Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Trout Mask Replica

THE REVIEW

In Paradise, where everything is harmony, should you ever be there, they will never play this music for you, dear Captain Beefheart.

At most, an extra-terrestrial Lucifer down in Hell might be interested in it.

Yes, because, for those who have read the story (like me) and imagine, especially if listening for the first time, it is like facing an incomprehensible monolith similar to that of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Only that this monolith is not on Earth at the Dawn of Man, nor on the Moon in 1999.

It is on Earth, yes, but in 1969 (a year after the film), and it has a door (closed), which suggests that there must be someone inside and, as the story goes, it is in the middle of the countryside and it is not black.

It has the shape of a house, and it also has semi-open windows.

From that monolith, no sound comes out when you touch it with your hands.

Every now and then, you hear someone talking, whispering, background noises, and then a voice like a lustful ogre, about an hour and twenty minutes of wild singing interspersed with surreal poems, guitar clangs, and drum beats, odd times, and not only that.

Every now and then, you hear a few whips, even a frightened flute screaming notes of pain, as if the ogre demanded a lot from his companions.

A relationship, let's say, of total creative subjugation, between the lustful ogre and the other inhabitants of the house.

All recorded live.

Now, if you have the courage, take a break and listen to Moonlight on Vermont (for a wolf, it fits perfectly), one of the more "accessible" "songs".

I listened to the Trout Mask Replica monolith for the first time, years ago, from behind a tree, so as not to be seen.

I can't play very well, especially such a wild blues like this, and I didn't want to end up like the companions.

Every now and then (as happened today) I like to take a walk in the woods and, always from behind the same tree, I start listening again, to cleanse myself from the simple pleasure of listening to music.

Music as extraordinary as it is irregular, so little pleasant (in the classic sense) that you can't even find it on Spotify (at least as an album..).

In any case, you can find it in the music of the many who were inspired by this Beefheart, primarily Tom Waits from the mid-'80s onward, and that one is on Spotify.