Hatfield and the North – debut album
Is it rude to question whether Hatfield and the North had been listening to The Soft Machine’s eponymous 1968 debut and its 1969 follow up Volume Two, prior to taking to the studio themselves for this, their own self-titled 1974 debut?
Probably not, as the fact of the matter is Hatfield and the North sprang from the same Canterbury scene that nurtured The Soft’s own growth, and if that wasn’t enough Hatfield and the North (the album), also features a guest spot from Robert Wyatt, whose offbeat vocals and drumming were so memorable on those early Soft Machine albums.
But to continue equating Hatfield and the North to The Soft Machine is as predictable an opening gambit as likening Flash to Yes, or, heaven forbid, writing an entire review that does little else… ahem. So I won’t.
Instead, it’s worth taking a look at the pedigree of the band, whose members were made up of assorted faces from the Canterbury psychedelic and prog alumni. There was Caravan’s Richard Sinclair on bass and vocals; Matching Mole’s Phil Miller on guitars; sometime Gong associate and future National Health member, Pip Pyle on drums; and last, but not least, the ubiquitous keyboard noodle Dave Stewart, who had been a member of Egg and Khan, and would go on to play with Gong as well as forming National Health. Also present is Spirogyra’s Barbara Gaskin, providing backing vocals as one third of The Northettes.
There was always a certain jazz influence present in the groups that formed either as a direct result or in the wake of The Wilde Flowers, the band whose rotation of members is regarded as the nucleus of the Canterbury scene. This could be heard to a certain extent on early Soft Machine (moreso on later albums, once they’d done away with vocals and straddled the satanic mount of jazz-fusion), later Caravan, and bubbling away at all Canterbury stops in between.
Hatfield and the North is no exception to this rule.
Now then, if you read this poor excuse for a website with unhealthy regularity, there’s the outside chance you’ll already know where I stand when it comes to the four letter word that is “jazz”. Many a day or three has been lost to jazz-induced comas, brought on by unwittingly tuning into Radio 3 at exactly the wrong time. As such, jazz CDs get short shrift at HFoS towers. Short shrift and a quick re-pressing beneath the rear wheels of the wife’s runabout.
Even so, the aforementioned early Soft Machine, Caravan and certain other subscribers to the “Canterbury sound”, don’t provoke such a hostile response, for the simple reason that the “jazziness” is only one element fermenting in their progressive brew. Hatfield and the North also keep the lid on the music form that dare not speak its name, and as such this debut (one of only two albums the band recorded) hasn’t been resigned to the HFoS scrapheap, where those unloved and unwanted CDs are cast without so much as a farewell or their bus fare home.
That said, Hatfield and the North has a bloody good crack at trying the patience in parts. It follows the same format as The Soft Machine debut with the songs, though individually titled, blending into one overall, eclectic piece, spanning each side of the recording. Despite the number of ideas evident throughout, there’s a tendency for meandering and aimless self-indulgence, which can grate, particularly when coupled with the somewhat subdued arrangements and vocal deliveries, reminiscent of some of the more languorous offerings from Caravan. I blame the jazz contingent.
Still, if you can get around that, there might just be enough here to keep the unwary listener entertained. It’s certainly not completely unlistenable guff, and as I said before, it still enjoys the occasional run-out on the HFoS sound system. There’s also an all-pervading sense that lyrically Hatfield and the North are serving up good old-fashioned English filth. Of course, there’s nothing to back this up, only an overwhelming suspicion that innuendo is imminent throughout. Now it would be rude to grumble at that.
So there you are, accomplished without mentioning The Soft Machine once… What? Oh. Nevermind then, perhaps next time.
Hatfield and the North is reissued with bonus tracks and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk
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