Western Culture is Henry Cow’s final album, and their most disciplined: two side-long instrumental suites, one by Tim Hodgkinson and one by Lindsay Cooper, recorded by a band that had already decided to dissolve. Released in 1979, it is chamber music played with the force of rock, and the most unified record they ever made.

The short version

Western Culture (1979) is the fifth and last studio album by Henry Cow, cut in Switzerland by the four-piece of Tim Hodgkinson, Lindsay Cooper, Fred Frith and Chris Cutler, with the trombonist and violinist Annemarie Roelofs as guest. It is entirely instrumental: side one holds Hodgkinson’s suite ‘History and Prospects,’ side two Lindsay Cooper’s ‘Day by Day,’ her major composition for the band. Tight, ferocious and beautifully recorded, it is a magnificent ending.

A band that had already ended

The sessions that produced Western Culture began in January 1978 at Sunrise Studios in Switzerland, and they broke the band apart. Fred Frith and Chris Cutler wanted to record songs; Tim Hodgkinson and Lindsay Cooper wanted purely instrumental composition. In the end the material divided along the same line. The songs went out as Hopes and Fears, credited to a new group, Art Bears, formed by Frith, Cutler and singer Dagmar Krause, who was no longer part of Henry Cow. The instrumental music became this album. By the time it appeared, Henry Cow had formally ceased to exist; they honoured their remaining tour dates and, released from the strain of holding the group together, played rather well.

The sound

This is Henry Cow at their most rigorous. The two suites are properly composed rather than assembled, and the playing is razor-sharp: reeds, brass and woodwind carry the melodies, Fred Frith doubles on bass and guitar, and Chris Cutler drums with a jazz musician’s finesse and a rock musician’s weight. Nothing is wasted, and every instrument cuts through the mix without crowding the others. The music is austere, angular and often thrilling, drawing on modern classical writing, klezmer inflections and the chamber tradition, yet it moves with a physical force that no ensemble of clarinets and bassoons has any right to.

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The songs

Tim Hodgkinson’s side opens with ‘Industry,’ something like deconstructed heavy metal — the drums lope with real weight while the time signature slides beneath them — before the brooding ‘The Decay of Cities.’ Hodgkinson has said, revealingly, that the titles were invented only after the music was finished; his compositions carried no literal message, and it was Chris Cutler who named them. Lindsay Cooper’s ‘Day by Day’ fills the second side, moving between klezmer-tinted melody, sweeping rock and pure modernism, hopscotching across time signatures while developing its themes with real command. The closing ‘Half the Sky’ is the album’s only vocal moment.

Reception and legacy

Western Culture arrived as a posthumous document and has grown in stature ever since. It is the most structured and best-recorded album Henry Cow made, and it is Lindsay Cooper’s finest hour as a composer. Even Hodgkinson’s own reservations about parts of his suite have not dented its reputation. The record also marks the moment the band’s ideas outgrew the band itself: Chris Cutler went on to found Recommended Records, the label at the heart of the Rock in Opposition movement Henry Cow had convened the year before, and every member built a formidable career in experimental music.

The verdict

Western Culture is the best place to start with Henry Cow, and perhaps the only avant-prog album that newcomers can love before they understand it. Wordless, uncompromising and superbly played, it has the shape and rigour of a modern classical work and the punch of a rock record. Come for the crushing swing of ‘Industry,’ stay for the beauty and invention of Lindsay Cooper’s ‘Day by Day,’ and hear a band ending exactly as they wished, on their own terms and at full strength.

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