Customer Reviews

Flat, Baroque And Berserk

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Here is a musician and poet who has travelled a long way from his acoustic rootes. This album represents the acoustic side edged with an electro quality that at certain moments simply lifts it out of the familiar and into a more dynamic landscape. Flat Baroque and Berserk came out so long ago now, and yet it is as relevant now as it was in 1970. This album represents a groundshift in Roy's writing, due in part to the luxury of recording in a quality studio, but also because at this time Roy Harper was writing and playing with a confidence only hinted at in his earlier Folkjokeopus. From the opening lines of 'Don't you Grieve' through to the preamble this man is famous for leading into 'I Hate the Whiteman' we get the feeling that this is personal. And it certainly is. Harvest had a knack of putting out good albms that spoke from the heart during this period, (Kevin Ayers; Pink Floyd's 'Meddle') and Roy harper was the spokesperson for a generation who would later take environmental issues, metaphysics and the death of politics seriously. 'How Does it Feel' is a wonderful song. But so are 'East of the Sun - a summery song that captures a moment, and 'Tom Tiddler's Ground' - playful and evocotive. This album comes immediately before Stormcock, which is possibly one of the most carefully crafted albums to date, despite its age. But I love Flat Baroque and Bezerk because it is an album in the widest sense - with images, themes, ideas and poetry. If you like English music with a seriously defiant edge from a singer-songwriter who has a lot to say and play, then give this a spin. Roy Harper is one of England's finest songwriters. Sample the magic.

I just got the CD release on the mail and I am hearing it right now as I write these words.
I am a big acoustic music fan (from the Likes of C,S,N & Y; woodie and Aerlo Guthrie, Donovan, Bob Dylan, Country Joe McDonald, Silvio Rodriguez, Roy Brown, Pablo Milanes etc.)and this is the first time I come across Roy Harper's music although I have known about his existance since...say...forever.

I must say that a man who writes lyrics like this and plays music as honest and intense as this must be a trustworthy person and deservers my total admiration and respect. Men like these are so in need in these desperate days we are living (specially here in america). The music is intense, roughly honest but, at the same time humble and sweet. The music is huge, important and still relevant although this album dates back to 1970.
I only compare his to the writing and performing skills of cuban protest singer Silvio Rodriguez.
Harper makes Dylan seem like a washington burocrat with nothing important to say ( no offence to Bob fans).
A must have to all those interested in 60's and 70's british rock.

After a brilliant start with Sophisticated Beggar, it took a while for Roy Harper to get it right. Ghengis Smith was a messy affair and although things started shifting with Folkjokeopus, it was with Flat Baroque and Berserk that Roy cleared the table and nailed an album that proved the amazing songwriter that he was. For the first time Roy forgot about pop psychedelia or trying to get his songs played on the radio and focused his music within the folk framework where it always worked better. Not only we get more focused (and better) songs but, thanks to the striped to essential arrangements and production, there is more room for Roy's voice and guitar playing to breath. If Roy could be an excellent guitarist with a quite distinctive style, it is his singing that really shines throughout this album.

The album has two obligatory songs in the Roy Harper songbook. The album's centrepiece is "I Hate The White Man" and the title says it all - this is not the average hippy throw at capitalism, society or whatever. The song works on the thematic palette Roy had developed on "McGoogan's Blues" but with more effective results. The intro speech is a must, with a semi-stoned Roy giving a small lecture to his audience and saying how much better it is in the poor countries "with the dogs in the sun and the kids in the dirt". Personally, I find the song a bit boring but "White Man" became one of Roy's most well-known songs and its importance in his body of work is undeniable.

The other classic on the album is "Another Day" which is simply one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. It's also a requiem for an old failed relationship. Roy sings the characters' love, angst, tenderness and resignation with an outstanding, subtle performance. The self-contained emotion in Roy's singing gives the song a false calm that doesn't overshadow its drama and tension. It's a sad song but in the end it leaves you with a peaceful feeling.

Along with "White Man" the album has a number of long semi-epic songs that I find more rewarding than the former, such as "Tom Tiddler's Ground", "Goodbye" and, specially "How Does It Feel" which I would rate as the best song of the album. With lyrics that could cut through the bone of the most cold-blooded yuppie and another dramatic vocal performance, this is the kind of song that leaves you thinking. "How does it feel to be completely unreal?" he asks - "You can feel bona fide if you ride with the tide, but it's not real." Like someone wrote, Dylan was never so brutally honest.

Along the bigger tunes Flat Baroque and Berserk has a handful of lovely little songs like "Francesca" and "East Of The Sun" that balance the album toward perfection.

