Reviews: News From Babel – Sirens And Silences / Work Resumed On The Tower (1984)

Sirens And Silences / Work Resumed On The Tower is News From Babel’s first studio album.

Drummer Chris Cutler is best known for his prominent role in the pioneering avant-prog band Henry Cow. After the demise of Henry Cow in the late 70s, Cutler released three excellent albums with guitarist Fred Frith and vocalist Dagmar Krause under Art Bears name. Art Bears came to the end of their run in 1981 with the album The World As It Is Today, although the Art Bears trio came together as Duck And Cover in 1983 when they performed with Cassiber at the Berlin Jazz Festival. Cassiber, founded in 1982 and focusing on improvised music, was Cutler’s central project in the years after Art Bears.

The classically trained wind player Lindsay Cooper (bassoon and oboe are her main instruments) joined Henry Cow on the band’s second album Unrest. Over the years he became a major composer and half of Henry Cow’s last studio album Western Culture (1979) was written by her. After Henry Cow, Cooper made a couple of excellent soundtrack albums, Rags (1981) and The Gold Diggers (1983). Cutler played on the former album, so his connection with Cooper continued in the years after Cow.

After the break-up of Art Bears, Cutler was able to satisfy his improvisational side with Cassiber, but he also wanted to return to song-based music. In 1983, Cutler proposed such a project to Cooper, who was immediately interested. Cutler brought in Zeena Parkins (b.1956), an emerging classically trained harpist who had not previously played in a ”rock band”. In fact, a major motivation for Cutler to form News From Babel was that he wanted to play with Parkins in a band context. The quartet was completed by vocalist Dagmar Krause, who had been living a musical hiatus since Art Bears. The result was a rare rock band in which three out of four members were women.

The News From Babel name was inspired by George Steiner’s book After Babel and Cutler has said he was attracted to the idea of a band whose albums would be like news broadcasts from a doomed, yet hopeful place. Steiner’s book deals with linguistics and in particular with the ”problem of Babel”. The Tower of Babel relates to the biblical story of man in his hubris building a tower reaching for the heavens. Outraged by this, God took revenge on mankind and mixed up the languages of men into thousands of different fragments. A fair fellow, that God.

Read also Review: Henry Cow – Leg End (1973)

Conceptually, News From Babel can be seen as a direct successor to Art Bears. Like Art Bears, News From Babel had Cutler entirely in charge of the lyrics and Cooper took Frith’s place as the band’s principal composer. Like Art Bears, News From Babel sought to combine vocal music with avant-garde techniques. Cooper is, however, quite different from Frith as a composer. What both composers have in common is an interest in modern art music and an attempt to bring elements of it into rock music (we are talking about rock music in a very broad sense). However, Cooper was not as interested as Frith in mixing influences from folk music of different cultures in his music, but she drew inspiration for her own music not only from art music, but mainly from early cabaret and stage music. Many of Cooper’s compositions could be described with the somewhat ambiguous phrase ’avant-garde nostalgia’.

Compared to Art Bears, News From Babel also has a more chamber music feel, with Frith’s guitars and keyboards replaced by Cooper’s bassoon and saxophones, Parkins’ ringing harp and humming accordion. On the other hand, a clear link to Art Bears is of course Krause’s original vocals. However, Krause’s singing is more restrained on this album and there are none of her typical extreme outbursts, which reinforces the chamber music character mentioned earlier.

However, Sirens And Silences / Work Resumed On The Tower is not just chamber music-like whispering, but also contains some very energetic and spine-tingling parts where Cutler’s agile drumming is really let loose. And while the instrumentation is mostly acoustic, Parkins sometimes plays an electrified harp and Cutler rattles around on electric drums here and there. The album also features a few guests; Phil Minton plays trumpet on two tracks and sings on one. Georgie Born from Henry Cow plays bass guitar on one track.

