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Gilgamesh: Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into
GilgameshAnother Fine Tune You've Got Me Into
Charly
1978
Today's Rediscovery pays tribute to a musician who has been dead for over 30 years but whose brief body of work remains a seminal part of the British Canterbury scene that included groups like Soft Machine, Caravan and Hatfield and The North (see the Rediscovery column on Hatfield's superb second and final studio recording, 1975's The Rotter's Club).
Keyboardist Alan Gowan may have passed away of leukaemia at the too-young age of 33, but beyond literally (and remarkably) playing until the last possible moment on Before a Word is Said (Europa, 1982)—a collaboratively monikered recording that, also featuring Hatfield alum
Phil Miller
guitar1949 - 2017
Trevor Tomkins
percussionb.1941
Like many other Canterbury groups including (early) Soft Machine, Hatfield and The North and National Health, Gilgamesh demonstrated a self-effacing approach to blending a jazz sensibility within a rock context that prevented its music from sounding too pompous, excessive or self-important. Gilgamesh had no vocalist, and so the levity is all in the music, despite its writing—most of it by Gowan—being defined by plenty of complex twists and turns, knotty thematic constructs and meter changes that made it, no doubt, as much a challenge to play as it could be to hear.
That said, like its Canterbury cousins, Gilgamesh managed to be somehow accessible—even if it was one of the sub-genre's more oblique groups, often criticized in the progressive community for being "too jazz." If its self-titled 1975 debut on Caroline Records leaned a little more on the progressive side, Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into is the more jazz-centric of the two recordings it made during Gowan's lifetime (Cuneiform Records later released a most welcome compilation of previously unreleased recordings from 1973-1975, Arriving Twice, in 2000).
By the time Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into was recorded in June 1978—a year after Gowan had left National Health, the band he co-founded with Hatfield's
Dave Stewart
keyboards
Hugh Hopper
bass, electric1945 - 2009
Elton Dean
saxophone1945 - 2006
The two records couldn't have been more different. While Soft Heap does, indeed, have composer credits that make clear this is an album predicated on composition, it is of a much freer nature than the music on Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into, rendering it rejected even further by rock-oriented Canterbury fans looking for more detailed structure in their music and less open-ended improvisational forays.
By the time of Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into, Gilgamesh had gone through significant personnel changes. Only Gowan and guitarist
Phil Lee
guitar, electricb.1943
Graham Collier
composer / conductor1937 - 2011
Michael Gibbs
tromboneb.1937
Jeff Clyne
bass, acoustic1937 - 2009
Don Rendell
saxophoneb.1926
Michael Garrick
piano1933 - 2011
Ian Carr
trumpet1933 - 2009
Still, despite all the jazz credentials that underscore Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into, it's a record that fits comfortably in the progressive vein with Gowan's writing and penchant for electric piano and a soft, pliant synthesizer tone. And for all the complex form, there are plenty of solo opportunities, including Lee's extended solo on the opening "Darker Broghter," one of five Gowan compositions on this seven-song, 35-minute album. Gowan, too, takes the chance to solo at length on the 10-minute "Bobberty -Theme From Something Else," his lithe synth riding above a delicately ambling foundation from Hopper and Tomkins. And for those unconvinced of Lee's undervalued status, his nylon-string solo miniature,"Waiting"—which closes the first side of the original LP—should be evidence enough.
Gowan would be recruited to rejoin National Health in 1979, touring with the group through 1980, despite there being no new studio albums—Cuneiform one again righting that wrong decades later by releasing Playtime (2001), culled from two live shows from this previously undocumented lineup.
With only 13 recordings documenting Gowan's strengths as both a performer and composer, there's precious little that remains of his short but, in his circles, influential life. In 1982, a briefly reformed National Health released the tribute album D.S. Al Coda (Europa), with the core group of Dave Stewart, guitarist
Phil Miller
guitar1949 - 2017
Annie Whitehead
tromboneb.1955
All the more reason, then, to pull Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into off the shelf and rediscover why Alan Gowan remains such an important figure in the history of the Canterbury scene.
So, what are your thoughts? Do you know this record, and if so, how do you feel about it?
Tags
Gilgamesh
Rediscovery
John Kelman
United Kingdom
London
Phil Miller
Trevor Tomkins
Dave Stewart
Hugh Hopper
Elton Dean
Pip Pyle
Phil Lee
Graham Collier
michael gibbs
Jeff Clyne
Don Rendell
Michael Garrick
Ian Carr
Annie Whitehead
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