OFF: New Frond (was: Re: OFF: Public Service Announcement?)

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Fri, 24 Aug 2012, Paul Mather wrote:

 	<snip>

> Double yikes!  I just discovered that The Bevis Frond released an album 
> after _Hit Squad_ that I don't have!  Where can I get ahold of this?  I 
> thought Woronzow Records had folded?????

 	This mail has been sitting in my INBOX for so long that now 
there's *another* new Frond album out. But I didn't actually see anyone 
answer the question, so, as I understand it, it's like this:

(1) Woronzow ceased operations as a full-scale label because the taxman 
had them under investigation and because Nick had family problems that 
required his attention (his mother was ill). This isn't private 
knowledge, I hope, I'm fairly sure this was in an interview with Nick 
online somewhere.

(2) It still exists as a company, though, so presumably the taxman was 
satisfied and Nick still releases his stuff through it.

(3) You can buy these things, and also digital and sometimes physical 
copies of *all other Frond stuff*, via their site at Bandcamp:
http://bevisfrond.bandcamp.com/
though the very newest one doesn't yet seem to be there.

(4) _The Leaving of London_ has some very lovely stuff on it, I like it 
better than _Hit Squad_ but it does seem to be the second half of the 
album before my ears really prick up to it. The second half is as sharply 
worded and musically beautiful as the Bevis Frond ever gets, though, 
albeit not as jammed-out and psychedelic (but see 6 below).

(5) I found out about that album the same way I found out about the new 
one, _White Numbers_, which is not a way I ever expected to hear about 
Frond albums: a friend of mine who reads Mojo texted me about the album 
because Mojo had reviewed it and he knew I'd care. Mojo review the Bevis 
Frond? What? etc.

(6) The new one, which presumably Mojo had in advance, is apparently a 2CD 
with one 42-minute improvised track called `Traditional Home-Made Electric 
Jam'. Since `House of Mountains' is nearly my favourite Bevis Frond track, 
I'm looking forward to this. Amazon's product description gives us more 
detail:

 	"The Bevis Frond's 21st album. 'White Numbers' is the logical 
successor to 2011's 'The Leaving Of London', not simply in that it's the 
next album, but because it follows on in the style of great songs played 
well in an esoteric, but totally musical panoply of styles. If there was 
one complaint about the last record, it was that there were not enough of 
the Frond's signature guitar wig-outs. Woronzow is therefore happy to 
inform one and all that this aberration has been well and truly rectified 
with the inclusion of a 42 minute instrumental. Eschewing the 'less is 
more' theory, 'White Numbers' comes as a double CD and triple vinyl 
release, containing 24 new titles."

Yes, I have been known to make that kind of complaint, I am very very 
happy to have this problem addressed...

(7) I haven't managed to make it to the last few years' gigs because until 
recently they've been advertised on Yahoo Groups and Facebook and not 
elsewhere. But this was a good time to look up the website as I find there 
that they are playing London's 100 Club on July 13th! So the fates are 
with me. I will hope to buy a copy of the new album!

That concludes this answer to a question from ten months ago, yours,
 								     Jon

ObCD: Ici Maintenants - _Space and Time_, which I can't play without 
recalling that I bought it from Trev, may he not be forgotten.
-- 
   Jonathan Jarrett       "There is scarce any tradition or popular error
Medievalist historian    but stands also delivered by some good author."
        Oxford           (Sir Thomas Browne, "Pseudodoxia Epidemica", 1646)