Speechless (Fred Frith album)

Infobox Album
Name = Speechless
Type = Studio album
Artist = Fred Frith


Background = orange
Released = 1981
Recorded = France and Switzerland,
July-August 1980
USA, April 1980
Genre = Avant-progressive rock
Length = 43:47
Label = Ralph (USA)
Producer = Fred Frith, Tina Curran, Etienne Conod, Robert Vogel and Francois Riether
Reviews =
*"Allmusic" Rating|4|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:gb6wtr7tkl7x link]
*Piero Scaruffi (7.5/10) [http://www.scaruffi.com/vol3/frith.html link] | Last album = "Gravity"
(1980)
This album = "Speechless"
(1981)
Next album = "Live in Japan"
(1982)
Misc = Extra chronology 2
Artist = Fred Records
Type = Studio
Last album = "Step Across the Border"
(2003)
Fred Frith
(RēR/FRO 03)
This album = "Speechless"
(2003)
Fred Frith
(RēR/FRO 04)
Next album = "Middle of the Moment"
(2004)
Fred Frith
(RēR/FRO 05) Extra album cover
Upper caption = CD releases
Background = CadetBlue


Lower caption = Fred Records CD release. The cover includes a detail of the original Ralph Records (1981) cover.

"Speechless" is a 1981 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. It was Frith's third solo album, and his second for Ralph Records, a record label set up and run by American art rock group The Residents. It was recorded in France, Switzerland, and the United States, and featured French Rock in Opposition group Etron Fou Leloublan on the first side of the LP record, and Frith's New York City band Massacre on the second.

While "Speechless" is a studio album, some of the tracks were extracted from a Massacre concert, and later manipulated and overdubbed in the studio. The album cover artwork was prepared by Tina Curran, Frith's wife at the time. cite web |url=http://calyx.club.fr/bands/related.html |title=Related Canterbury bands |work=The Canterbury Website |accessdate=2006-11-21 ]

Content and reception

On "Speechless", Frith continued the exploration of world folk and dance music that he began on "Gravity" (1980), his previous solo album. Here, however, he combines the music with chunks of found sounds and field recordings using studio editing techniques. The tracks on the album vary from folk and melodic pieces (including the waltz ballad "Domaine de Planousset"), to noisy avant-garde rock ("A Spit in the Ocean"), to layered sound collages ("Speechless"). Some of the taped sounds integrated into the music include a street demonstration on the track "Carnival on Wall Street", and the rhythmic pulse of a malfunctioning water pipe on the title track. cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/bfxm/ |title="Speechless" review |work=BBC Music |first=Peter |last=Marsh |accessdate=2006-11-21 ]

Rock critic Peter Marsh, in a BBC Music review, describes the album as "beautifully progressive musicmaking that doesn't take itself too seriously."

Two live versions of "Domaine de Planousset" were later recorded by Frith:
*"Domaine Revisited" by Fred Frith and René Lussier in October 1986 at the 4th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada and released on "Nous Autres" (1987);
*"Domaine de Langendreer" by Keep the Dog in mid-1991 at the Bahnhof Langendreer in Bochum, Germany and released on "That House We Lived In" (2003).

Track listing

;Side One
#"Kick the Can (part 1)" (Frith) – 2:19
#"Carnival on Wall Street" (Frith) – 2:51
#"Ahead in the Sand" (Frith) – 3:16
#"Laughing Matter" / "Esperanza" (Frith) – 7:47
#"Women Speak to Men; Men Speak to Women" (Frith, Curran) – 5:39;Side Two
#"A Spit in the Ocean" (Frith) – 2:17
#"Navajo" (Frith) – 3:05
#"Balance" (Frith) – 5:04
#"Saving Grace" (Frith) – 1:57
#"Speechless" (Frith) – 3:05
#"Conversations With White Arc" (Frith, Laswell) – 1:14
#"Domaine de Planousset" (Frith) – 2:59
#"Kick the Can (part 2)" (Frith) – 2:14On Side Two, tracks 1, 4 and the end of 2 were recorded live at a Massacre concert at CBGB in New York City, April 1980, and were altered and added to later in Switzerland; track 6 is an unaltered improvised piece from the same concert.

Personnel

ide One

*Fred Frith – guitar, violin, mellotron, organ and bass guitar (1), voice (3)
*and Etron Fou Leloublan:
**Guigou Chenevier – drums, tenor saxophone and voice (3)
**Bernard Mathieu [Credited as Margot Mathieu in the LP liner notes.] – soprano and tenor saxophones, voice (3)
**Ferdinand Richard – bass, guimbarde, voice
**Jo Thirion – organ, harmonium

Guests

*Tina Curran – recorders, unusual edits
*Roger Kent Parsons – bagpipes (4)
*Bob Ostertag – field tape recordings

Production

Recorded at Studio Freeson, Pujaut, France and at Sunrise Studios, Kirchberg, Switzerland in July and August 1980.
*Francois Riether – engineer (France)
*Etienne Conod – engineer (Switzerland)
*Robert Vogel – engineer (Switzerland)

ide Two

*Fred Frith – guitar, violin, keyboards, bass guitar (3,5,8), drums (2,3), voice
*and Massacre:
**Bill Laswell – bass guitar
**Fred Maher – drums

Guests

*Steve Buchanan – snake saxophone (2)
*George Cartwright – alto saxophone (1, 2, 4)
*Mars Williams – baritone saxophone (1, 2, 4)
*Tina Curran – recorders, bass guitar (2,7)

Production

Recorded at CBGB, New York City, United States in April 1980 and at Sunrise Studios, Switzerland in July and August, 1980.
*Charlie Martin – engineer (USA)
*Etienne Conod – engineer (Switzerland)
*Robert Vogel – engineer (Switzerland)

CD reissues

*In 1991 East Side Digital and RecRec Music re-issued "Speechless" on CD with six additional tracks:
#"The Entire Works of Henry Cow" (Frith) – 1:00 (a tape collage of Henry Cow's entire discography, prepared for Morgan Fisher's 1980 "Miniatures" project) [cite web |url=http://www.morgan-fisher.com/discogpages_e/miniatures.html |title="Miniatures" |work=Morgan Fisher's homepage |accessdate=2007-03-30]
#"So Schnell Ich" (Frith, Laswell, Maher) – 3:25
#"I'm Still Here and I Know What Time It Is" (Frith, Curran) – 1:06
#"No More War" (Frith, Gore) – 4:46
#"Typical American Family" (Frith) – 1:01
#"Dig" (Frith) – 3:07
*In 2003 Fred Records issued a remastered version of the original "Speechless" LP with no extra tracks.

References

External links

*amg | id = 10:gb6wtr7tkl7x | label = Speechless
* [http://home.arcor.de/nyds-exp-discogs/frith.htm Fred Frith discography]