Nucleus
Elastic Rock

If we take jazz, add rock, and dive everything into a progressive environment, among the many chimeric possible combinations the Nucleus would undoubtedly stand out. A relatively little-known band, awarded far below their real merits. Led by the trumpeter Ian Carr, a Scotsman and herald of Miles Davis in Europe, Nucleus positions themselves as a sound laboratory of extraordinary technical competence and commendable artistic inspiration. Theoretically external to prog, they are positioned to the right of certain exponents of the Canterbury scene, especially the Soft Machine, whose framework would later include some elements (Karl Jenkins, John Marshall, and Allan Holdsworth) that exited Carr's orbit.

Here we focus on their debut, the extraordinary Elastic Rock, from 1970, which contains in a nutshell all the ideas, drives, and trends that would animate Nucleus for more than fifteen years. It is an album that went somewhat unnoticed, without great flashes or epochal compositions, but this should not mislead; we are faced with a completely new musical experience, a union of jazz-rock with avant-garde instances that we can without hesitation classify as the most experimental and technically polished progressive. Ian Carr surrounds himself with an ensemble of some of the best jazz musicians in the British scene, among whom the drummer John Marshall, the reed player and keyboardist Karl Jenkins (one of the group's minds), and the imaginative guitarist Chris Spedding, who embodies the rock soul, undoubtedly stand out; the line-up is completed by the bassist Jeff Clayne and the saxophonist Brian Smith.

The programmatic intention of the album is clear from the first glance. Firstly, the elegant and sober cover already reveals what we are heading towards: the glowing magma on the black doubles, like the nucleus of a cell, and reproduces itself through constant and spontaneous budding. And then the very title, "Elastic Rock", which speaks to us of a particular conception of music, seen as a magmatic bubbling that crystallizes from time to time into unique yet indivisible, balanced and never banal, alluring and surprising sound experiments.

It is difficult to describe such a work track by track, as the compositions flow into one another like lava rivers, creating a constant current that gently carries the listener and immerses them in a completely unexpected condition of movement. The title track is emblematic, a calm instrumental digression supported by soft bass and drum rhythms, light wind inlays, and a guitar that weaves with invaluable class, while Striation sees the entrance of what seem like strings and creates a subtly unsettling atmosphere. Taranaki resumes the atmospheres and themes of Elastic Rock and serves as an introduction to the splendid and surprising Twisted Track, which unfolds in a fabulous guitar arpeggio, sweet and hypnotic.

Supported by a discreet yet very solid rhythm section, the piece features various trumpet and sax solos that intersect; it gradually builds up and becomes more muscular towards the end, and the effect is of an exotic contamination that speaks a new language between jazz and rock, certainly a masterpiece. Crude Blues is divided into two parts, the first is practically a poignant oboe solo that introduces a nice jazz-rock piece with guitar and winds working jointly and in call and response, while this time the oboe sketches lively figures. A manifesto of the group arrives, 1916 - Battle Of Boogaloo, powerful and decisive with the imperious wind breaks on the guitar theme; a much more powerful and energetic edition, with the addition of original vocal inserts, will be recorded a few months later for the group’s second work, We'll Talk About It Later, and will certainly become one of their most famous tracks.

Following is Torrid Zone, a nine-minute composition in constant crescendo that seems a summary of what has been listened to before: the rhythm is precise and marked, almost hypnotic, the winds first produce isolated bursts and then unleash themselves in dream solos, always with Spedding’s genius guitar working with absolute precision and the remarkable work of the imaginative Marshall. Earth Mother, fused with the previous experimental and unsettling Stonescape,  opens with a rhythmic style now characteristic and sees the oboe in the spotlight: Jenkins shows his class with a fabulous and evocative solo. After a lightning-fast and astounding drum solo where Marshall gives his best, the album closes with Persephone's Jive, a piece with a somewhat less experimental atmosphere, quick and impetuous, almost a divertissement.

Nucleus's debut is an album absolutely to be rediscovered; their "progressive" way of viewing jazz-rock gives birth to an unmistakable style, which will better take shape in subsequent works. The value of Elastic Rock, a value that will be less evident over the other albums, is that it is a record that flows smoothly yet unrelentingly like molten rock, it saturates and plunges us into a whirling and shifting dimension, conquering us so swiftly that it is almost impossible not to listen to it from beginning to end. Once the instruments are silenced and the music fades away, everything around us appears for a moment absolutely and desperately still.