Track Listing

1. Stubbs Effect
2. Big Jobs
3. Going Up To People And Tinkling
4. Calyx
5. Son Of There's No Place Like Homerton
6. Aigrette
7. Rifferama
8. Fol De Rol
9. Shaving Is Boring
10. Licks For The Ladies
11. Bossa Nochance
12. Big Jobs No 2
13. Lobster In Cleavage Probe
14. Gigantic Land Crabs In Earth Takeover Bid
15. Other Stubbs Effect
16. Let's Eat (Real Soon)
17. Fitter Stoke Has A Bath

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19157 in Music
• Released on: 1987-06-29
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Purposeful Whimsy
The Hatfields were the archetypal Canterbury rock band - good musicianship, modest egos, whimsical lyrics, a dash of student humour, a litle jazz, a little rock, complex time signatures and myriad sometimes vulgar key changes (often in mid phrase). The band's personnel tied them in to every other Canterbury band to varying degrees, whose interchange of ideas helped formulate the unique Canterbury "sound". Thus it is no surprise to see Robert Wyatt on one song, Jeremy Baines or Geoff Leigh on another.
The songs on the album frequently flow from one to the next with little discernible break, and vary in length from a few seconds to 15 minutes. THe distiguishing Hatfield sound consists of Richard Sinclair's poignant, melancholy voice, his fluent bass playing, and Dave Stewart's omnipresent keyboards. Less prominent are Phil Miller's understated jazzy guitar and Pip Pyle's drumming. Unusually a female choir - branded as "The Fabulous Northettes" augments the vocals with occasional beautiful aplomb. Outstanding tracks for me are Homerton on side one, and the strangely sad (yet typically meaningless) Fol de Rol, on which the phone rings half way through, which Sinclair answers, and the callers can be heard singing the chorus of the song from the other end! The song ends abruptly with the sound of the phone wordlessly replaced on the receiver.
Hatfield & The North are one of the few bands from the Seventies I can still listen to with pleasure, perhaps because they never made enough money to take themselves seriously, and with their short musical catalogue they left a small enthusiastic following yearning forever in vain for more.

Progressive Masterpiece
A fantastic debut album from the canterbury supergroup.
This is what progressive rock's all about - complex yet enjoyable music.
The band obviously doesn't take itself as seriously as other prog bands often do, and the result is a great, fun album.

Progressive Genius
I've just listened to this debut album of Hatfield and the North, for the first time in 15 years (recently purchased the Caroline import CD). I have no reservations in telling the uninitiated that this is a work of pure genius in the progressive mode. Hatfield were the "marrying" together of four brilliant musicians : Dave Stewart (keys), Pip Pyle (drums), Richard Sinclair (Bass and Vocals) and Phil Miller (guitars), from progressive groups in and around the London/Canterbury area in the early 1970's.

Formed from such groups as Matching Mole, Egg, Gong, Caravan etc. This album was recorded at a time when fans such as myself believed that there was indeed somewhere to progress too. They were covering new ground, synths were still relatively new and not the glorious polyphonic keyboards that the modern digital studios use today. However, some of the sounds produced by the moog on his album would still favourably grace themselves on any new recording.

Most satisfactory tracks are Going up to people and tinkling (a beautifully phrased jazz meandering on the fender rhodes from Mr Stewart, ably accompanied by inventive playing from the rest especially Richard Sinclair on Bass), Calyx a track that includes guest star Robert Wyatt on vocals (Wyatt performs a solo "scat" which suggests the melody throughout and is reminiscent of Matching Mole, but is nonetheless sublime).

Probably, the finest track on the album is Fol de Rol (Sinclair) which again drifts along in melodic jazzy style and features a stunningly understated solo by Richard Sinclair on Bass.

Personally, I have always thought that this album along with Gong's You take over the progressive baton where Pink Floyd's Dark Side left off. Hatfield went on of course to later (1975) produce the prog rock jewel in the crown with the Rotters Club, an album which deserves 10 stars.

If you are in the business of investigating prog rock starting in the mid 70's your shillings won't be wasted here some 30 years later...awesome!