Gravity by Fred Frith

Gravity is a 1980 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith from Henry Cow and Art Bears. It was Frith's second solo album and his first since the demise of Henry Cow in 1978. It was originally released in the United States on LP record on The Residents's Ralph record label and was the first of three solo albums Frith made for the label. Gravity was recorded in Sweden, the United States and Switzerland and featured Frith with Swedish Rock in Opposition group Samla Mammas Manna on one side of the LP, and Frith with United States progressive rock group The Muffins on the other side. Additional musicians included Marc Hollander from Aksak Maboul and Chris Cutler from Henry Cow. Gravity has been described as an avant-garde "dance" record that draws on rhythm and dance from folk music across the world. Allmusic called it one of the most important experimental guitar titles from Fred Frith. Many of the tracks on Gravity consist of melodic lines woven into complex rhythmic structures taken from different folk music cultures. The time signatures are not the standard 3/4 or 4/4, but more complex signatures like 15/8. Frith described in an interview how he arrived in Uppsala with his carefully written music sheets, only to find that Samla Mammas Manna could not read music. But when he played the music to them, he was "stunned by their ability to hear the details, especially the rhythmic details, that I had written." The title of the album came from a 1937 quote by Curt Sachs (printed on the back of the album sleeve) in which he described dance as "the victory over gravity". In 1980 Ralph Records also released a single from the album, "Dancing in the Street" b/w "What a Dilemma". It did not chart on any of the major music charts. Frith called Gravity a "dance album", not in the disco/funk sense of its day, but a collection of "dance music" drawn from cultures around the world. The album features an array of rock, folk and jazz instruments, plus field recordings, clapping and "whirling", and has been described as a "musical hybridization" of "Latin percussion, calypso festivity, eastern-tinged percussion Klezmer-like celebration". "The Boy Beats the Rams" opens Gravity with a burst of laughter followed by some tap dancing, "random" percussion and Frith's "distinctive keening" violin. On "Spring Any Day Now" Frith mixes a bossa nova rhythm with a North African melody. "Don't Cry For Me" features Greek mandolin with heavy metal guitar. "Hands of the Juggler" draws on Middle Eastern folk dance, "Slap Dance" is a Serbian "folk romp", and "Career in Real Estate" is in the tradition of a Scottish fiddle tune. "Dancing in the Street" is a "de/reconstruction" of Martha and the Vandellas's 1964 hit that includes a "bizarrely harmonised guitar" playing the song's melody over a "boiling mass of feedback" and tape manipulation.According to the album's sleeve notes, this track also includes a recording of "Iranian demonstrators celebrating the capture of American hostages". "Crack in the Concrete" features an e-bowed guitar over "edgy, dissonant chords" and a "massed kazoo choir of horns" that presages Frith's experimental rock band Massacre he formed in New York City in February 1980. "Norrgården Nyvla" flows into "Year of the Monkey" which ends with a brief sample of the 13th Puerto Rico Summertime Band, "ten seconds of the real thing" according to the LP liner notes. In the January 1983 edition of Down Beat magazine, Bill Milkowski wrote that in contrast to Art Bears's "bleak attitude", Frith's Gravity is a "truly joyous solo LP, an extremely warm, almost whimsical album". Thomas Schulte at Allmusic described it as an "entertaining and multicultural pocket folk festival" and said it was "one of the most important guitar-based, experimental guitar titles from the avant-guitarist". In a BBC Online review of Gravity, Peter Marsh called it "Absolutely essential", adding that it "manages to be wildly eclectic yet avoids incoherence". Brandon Wu of Ground and Sky said that despite his "relative indifference" to the album, one of Gravity's great strengths is that it is both accessible and avant-garde. Gravity inspired a 2003 album Spring Any Day Now by David Greenberg and David McGuinness with the Concerto Caledonia. Subtitled "Music of 18th century Scotland and elsewhere", the album includes covers of two tracks from Gravity, "Spring Any Day Now" and "Norrgården Nyvla", and a track from Frank Zappa's Roxy & Elsewhere (1974), "Echidna's Arf (Of You)". Frith continued his exploration of folk and dance music on his next album for Ralph Records, Speechless (1981). As with Gravity, he recorded Speechless with two bands, French Rock in Opposition group Etron Fou Leloublan on one side of the LP, and Frith's New York City group Massacre on the other. The album included extensive tape manipulation, which was an ongoing passion of Frith's at the time. Personnel: Side one: Fred Frith – guitar, bass guitar, violin, extra percussion Samla Mammas Manna: Lars Hollmer – piano, organ, accordion Hans Bruniusson – drums Eino Haapala – guitar, mandolin Marc Hollander – alto saxophone, clarinet Guests: Olivia Bruynhooghe – tap dancing, clapping Chris Cutler – snare drum and maracas (track 3), clapping Tina Curran – whirling, clapping Catherine Jauniaux – whirling, clapping Frank Wuyts – recorders (track 6), whirling, clapping Michel Berckmans – clapping Etienne Conod – clapping Denis van Hecke – clapping Veronique Vincent – clapping Recording and production: Gabriel Rosen – engineer (Sweden) Etienne Conod – engineer (Switzerland) Recorded at Norrgården Nyvla in Uppsala, Sweden and at Sunrise Studios, Kirchberg, Switzerland in August 1979. Side two: Fred Frith – guitar, bass guitar, violin, keyboards, drums (tracks 1,5,7) The Muffins: Dave Newhouse – alto saxophone, organ (track 4) Thomas Scott – soprano saxophone (track 6) Paul Sears – drums (tracks 1,2,4,6,8) Billy Swann – bass guitar (tracks 2,4,6,8) Marc Hollander – alto saxophone, bass clarinet Guests: Hans Bruniusson – drums (track 4) Tina Curran – subliminal bass guitar (track 1) Frank Wuyts – drums (track 3) Recording and production: Thomas Scott and Colleen Scott – engineers (USA) Etienne Conod – engineer (Switzerland) Recorded at Catch-a-Buzz Studio, Rockville, Maryland, United States in November 1979 and at Sunrise Studios, Kirchberg, Switzerland in January 1980. Artwork: Alfreda Benge (Robert Wyatt's wife) – album cover artwork on the original LP record: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8b/FredFrith_AlbumCover_Gravity%281980%29.jpg ℗ 2005 RER Megacorp