STACK #123 Jan 2015

MUSIC

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DID YOU KNOW? Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson has written a beginner’s guide to Indian cuisine, available only on the internet.

Jethro tull War Child 40th Anniversary

”I was flying by the seat of my pants,” Ian Anderson

sheepishly admits. Folly, obviously, in tights and codpiece. Hence the stillborn fate of Jethro Tull’s 1974 film-musical, War Child . John Cleese was going to write it. Donald Pleasance volunteered to play God. Dame Margot Fonteyn was up for a ballet cameo. What remains of the mooted project is spread over four fascinating discs and 80 belief-beggaring pages here, including bits of Anderson’s “conceptual treatment” and ten quite lovely orchestral tracks, fully realised by arranger David Palmer. Nine appear for the first time on this epic prog-folk revelation. A dozen more “associated recordings”, DVD video and 5.1 audio complete a stunning act of rock’n’roll overreaching from the days when bricks were thick as. Prog’s go-to remix guy Steven Wilson ensures the original 10 tracks – amply distinguished by Bungle In the Jungle , Skating Away and Only Solitaire – come up glittering like the Melbourne skyline inexplicably featured on the cover. Chrysalis/Universal Robert Wyatt Different Every Time from the 19-minute serve of sweetly meandering Soft Machine weirdness circa 1970 to Submarine , from Bjork’s a capella Medulla project. But the guy with the spooky reed where his voice should be is such an elegantly eccentric ingredient to the whole UK prog-art-jazz- Latino punch, that everything he touches comes up Robert Wyatt. Disc one of this essential retrospective, Ex-Machin a, swerves through the tragicomic plea of Matching Mole’s God Song via the bent music hall of Yesterday Man to a choral waft of his last solo LP, Comicopera . Disc two, Benign Dictatorships , samples a wild range of guest appearances including Cage, Eno, Manzanera, Floyd’s Nick Mason, Elvis Costello’s Shipbuilding and Hot Chip’s We’re Looking For a Lot of Love . For fans it’s a handy marshalling of disparate material; for adventurous novices, a vital invitation from your next favourite mad uncle. Domino/EMI/Universal There’s one thing that remains the same on Different Every Time . Sure, it’s a hell of a twisty ride

This month Michael Dwyer helps Wilco celebrate 20 years, reassesses a Jethro Tull curiosity, and spends time with Robert Wyatt.

W hat’s Your 20 is a fine way to celebrate Wilco’s 20th birthday. The generous anniversary package has two discs and 38 songs: some of the best bits from eight albums going back to the raggedy alt-country of I Must Be High through to the skewed riff-pop of Born Alone . It stops by the Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie/ Mermaid Avenue homestead and the Beatlesque glow of Summerteeth, and wedges in a good half of the benchmark that made a damn fool of the American music business and roused an indie cult to critical mass, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot . But somehow, with this band, it seems more fitting to take the road less travelled. Alpha Mike Foxtrot tells the same story from a parallel universe: a four-CD slipcase job with most of the same tracks represented in demo or live incarnations and, in the words of producer Cheryl Pawelski, “almost every unique, essential performance that appeared on soundtracks, tribute albums

and B-sides.” Cue, for instance, Wilco covers of Big Star, Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Ernest Tubb, Bob Dylan, Nick Lowe, Daniel Johnstone and Steely Dan. Steely Dan!? “I don’t know,” Jeff Tweedy reflects in his track-by-track notes, “I wouldn’t want to listen to this song.” He’s equally unguarded about the rest. Bong Session dictaphone demos of Childlike and Evergreen and Someone Else’s Song summon anecdotes that are hugely revealing about his ambition and process. His personal notes of pride and disappointment comprise a mosaic of deliberate intentions and brave gambles throughout. One-off collaborations with Syd Straw, Fleet Foxes, Feist, Roger McGuinn, Andrew Bird and the Blisters speak for themselves. The rest of the story, from the demise of Son Volt to the extraordinary bond Wilco has nurtured with a passionate global audience, is told in hype-free and intelligent style by band members, associates, and a ton of photos. Warner Music

• Metallica Kill ‘em All • Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti Coming Soon

JANUARY 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au/music

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