Sirens And Silences / Work Resumed On The Tower’s music is sometimes very quiet and delicate, but on the other hand, it can be wildly violent. The compositions are dynamic and the music is constantly surprising. Although the songs are built around singing they don’t follow the pop song format but News From Babel’s songs are more like a modern take on art music songs. Although there are occasional repetitive verses, News From Babel, with a few exceptions, does not indulge in such bourgeoisie and both the lyrics and the music are in constant motion, constantly changing shape. Cutler’s lyrics for Krause are again very dark and at times very pessimistic. But this time they are not quite as overtly political as they often have been.

Pipes and wells
Ran like a wen
Steel mosquitos
Tore my
Skin

Black Gold

My own no more
I mangled men
I spat their gore

Black Gold

Lue myös

Sirens And Silences / Work Resumed On The Tower consists of two long suites of about 16 minutes, ”Sirens and Silences” (six parts) and ”Work Resumed on the Tower” (three parts) which have given the album its awkward name. In fact, it is a little unclear whether the official title of the album is Sirens And Silences / Work Resumed On The Tower or the shorter Work Resumed On The Tower. On the back of the original vinyl it just said Work Resumed On The Tower, but at least nowadays the album seems to go by its longer name. Confusingly, sometimes also in the reverse form Work Resumed On The Tower / Sirens And Silences. Which of course makes no sense as the suites are in the opposite order on the album.

The two suites on the album are not particularly clear entities, but there are clear pauses between the songs, and it would perhaps be better to speak of song cycles. ”Sirens And Silences” is the more subdued of the two suites, and on the other hand, more experimental. Its highlights are ”Auschwitz/Babel”, where the drums are effectively punctuated by the sounds of shattering glass, and the propulsive ”Black Gold”, where Krause sings in a breathtakingly high voice and Born’s intermittent bass guitar provides a muscular contrast. In between these extremes, Cutler’s drums bang with typical unpredictability as Cooper’s saxophone and Parkins’ harp join in now and then. The chaotic and rhythmic finale of ’Sirens’, ’Dry Leaf’, is also an impressive listen.

”Work Resumed On The Tower” is a more natural and coherent whole. It’s also a bit more melodic and easier to listen to than the more challenging first half of the album. The most exhilarating section of ”Tower” is its opening ”Arcades (Of Glass)” which runs largely on Perkins’ fast harp runs, occasionally pausing to take in Cooper’s atonal blasts. ”Anno Mirabilis”, which closes ”Tower”, is a fine piece of music too. The fateful and downright declarative sounding music reaches a climax when, after a gorgeous instrumental section following Krause’s vocals at the beginning, the song turns into a duet with the dramatically roaring Phil Minton. The last word, however, goes to Krause who sings the final verse with heartbreaking beauty.

News From Babel’s debut manages to be both a natural continuation of the work begun by Henry Cow and Art Bears and to create something completely new and personal. It is an absolute avant-prog classic.

Ultimately, News From Babel remained a studio project due to logistical issues, and released a second studio album, Letters Home, in 1986. On that album, the main vocal responsibility went to Robert Wyatt, with Krause appearing only as a guest on a few tracks.

Best tracks: “Auschwitz/Babel”, “Black Gold”, ”Dry Leaf”, ”Arcades (Of Glass)”, ”Anno Mirabilis”

Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Read also: Review: Fred Frith And Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles – Something About This Landscape For Ensemble (2023)

Tracks

Sirens and Silences:

1. Odysseus (2:56)

2. Auschwitz/Babel (4:07)

3. Klein’s Bottle (3:17)

4. Black Gold (3:09)

5. Devils (1:16)

6. Dry Leaf (2:51)

Work Resumed on the Tower:

7. Arcades (of Glass) (7:44)

8. Victory (5:19)

9. Anno Mirabilis (4:08)

News From Babel

Dagmar Krause: vocals Lindsay Cooper: bassoon, soprano and alto saxophones, piano, organ Zeena Parkins: prepared and electric harps, accordion Chris Cutler: drums, electronics

Guests

Phil Minton: trumpet (8,9), vokaalit (9) Georgie Born: bass guitar (4)

Producer: News From Babel
Label: Recommended

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