release date: Jun. 16, 1969
format: digital (28 x File, FLAC) (2021 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,66]
producer: Frank Zappa
label: Zappa Records / Bizarre Industries - nationality: USA
3rd studio album by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band (here: a sextet) follows 8 months after the album Strictly Personal (Oct. 1968). As a start, let's just conclude that this very album is 'beyond'... Just beyond... anything! It's unlike anything else, and for that alone, it's worth paying attention to. Whether you like the content - its musical statement - or not, because it tampers with the idea of music as such. At the point of the release, I guess people thought of it as a band effort and generally thinking of Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band as a unit of sorts - like that of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and / or Frank Zappa and the Mothers - without comparison but with the idea of a band with a leader, and in this case with Don Van Vliet fronting His Magic Band (sometimes refered to as 'The Magic Band'). And to some extent that perception makes sense; and then on the other hand, when comparing His Magic Band over the years, it appears much more of a one-man project with shifting collaborators - of sorts. Yes, a few of these reappear over many albums but already here, only drummer & percussionist John French plays on all three albums up until this point. Guitarist John Cotton (here credited as 'Antennae Jimmy Semens') was included in the band on the predecessor but this is the first with guitarist Bill Harkleroad (credited as 'Zoot Horn Rollo'), bassist Mark Boston (credited as 'Rockette Morton'), and bass clarinet player Victor Hayden (credited as 'The Mascara Snake') - alledgedly, names that Van Vliet came up with. The album was released as a double vinyl album on Straight Records and with Frank Zappa as sound engineer and producer. Much has been said about this specific album. There are testimonies indicating that much of the recordings were taped live in the studio, or with the band playing instruments in one room and with Don Van Vliet contributing with vocals in another room. And then there's the story of how an untrained Van Vliet composed and made the basics of the songs on a piano (an instrument he didn't know how to play) after which John French transcribed Vliet's instrumental pieces into musical notations that he then handed out to individual instrumentalists to play on their instrument in whatever way the music had been transcribed to fit the specific instrument. Other ideas were used as creative ideas such as having the individual band members sit in isolated rooms playing their part while they couldn't hear the others - same approach was used for recording Vliet's vocal, which resulted in out-of-sync passages that were used as they were recorded, and then there are stories suggesting that Van Vliet insisted on day-long rehearsals which included sleep deprivation and little food intakes to maximize attention to the individual parts - as a way to become a part of the instrument itself.
I first came across this album in the early 80s at the local library. I was immediately attracted by the front cover, which I somehow found appealing. That cover told me what was inside it, was something special. I took the album home and understood absolutely nothing of it and thought of it as unappealing chaotic noise - a mistake. Over the years, I have come across the album at various stages of my life, and each time, I have discovered something new about it, found out that little bit more - and found it increasingly more fascinating. Needless say, the album is longtime a musical treasure and the good old Captain Beefheart has become an icon.
The album wasn't a big contemporary success - hardly any of Captain Beefheart albums experienced major commercial success, although, this one did reach number #21 in the UK. In retrospect however, none of his albums have been rejected as musical failures, which I guess has to do with Van Vliet's mission as an artists: to create music free of conventions [this is not a statement by Van Vliet but my assessment]. There's no doubt that Van Vliet was inspired by early American music and he is nonetheless regarded as one the most genuine original blues rock vocalists. As a composer, he was quite unconventional and an untamed figure. He was always motivated by ideas of creativity and has always found his music labelled as avant-garde. Yes, it's experimental but he appears to have been inspired by free jazz and world music, and what he pursued was perhaps a confrontation of the perception of how music is established as a concept. Why and when do we understand something as music?
Trout Mask Replica is a... wonderous one-of-a-kind release. It's an extensive listen with around 80 mins. playing time. Some regard it as a stunning masterpiece, others see it as more of a non-sensical piece of formative artistic matter. The latter group of people, I find, often reject the album instantly, or quite early. Regardless, how people experience the album, there's no doubt that artists have and will continue to be inspired by its ideas and its output, which in essence comes from an unrestricted form. The album consists of 28 fragments of music - some tracks may sound alike and yet they all give you a taste of patternless music, paradoxically, with obvious traits of patterns. An overwhelming thing about it is that it was produced in 1969 and still sounds as something quite new. And did I mention, it's experimental? Actually, it's quite experimental and could be a bit of overwhelming to listen to in one long take. I'm still in doubt about how to regard it entirely - I guess, I might never will, I'm not a genius but not few have called Van Vliet just that. He may have been living in a period of acid heads but his ideas still made a lot of sense. Just the title of the album is something, isn't?! What is a 'trout mask'? And then a 'replica'! "Ah, the good old 'trout mask' but as a replica! The title itself plays with conception of an idea, of what is art and what sense does it make when we roll a dice and change the rules?
The album is not entirely a pleasant listen, but it surely has its moments. Fragments are there, binding it together for an instant before dissolving and reappearing as something else. Rhythm patterns are not continous. Nothing is. It means, you probably won't be listening to this as a nice background tapestry for any social arrangement. You may not want to put it on while driving with your family, and so on. It's something that require your attention. Pieces and fragments are both funny and absolutely strong. As something with music pleasure potential, I would hand it 1 out of 5 stars. I'm still thinking 4 out 5 and understand critics who see it as 5 / 5 when you see it as a statement that challenges out perception of how music is constructed. And then I land on 3,5 / 5 because of its musical 'qualities'... though, what is quality when speaking of music? And this is the kind of questions you may have to ask yourself when listening to this, which basically proves its worth. I really enjoy it but for various reasons and at various times.
Definitely recommended.
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