause/Glandien collaboration, Domestic Stories, but it's certainly a league above the early RIO of the 70's.

1791 Overture

Aquí tenemos otra de las aventuras musicales que comenzaron con Henry Cow, uno de los grupos más politizados no solamente de la historia del rock progresivo sino de la historia del rock en general. Seguramente la fuerte incidencia ideológica de izquierda, forjado en pequeños actos y campañas políticas donde comenzaron a tocar y que a lo largo de 10 años sembraron no el éxito, sino un inmenso campo cultural que hoy sigue vigente, aunque no de manera conocida ni masiva (particularidades que nunca estuvieron presentes en la historia de estos músicos). El legado de estos monstruos sigue viviendo en múltiples grupos que siguen desafiando las convenciones, todo lo que puede ser estructurado y el status quo del entramado musical. Ya loo había dicho Frith en una entrevista de 1976: "No hacemos afirmaciones políticas de manera pasiva. Estamos haciendo lo que los artistas considerados revolucionarios no hacen, esto es, agrandar las fronteras de nuestros medios de expresión. La música es nuestro trabajo, nuestro arte. Cambiamos la música introduciéndole nuestros mensajes y esto, con el tiempo, tiene un efecto revolucionario".
Y el tiempo pasó y pasa, y su música sigue siendo culturalmente revolucionaria, mientras múltiples frutos son el resultado de lo plantado.
Señores, éste es un disco los revolucionarios del sonido en un disco imperdible para oídos aventureros.