The only flaw on the album is the final "Hell's Angels". Not that it is a bad song. It just doesn't have anything to do with the rest. After this string of beautiful, intense songs, something I don't need is 7 minutes of psychedelic wah-wah.

In spite of the awkward final, Flat Baroque and Berserk is a masterpiece in its own right, only surpassed in Roy's catalogue by its follower Stormcock.

One last thought: the crazy sleeve photo would make a very nice double gatefold special edition. So I hope Roy finds the money to continue the work he has done with Stormcock and HQ. He certainly deserves it.

1970 found Roy Harper producing his fourth full-length LP, Flat Baroque and Berserk. It also found him cutting out the somewhat clumsy, group-oriented sounds found on Come out Fighting Ghengis Smith and Folkjokeopus and returning to the folky, acoustic sounds that typified his first album, as well as markedly focusing on the poetic lyrical heights that he was obviously capable of. As a result, Flat Baroque and Berserk is his strongest album since his debut, Sophisticated Beggar, and the first in a long line of mind-blowing classics that spanned the 1970's.

The album opens with "Don't You Grieve," a new spin on the Jesus/Judas story, told from Judas' point of view. Right away, it's obvious that Roy hasn't lost his trademark sense of humor, but where his irreverence tended to detract on earlier albums, the irony and cleverness here ties in with songs that have serious meaning--digging at religion. This occasional combination of humor and seriousness is one of Roy's trademarks, and this album is when it really starts working. Plus, "Don't You Grieve" is a pretty rocking song. Between tracks one and two is a snippet of Roy's legendary, rambling between-song banter, an essential part of this album and a glimpse into Roy's inimitable live show. Track two, "I Hate the White Man" might be Roy's most controversial song (and that's saying a lot when you talk about Roy!), a burning mini-epic that lambastes the arrogance of white culture from the inside out. In a lot of ways, "I Hate the White Man" takes up where Folkjokeopus' "McGoohan's Blues" (which saved the album and showed the dizzying heights he could reach) left off--Roy really came alive, showing his gift for breathtaking, incandescent lyrics, his skill at skewering the deluded, and an edgy use of his incomparable voice. When you hear songs like these, you start to wonder why more people don't know about Harper's music.

The first two songs are classic tunes, but through the entire rest of the album there isn't a weak track (I'll talk about "Hell's Angels" a bit later). The deceptively light "Feeling All the Saturday" juxtaposes images of Roy's infant son with images of Roy resting his "toes on the horizon"--the song was written after Roy was told by a doctor that he only had a short time to live (he was plagued by a cardiovascular disorder that was only just cured in the early 2000's and repeatedly threatened his life). "How Does it Feel" is another classic, with a soaring vocal and some great verse-to-verse rhymes. Roy's fingerstyle acoustic playing is in good form on songs like "Davey" and "Francesca," showing hints of his inimitable style and his more progressive work to come. "Tom Tiddler's Ground" is another great tune that Roy still plays live, with a mysterious lyric and a great recorder accompaniment. The song also has a classic Roy moment--when the engineer tells him the tape is "Rolling," Roy responds, "A joint? Well you better had be then, hadn't you?" The album closes with one of Roy's classic throwaways--"Hell's Angels." Until the end, it's an entirely acoustic and subtle album, until the heavy lumbering rock of "Hell's Angels" breaks the spell. It's one of the funniest album closers ever--Roy intentionally spoiling his own vibe--but it's also a potent commentary on the Angels and contains the classic line; "Free speech!! One each!!" Yet another instance of Roy paradoxically creating meaningful throwaways, and displaying an eccentricity and brilliance unmatched by any of his peers.

Overall, Flat Baroque and Berserk is one of Roy's first records that really works from start to finish (with the exception of Sophisticated Beggar), and it remains today as glittering as the day it was released. Science Friction's remaster sounds flawless. If you're just approaching Roy's music for the first time, this is a great place to start, since it's accessible, but also shows most of Roy's greatest qualities--lyrics, musicianship, wit, and voice, and hints to the out-there progressive folk territory he would soon map on his magnum opus, Stormcock.

This is an outstanding and very colorful album. one of my favorite album covers. Every song has something interesting and unique to offer although I do tend to skip over Hells Angels. Most of the songs except the fore mentioned have a folk tinge to them although you can't exactly call this a folk album even though it is primarily him and his guitar. He puts in such a brute honesty to his music that you can make no mistake that this is really how he felt as he was making this music. If your looking into getting into Roy Harper I suggest this album, HQ, Stormcock, any of the BBC Tapes, and to a lesser degree Bullinamingvase, Valentine, and Lifemask. Unfortunately, you cannot just go to a store and buy these great albums, but you can get them at the Roy Harper Web site.

