Hatfield And The North - The Rotters Club

Year of Release: 1987
Label: Virgin Records
Catalog Number: CDV2030
Format: CD
Total Time: 63:26:00

My choice for the best Canterbury album ever, The Rotters Club is a brilliant recording, blending some of the best work from four excellent writers and musicians. This release has a bit of everything, complex, jazz influenced instrumental work, sophisticated yet direct pop with wry, witty lyrics, beautiful, sentimental love songs and the magnificent epic "Mumps" to boot. The four core members of the band all contributed to the songwriting and the results were wonderfully diverse and endlessly enjoyable.

Named after a motorway sign outside of London, Hatfield And The North took the jazz leanings of their members earlier groups (Caravan, Khan, Gong, etc?) and made them the melodic center point of the new band's music. Hatfield's music blended dissonant be bop jazz, melodic rock and complex prog to create a template for something entirely new just as symphonic prog was beginning to suffer its first wounds at the hands of punk rock and disco. The very serious genre of prog rock needed to develop a sense of humor and to show some ability to laugh at itself and The Rotters Club showed that some progressive rockers could crack a smile and that they could take a joke as well.

The Rotters Club consists of a couple of very clever and well developed pop tunes with amusing lyrics, especially Pip Pyle's "Fitter Stoke Has A Bath" and Richard Sinclair's quintessentially sunny and melodic "Share It." These tunes rubbed elbows with the bulk of Hatfield's material, which were mostly very complex jazz tracks with plenty of room for improvisation by the band's four full time members and a few guests who provided horns, flute and woodwinds. The band's signature piece, the epic "Mumps," also featured the wonderful Northettes, a trio of female background singers who were also called by some (including me) the La Girls for their most commonly sung syllable. The album was also quite notable for the presence of sax player and flautist extraordinaire Jimmy Hastings, who played his sax with a brash delight and brought forth gentle melodies from his flute, especially on Sinclair's lovely "Didn't Matter Anyway."

The jazz influenced instrumentals that made up the majority of this disc were all very enjoyable and they quite literally fly by at an alarming rate. The disc begins with the previously mentioned "Share It" and then the next four tracks all segue from one to the next, ending with another of the band's vocal tracks, "Fitter Stoke Has A Bath," which is the best track on this disc in my opinion, with wonderfully demented lyrics, coolly sophisticated melodies and some still hip scat singing from Sinclair.

This disc is also a great storehouse of fantastic instrumental performances from guitarist Phil Miller, master keyboardist Dave Stewart and the band's drummer, the late Pip Pyle. You will get to hear plenty of Stewart's brilliant playing including his trademark sound, his pulse quickening fuzz organ tones.

The Rotters Club ends with the band's very lengthy signature song, "Mumps." This 20 minute epic suite still has the best sub-titled sections ever to grace a piece of music, especially the first and fourth sections, "Your Majesty Is Like A Cream Donut (Quiet)" and, of course, "Your Majesty Is Like A Cream Donut (Loud)." This Virgin label reissue also features a couple of bonus tracks from another recent Hatfield compilation of rarities, outtakes and alternative versions of album tracks called Afters. Of particular interest are a couple that didn't appear on the original album, "Oh, Len's Nature" and "Lying And Gracing".

This release is truly deserving of its "classic" status, full of sophisticated jazz harmony, complex counterpoint and invigorating thematic material. The four band members created a precise and intense musical world that Hatfield And The North alone inhabited. The juxtaposition of highly stylized and eccentric music with their charmingly oddball lyrics made Hatfield And The North the undisputed lords of Canterbury.

Any decent collection of progressive music must include some representation of the Canterbury scene and nothing will fill that requirement better than The Rotters Club.

Tracklisting:
Share It / Lounging There Trying / (Big) John Wayne Socks Psychology On The Jaw / Chaos At The Greasy Spoon / The Yes No Interlude / Fitter Stoke Has A Bath / Didn't Matter Anyway / Underdub / Mumps: A. Your Majesty Is Like A Cream Donut (Quiet) B. Lumps C. Prenut D. Your Majesty Is Like A Cream Donut (Loud) / BONUS TRACKS: (Big) John Wayne Socks Psychology On The Jaw / Chaos At The Greasy Spoon / Halfway Between Heaven And Earth / Oh, Len's Nature! / Lying And Gracing

Musicians:
Phil Miller ? guitars
Pip Pyle - drums and percussive things
Richard Sinclair - bass, vocals, guitar (7)
Dave Stewart - organ, electric piano, tone generators

Guest Musicians:

Jimmy Hastings - flute, soprano and tenor saxes
Mont Campell - French horn
Lindsay Cooper - oboe, bassoon
Tim Hodgkinson ? clarinet
The Very Wonderful Northettes: Barbara Gaskin, Amanda Parsons, Ann Rosenthal

Discography:
Hatfield And The North (1974)
The Rotters Club (1975/1987)
Afters (1980)
Live (1990)

Genre: Progressive Rock

Origin UK

Added: February 27th 2008
Reviewer: Tom Karr
Score:
Hits: 2981
Language: english