Rising up from the dissolution of This Heat, Camberwell Now featured the vocals and drums of Charles Hayward, the field recordings and tape manipulations of Steve Rickard, and the bass, vocals, and ukulele of Trefor Goronwy. Extant from ’83 to ’87, the group delivered a consistently stimulating blend of avant-garde tendencies, progressive rock practices, and astute social awareness on two EPs and an LP; in a splendid turn Light in the Attic subsidiary Modern Classics is offering “Meridian” and “Greenfingers” as The EP Collection alongside The Ghost Trade on September 23. For those blown away by Modern Classics’ This Heat reissues from earlier in 2016, here is the next step.
As detailed by Charles Hayward’s notes for The EP Collection, the music that sets Camberwell Now’s chronology into motion was initially intended for a revived This Heat; this is why Charles Bullen plays bass on “Cutty Sark,” the piece taking shape as part of an intended song cycle on “imperialism, trade, and global exploitation.”
The desire to rekindle This Heat foundered, but Hayward’s aim for cultural commentary was much more successful; “Meridian,” issued in 1983 on the Duplicate label in what seems to be its sole release, stands as one of the stronger instances of socially engaged music to have flown under its decade’s radar. It also sets into motion one of its era’s most distinct entities; by extension, Camberwell Now remain amongst the freshest.
This is in part due to a non-didactic approach avoiding simple sloganeering as it shines a light on the past from the vantage point of the present; Hayward’s opening lines: “I dream of empire, I dream of sailing in ships/ A fortune beneath their decks/ Heavy with cargo, copper and ivory.” Leaning closer to literature than to the protest rally, “Meridian”’s aforementioned tryptic encourages contemplation as middle section “Trade Winds” lacks a lyrical component entirely.
The instrumentation is vigorous throughout, though at this early phase Camberwell Now is subtler than This Heat, shedding post-punk elements for an avant-prog sensibility considerably enhanced by Rickard’s command of a device called the tape switchboard. Designed to manipulate eight (and later ten) tapes from an abundant cache of field recordings and studio-derived sounds, the tactic lends an undercurrent of distress to “Pearl Divers” and establishes the titular qualities of “Splash.”
In a manner analogous to early analogue synths, the tape switchboard wasn’t programmed but played as an instrument, if an unusual one; ultimately, it enhances the human factor of “Meridian” and combines splendidly with Hayward’s autoharp on “Splash.” The results are pretty dissimilar to much else happening at the time, though “Spirit of Dunkirk” does exude a Euro art-rock aura that saw Camberwell Now fitting very snuggly into the roster of Recommended Records.
Said company helped release The Ghost Trade in 1986 as the Ink label issued the disc in the UK. Whereas “Meridian” can be aptly synopsized as stressing the trio’s avant-garde nature, their sole LP amplifies the prog side of the equation, a shift that can be at least partially attributed to Hayward’s observation that having effectively become a group brought the necessity of amassing material appropriate for the live stage as they simultaneously explored the potential of the tape switchboard.
They succeeded with flying colors; The Ghost Trade is more immediately song oriented and is at times accurately assessed as a rocking affair. This is especially the case with opener “Working Nights” and penultimate track “Green Lantern,” though both integrate elevated (but never flashy) instrumental expertise; instead, Hayward and Goronwy intermesh with precise verve amid the engaging melodicism.
In art-rock terms anyway, “Green Lantern” is a contagious little number (but to be fair so is “Spirit of Dunkirk”), as Rickard’s input, as valuable here as Allen Ravenstine’s synth work was to early Pere Ubu (maybe even more as this is a trio), underscores the gripping uniqueness of Camberwell Now and situates The Ghost Trade as an undersung classic.
The tape switchboard is in fine form during “Daddy Needs a Throne,” a former bonus track previously found on the collected-discography CD All’s Well (and before that on the Ritual: Magnetic North compilation cassette on Touch). For this edition, it gets sequenced between “Working Nights” and “Sitcom,” where it deftly accentuates the enduring commitment to social commentary.
I hesitate to use the term political, for Camberwell Now refreshingly avoid the overused method of targeting those in power and the policies they implement; rather, the song topics examine the daily existence of the band’s fellow citizens. Along the way attention is also paid to injustice and the stultifying nature of economic systems, in particular existence under Thatcher.
If this reads as dry, that’s way off base; “Speculative Fiction” is inspired by the television program The Outer Limits, specifically the episode “I, Robot” (as based on the short story by Earl and Otto Binder), while “Green Lantern” is connected in part to the DC Comics superhero. The closing title track even opens with the sound of kazoos.
This brings us to “Greenfingers.” Having added Maria Lamburn to the lineup on soprano and tenor sax, piccolo flute and viola, the set retains its predecessor’s sharper emphasis on songs as the opening title cut, “Mystery of the Fence” and most of all Goronwy’s composition “Know-how” illuminate a growing undercurrent of highly advanced catchiness.
Call it avant-pop; unsurprisingly given Lamburn’s contribution, there is no diminishment in the overall musicality as the breadth of instrumentation and the savvy in its implementation persist; this goes double for Rickard as his ingenuity is in full flower across the sadly too brief “Element Unknown,” the piece lending both “Greenfingers” and Camberwell Now’s existence a fitting coda.
The EP Collection adds “Resplash,” a fruitful branching-off from the “Meridian” cut, and “For Those in Peril,” an adaptation of a 19th century hymn, to its download; as neither appeared on All’s Well (they were originally released on Sub Rosa’s Myths. Instructions 1. LP in 1984), those whose fandom of the group derives from that CD should take note. The tracks definitely add value, but The Ghost Trade still stands as Camberwell Now’s apex; the combination of intelligence, energy, and ability has rarely sounded as good.
The EP Collection
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The Ghost Trade
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