•
Rating: Editor's Note: With this review, I am breaking one of the fundamental dogmas that govern my debaser ethics: publishing "duplicate" reviews. So I first apologize to myself for giving in to the hubris of believing that my writing is better than the one already present (because let's face it, redoing reviews already written by others to give "a different perspective on the album" is often poorly disguised false modesty) and in turn to the aforementioned reviewer.
It is difficult to attempt to classify or even describe in broad terms the sonic chaos that comprises "Trout Mask Replica", the third endeavor of Captain Beefheart, known in life as Don Van Vliet, harmonica player, clarinetist, singer, but also painter and sculptor. And, a detail not to be overlooked, a friend and schoolmate of Frank Zappa, present here as a producer.
Even though entirely composed in a single 8-hour piano session (later arranged by drummer Drumbo), Trout Mask is anything but an "improvised" album, both musically and conceptually. The album is simultaneously a masterpiece of premeditated erosion and a courageous expansion of the boundaries of rock.
The song form had already been approached, seduced, and ravished by others (think of Zappa himself, the Fugs or the Red Krayola, just to name a few), but here the attack is even more radical, aimed as it is at undermining the very foundations of music, that is, the beat, the rhythm. One could define Trout Mask as a finely crafted deconstruction of rhythm, transcended, sectioned into individual (a)melodic lines, and finally reassembled into an alien and distant form. Distant from the blues roots of its composer, and alien to the rock scene, both contemporary and otherwise. And it is precisely this intrinsic otherness that makes it still, 38 years later, a unique work, wildly self-referential, totally uninterested in any accessibility and usability. Indeed, it had few admirers and a notable number of fierce detractors even at the time.
But what kind of music is "Trout Mask Replica" made of? In broad terms, it can be defined as a blues album, more in structure than in form; a structure upon which shards of free jazz, avant-garde music, raucous vocalizations, Zappa-esque sonic Dadaism (albeit to a lesser extent) and even (proto) hard rock intersect.
Already the opening Frownland well exemplifies the (non) structure of the work: a limping pace, two sparse guitars lost in their soliloquies, drums and bass completely free from any rhythmic constraints, and a paradigmatic blues voice that seems to follow no instrument. Added to the mix are occasionally precious free jazz solos on clarinet and sax by the Captain (Wild Life, Hair Pie: Bake 1, Ant Man Bee, When Big Joan Sets Up).
Only in isolated cases, during the almost 70 minutes of the album, are there formally less dissonant moments, such as in Ellla Guru where a timid chorus makes an appearance, in Moonlight On Vermont led by a reiterated heavy riff, in the almost canonical blues of China Pig, or in the closing Veteran's Day Poppy, a semi-instrumental track enriched by a timid slide guitar.
An added instrument the voice, now warm and baritonale (Dachau Blues), now psychotic and disorienting (Bills Corpse), now declamatory and sarcastic (Old Fart At Play), is fundamental in conferring an even more alien and alienating aura to the album.
In conclusion, an essential work, an emblem of the most free-form improvisation and a monument to the unbridled genius of an all-around artist. But, above all, an album that demonstrated how the formal barriers of "rock" could and should be broken to refresh its primal explosive and irreverent charge, flouting the formalities already in place even at the time.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Frownland (01:40)
My smile is stuck
I cannot go back t' yer Frownland
My spirit's made up of the ocean
And the sky 'n the sun 'n the moon
'n all my eye can see
I cannot go back to yer land of gloom
Where black jagged shadows
Remind me of the comin' of yer doom
I want my own land
Take my hand 'n come with me
It's not too late for you
It's not too late for me
To find my homeland
Where uh man can stand by another man
Without an ego flyin'
With no man lyin'
'n no one dyin' by an earthly hand
Let the devil burn 'n the beggar learn
'n the little girls that live in those old worlds
Take my kind hand
My smile is stuck
I cannot go back t' yer Frownland
I cannot go back t' yer Frownland
04 Ella Guru (02:27)
Now here she comes walkin'
Lookin' like uh zoo
Hello Moon Hello Moon
Hi Ella high Ella Guru
She know all the colors that nature do
High Ella high Ella Guru
High yella high red high blue she blew
High Ella high Ella Guru
She do what she mean
'n she do what she do
Got sumptin' fo' me sumptin' fo' you
She sho' sumptin'
She's young too
Ella Guru Ella Guru
Ella Guru Ella Guru
Ha ha right right
Just dig it
That's right "The Mascara Snake"
Fast 'n bulbous
Tight also
Ella Guru Ella Guru
Ella Guru Ella Guru
Ella Guru
05 Hair Pie: Bake 1 (04:59)
Woman: We just moved in around here, we heard you playing so we decided we'd come up and find out who it was.
