Brand X
Livestock

Sometimes interesting and innovative music groups have the only fault of being born and growing in an era where their musical niche is saturated by a few, essential giants. In the case of Brand X, we are talking about the years when the world of jazz-rock was totally, understandably blinded by Weather Report. It is not surprising that the records of this excellent English band had to wait a long time before gaining notoriety and some decent sales results...

One has to go back quite a few years to meet a young and talented drummer, still with a flowing mane and a love for both jazz-rock and progressive, who at the time had not yet found the magic formula that would allow him to string together one commercial success after another, such Phil Collins... Our young hopeful, with illustrious past experiences in the best Genesis lineup, calls upon the excellent guitarist John Goodsall from Atomic Rooster, keyboardist Robin Lumley, and the acrobatic bassist Percy Jones. The lineup is quite flexible, with the help of several percussionists, and Kenwood Dennard replacing Collins when he's busy with Genesis.

I will certainly not be the first to notice a certain tendency toward baroque and redundancy in the bands of the era, but Brand X stands out by keeping a "low profile," decidedly against the trend, making irony and understatement one of their strong points. An elusive and enigmatic group starting from their name, which was born almost by chance - a studio technician didn’t know how to label the tapes and wrote "brand X" on them - to the album covers, always balancing between mocking and surreal.

Although it is the result of two different sessions and the audio quality is not formidable, this 1977 record presents a band in great form and allows all the musicians to show themselves in the best light, both as instrumentalists and as composers. The tracks are intricate and fascinating, notably the live rendition of the classic "Euthanasia Waltz". The opening "Nightmare Patrol", with its mysterious progress and its Arabic keyboard convolutions, is the best introduction to the band.

The live dimension allows Brand X to showcase what they do best: long electroacoustic rides immersed in a saturated and aestheticized atmosphere, with Goodsall and Jones displaying their stringed mastership. A perfect fusion of jazz improvisation and progressive aesthetics. Goodsall performs in hyper-technical passages that often bring up flamenco scales, while Percy Jones proves to be a wizard of the fretless bass, an instrument little known at the time, played by him and a few others, including a certain Pastorius, just to mention the top of the class...

As already mentioned, Collins is part-time replaced by drummer Kenwood Dennard, another who hung around in grandfather Zawinul and uncle Jaco's circle (again the Weather Report! but then it’s a habit!). The figure of percussionist Morris Pert gains greater prominence, also an excellent composer.

Although technically gifted, our guys prefer to forgo flexing their muscles in an aggressive and dissonant sound, instead building a solid interplay filled with small unpredictable delights, all seasoned with a good dose of disenchanted British humor and a contagious enjoyment of playing. The entire album (as the previous "Unorthodox Behaviour" and "Moroccan Roll", highly recommended) is permeated with a sparkling freedom and an almost irreverent informality, very seventies.

Later Collins, busy building a villa in Beverly Hills, will leave the band, which will continue with different lineups, always revolving around Goodsall and Jones. The quality level of subsequent works will always remain respectable (also very good "Masques"), nevertheless losing the freshness of the early days.