One Of A Kind is Bill Bruford’s second solo album.
A virtuoso drummer from Yes, King Crimson and numerous other smaller but still important prog bands, Bill Bruford began his solo career with the great Feels Good To Me album a year earlier. On One Of A Kind, the stunning core line-up from that album continues, with Bruford joined by guitarist Allan Holdsworth, bassist Jeff Berlin and keyboardist Dave Stewart. Unfortunately, vocalist Annette Peacock and Kenny Wheeler, who played smaller but still important roles on Feels Good To Me, are no longer with the band.
With Peacock’s idiosyncratic vocals and Wheeler’s elegant flugelhorn parts absent, One Of A Kind’s sound is a slightly more conventional mix of instrumental progressive rock and jazz-rock. On Feels Good To Me, the marimbos played by Bruford also played a fairly large role, but even they are mostly sidelined on One Of A Kind, although they do ring out on a few tracks.
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Although One Of A Kind sounds a bit more conventional after its predecessor, it is still full of great songs. Here are a few words about the most interesting tracks on the album.
The album begins with the effectively compact ”Hell’s Bells” which became a trademark for the band on the concert stage. On ”Hell’s Bells” Stewart’s synths buzz with a sly swagger and the band groove effortlessly in 19/8 time signature. Holdsworth plays a fiery guitar solo. The punchy three-minute track feels like a sibling to Feels Good To Me’s opening ” Beelzebub”, but it’s not quite as enchanting. The fade-out ending is disappointing.
On ”One of a Kind – Part 1” the marimbas Bruford learned for ”Feels Good To Me” make a comeback and Berlin’s bass line is great to hear. The upbeat track continues straight into the more reflective and even slightly avant-garde Part 2, which finally returns to the themes of the first part.
The longest track on the album, the six-minute ”Travels With Myself – and Someone Else” is a lyrical and beautiful song where you almost expect Peacock’s vocals or Wheeler’s flugelhorn to make a comeback, but no, the foursome gets the job done. And in style, of course. The jazzy song already anticipates to some extent the music of Bruford’s ”real” jazz band Earthworks. Towards the end, the reflective song takes a nice turn and develops in a natural way. Apart from perhaps a short and somewhat disconnected bass solo from Berlin.
Although One Of A Kind is otherwise a completely instrumental album, ”Fainting Coils” features a couple of short spoken parts snatched from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In the middle of the song, after a sizzling unison section, we hear one of the most beautiful parts of the album and Holdsworth shows that he can play the guitar emotionally as well.
In ”Five G” Jeff Berlin’s bass, with its nimble, thick sound, takes centre stage and he gets the song’s compositional credit alongside Stewart and Bruford. Stewart plays the organ on ”Five G” with a slightly more strident touch than on the rest of the album, recalling his old Canterbury days in Hatfield And The North and National Health. I would have liked to have heard more of the same from Stewart. Bruford’s drumming is great to listen to and his often surprising strikes are always a joy to hear. As is the sharp trademark sound of his snare drum.
”The Abingdon Ghasp” is a song credited entirely to Holdsworth and is of course full of great guitar playing from the master, but on the other hand it’s amazing how naturally this composition is fitted into the rest of the album’s style. Definitely one of Holdsworth’s best compositions.
”Forever Until Sunday” features a beautiful violin solo by Eddie Jobson, an old U.K. colleague of Bruford’s. The gentle and slow song is a nice respite from the otherwise hectic music. However, ”Forever Until Sunday” also culminates in a strong band playing and the guitar riff at the end reminds of Pekka Pohjola’s 80’s jazz-rock.
”Forever Until Sunday” as well as the album-closing two-piece ”The Sahara Of Snow” were played on the U.K. tour and were originally intended for the supergroup’s next studio album. Jobson gets the compositional credit for the second part of ”The Sahara Of Snow” which is a natural continuation of the style of U.K.’s debut album. Only Jobson’s icy-sounding synths are missing, but Holdsworth’s electric guitar, which alternates between tense and exuberant, makes up for it, as does Stewart’s rhythmically accompanying synthesizer in the background and a few ubiquitous runs. A great end to the album.
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One Of A Kind is an excellent hybrid of progressive rock and jazz-rock, but I personally miss the more eclectic and artistic approach of Bruford’s debut album. One Of A Kind is clearly more generic than its predecessor, and there is also something a little sterile about it. The songs are of a very high and consistent quality, but the very highest peaks are not reached. However, if the comparisons with Feels Good To Me are left aside, One Of A Kind is full of carefully crafted compositions played with dedication by master musicians.
After One Of A Kind, Bruford made one more studio album with this line-up (minus Holdsworth, who left to further his solo career), Gradually Going Tornado (1980). That third album was no match for its predecessors and with the band’s financial situation beginning to get dire it’s not hard to see why Bruford took up Robert Fripp’s call to form a new band which eventually led to the return of a radically reformed King Crimson.
Best tracks: ”One Of A Kind Part One & Two”, ”Five G, ”Forever Until Sunday”, ”The Sahara Of Snow Part One & Two”
Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI
Tracks
- ”Hell’s Bells” (Dave Stewart, Alan Gowen) 3:32
- ”One of a Kind, Pt. 1” (Bill Bruford) 2:20
- ”One of a Kind, Pt. 2” (Bruford, Stewart) 4:00
- ”Travels with Myself – And Someone Else” (Bruford) 6:10
- ”Fainting in Coils” (Bruford) 6:33
- ”Five G” (Jeff Berlin, Bruford, Stewart) 4:41
- ”The Abingdon Chasp” (Allan Holdsworth) 4:50
- ”Forever Until Sunday” (Bruford) 5:46
- ”The Sahara of Snow, Pt. 1” (Bruford) 5:18
- ”The Sahara of Snow, Pt. 2” (Bruford, Eddie Jobson) 3:23
Band:
Bill Bruford: drums, percussion, voice (”Fainting in Coils”) Jeff Berlin: bass guitar Allan Holdsworth: electric guitar Dave Stewart: keyboards, synthesizers, electronics
Guests:
Sam Alder: voice (”Fainting in Coils”) Eddie Jobson: violin (”Forever Until Sunday”) Anthea Norman Taylor: voice (”Fainting in Coils”)
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