Don Van Vliet: (laughing) Huh huh, yes, er, it's Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band.
Man: Really?
Don Van Vliet: Yeah. Where did yer move here from?
Woman: Oh, just from . . .
Man: (interrupting) Reseda.
Woman: Yeah.
Don Van Vliet: Reseda?
Woman: Yeah.
Don Van Vliet: She's nice . . . Whaddaya think?
Man and woman together: Sounds good.
Don Van Vliet: It's a bush recording. We're out recording bush. Name of the composition is "Neon Meate Dream Of An Octafish."
Woman: Hum um, nice.
Don Van Vliet: No, it's "Hair Pie."
Woman: Look at the drummer there.
Man: Huh.
06 Moonlight on Vermont (03:59)
Moonlight on Vermont affected everybody
Even Mrs. Wooten well as little Nitty
Even lifebuoy floatin'
With his lil' pistol showin'
'n his lil' pistol Totin'
Well that goes t' show you what uh moon can do
No more bridge from Tuesday t' Friday
Everybodies gone high society
Hope lost his head 'n got off on alligators
Somebodies leavin' peanuts on the curbins
For uh white elephant escaped from the zoo with love
Goes t' show you what uh moon can do
Moonlight on Vermont
Well it did it for Lifebuoy
And it did it t' you
'n it did it t' zoo
And it can do it for me
And it can do it for you
Moonlight on Vermont
Gimme dat ole time religion
Gimme dat ole time religion
Don't gimme no affliction
Dat ole time religion is good enough for me
Uh it's good enough for you
Well come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Gimme dat ole time religion
Gimme dat ole time religion
Gimme dat ole time religion
It's good enough for me
Without yer new affliction
Don't need yer new restrictions
Gimme dat ole time religion
It's good enough for me
Moonlight on Vermont
07 Pachuco Cadaver (04:40)
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast 'n bulbous. Got me?
When she wears her bolero then she begin t' dance
All the pachucos start withold'n hands
When she drives her Chevy Sissy's don't dare t' glance
Yellow jackets 'n red debbles buzzin' round 'er hair hive ho
She wears her past like uh present
Take her fancy in the past
Her sedan skims along the floorboard
Her two pipes hummin' carbon cum
Got her wheel out of uh B-29 Bomber brodey knob amber
Spanish fringe 'n talcum tazzles FOREVER AMBER
She looks like an old squaw indian
she's 99 she won't go down
Avocado green 'n alfalfa yellow adorn her t' the ground
Tatooes 'n tarnished utenzles uh snow white bag full o' tunes
Drives uh cartune around
Drives uh cartune around broma' seltzer blue umbrella
Keeps her up off the ground
Round red sombreros rap 'er high tap horsey shoes
When she unfolds her umbrella pachucos got the blues
Her lovin' makes me so happy
If I smiled I'd crack m' chin
Her eyes are so peaceful thinks it's heaven she been
Her skin is as smooth as the daisies
In the center where the sun shines in
Smiles as sweet as honey
Her teeth as clean as the combs where the bees go in
When she walks flowers surround her
Let their nectar come in to the air around her
She loves her love sticks out like stars
Her lovin' sticks out like stars
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By jodo
This album is a wild ride to the origin of sounds, between guttural screams and gramophone-era orchestras playing twenty-first-century blues.
I still certainly listen to "Trout Mask Replica" knowing it will never be remastered.
By Matteo Tarchi
You can no longer see things with the same eyes, nor hear things with the same ears, you are no longer you.
A standalone work of art, which you can hate or love, yet it stands there making history.
By CristianoDA
I don’t consider the Trout a masterpiece so acclaimed by today’s post-internet critics.
The captain was able to dismantle piece by piece every single song, deconstructing the blues canons and randomly reassembling them to the extreme consequences.
By 2000
The captain was a totalitarian schizophrenic, and he demanded that every damn thing be perfect for the creation of his albums.
The most WTF album ever: even today, many critics wonder if this is a joke or a revolutionary work.
By zaireeka
It is like facing an incomprehensible monolith similar to that of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Music as extraordinary as it is irregular, so little pleasant (in the classic sense) that you can’t even find it on Spotify.
