The Art Box

EDITORIAL REVIEWS
This 6 cd boxset compiles all 3 of Art Bears studio albums in new digi-packs, plus 3 bonus disks of remixes, rarities, previously unreleased live recordings, and 1 new song. The whole box is beautifully packaged, and also includes 2 information booklets, one of which features many rare photographs and in-depth liner notes by band members.

REVIEW
The first thing you read in the sleevenotes to this lavish 6 CD set are some statistics; In their existence of less than two years, the trio of Dagmar Krause, Fred Frith and Chris Cutler spent 40 days in the studio. In the same amount of time it probably took Pink Floyd to get a drumkit miked up, they'd recordedsome of the most carefully crafted (and indeed timeless)music you're ever likely to hear. As you might expect from three former members of avant agit progsters Henry Cow. this isconfrontational stuff. Indeed, I was requested by a colleague to remove the CD from the BBCi Music office stereo about a minute in to the first track. In an environment where Derek Bailey, Bartok, Blazin' Squad and even Yes are tolerated on a daily basis, that's some achievement. Carefully wrought dissonances, angular folk tunes, sudden shifts in dynamics, dense layers of spectral drones, slabs of noise, topped off with Dagmar's strange, elastic Sprechstimme; these are the tools of the Bears' trade. Their three albums tackle different themes; the first, Hopes and Fears is the loosest as a concept, mixing Brechtian observation (a cover of his "On Suicide" opens the record), political allegory and RD Laing-inspired studies of schizophrenia.The record had actually started life as a Henry Cow album, but even here it's clear that Frith, Cutler and Krause were on a different path; the songs were shorter, more focussed, built layer by layer in the studio rather thaneked out on manuscript and in rehearsal. Winter Songs saw the trio extend their use of the studio as instrument into studio as compositional tool. Collages, loops, jump-cut edits and adventurous (yet lo-fi) recording techniques give these songs a distinctive, timeless sonic fingerprint. Cutler's texts draw their inspiration from carvings at Amiens Cathedral;they're economical observations of archetypal characters, obscure mythologies and philosophical observations.The music ispowerful, unnerving, and gorgeous. Driven by Cutler --Peter Marsh, BBC

Number of Discs: 6

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