If you love songs and songwriting you will love this album. Roy Harper deserves to be recognized as one of the master songwriters of the last fifty years. On this particular album, Another Day gives a perfect example of Roy's genius for telling a story with economical and vivid lyric and melody. Harper uses everyday idioms and settings -- a visit for tea, for instance, to set his characters in a solid real world, then transports us into their minds and emotions with the flick of his pen -- "I wish that I had 'cause I'm feeling so sad that I never had one of your children..." Wonderful!

This is the album (along with Stormcock) which has probably won most fans over to Harper's highly individulaistic style. Mostly acoustic (notable exception being "Hells Angels" with The Nice helping out) there are some stunningly beautiful songs here: "Another Day" is a breathless heartbreaker and "Tom Tiddler's Ground" is strangely uplifting with its fine flute accompaniment from Tony Visconti. "I Hate the White Man" is a searing, unrestrained attack on racial intolerance and just about everything. There are some charming song-snippets in between the major songs, a format Al Stewart also used on "Zero She Flies". One of Roy's best.

After a brilliant start with Sophisticated Beggar, it took a while for Roy Harper to get it right. Ghengis Smith was a messy affair and although things started shifting with Folkjokeopus, it was with Flat Baroque and Berserk that Roy cleared the table and nailed an album that proved the amazing songwriter that he was. For the first time Roy forgot about pop psychedelia or trying to get his songs played on the radio and focused his music within the folk framework where it always worked better. Not only we get more focused (and better) songs but, thanks to the striped to essential arrangements and production, there is more room for Roy's voice and guitar playing to breath. If Roy could be an excellent guitarist with a quite distinctive style, it is his singing that really shines throughout this album.

The album has two obligatory songs in the Roy Harper songbook. The album's centrepiece is "I Hate The White Man" and the title says it all - this is not the average hippy throw at capitalism, society or whatever. The song works on the thematic palette Roy had developed on "McGoogan's Blues" but with more effective results. The intro speech is a must, with a semi-stoned Roy giving a small lecture to his audience and saying how much better it is in the poor countries "with the dogs in the sun and the kids in the dirt". Personally, I find the song a bit boring but "White Man" became one of Roy's most well-known songs and its importance in his body of work is undeniable.

The other classic on the album is "Another Day" which is simply one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. It's also a requiem for an old failed relationship. Roy sings the characters' love, angst, tenderness and resignation with an outstanding, subtle performance. The self-contained emotion in Roy's singing gives the song a false calm that doesn't overshadow its drama and tension. It's a sad song but in the end it leaves you with a peaceful feeling.

Along with "White Man" the album has a number of long semi-epic songs that I find more rewarding than the former, such as "Tom Tiddler's Ground", "Goodbye" and, specially "How Does It Feel" which I would rate as the best song of the album. With lyrics that could cut through the bone of the most cold-blooded yuppie and another dramatic vocal performance, this is the kind of song that leaves you thinking. "How does it feel to be completely unreal?" he asks - "You can feel bona fide if you ride with the tide, but it's not real." Like someone wrote, Dylan was never so brutally honest.

Along the bigger tunes Flat Baroque and Berserk has a handful of lovely little songs like "Francesca" and "East Of The Sun" that balance the album toward perfection.

The only flaw on the album is the final "Hell's Angels". Not that it is a bad song. It just doesn't have anything to do with the rest. After this string of beautiful, intense songs, something I don't need is 7 minutes of psychedelic wah-wah.

In spite of the awkward final, Flat Baroque and Berserk is a masterpiece in its own right, only surpassed in Roy's catalogue by its follower Stormcock.

One last thought: the crazy sleeve photo would make a very nice double gatefold special edition. So I hope Roy finds the money to continue the work he has done with Stormcock and HQ. He certainly deserves it.

1970 found Roy Harper producing his fourth full-length LP, Flat Baroque and Berserk. It also found him cutting out the somewhat clumsy, group-oriented sounds found on Come out Fighting Ghengis Smith and Folkjokeopus and returning to the folky, acoustic sounds that typified his first album, as well as markedly focusing on the poetic lyrical heights that he was obviously capable of. As a result, Flat Baroque and Berserk is his strongest album since his debut, Sophisticated Beggar, and the first in a long line of mind-blowing classics that spanned the 1970's.

The album opens with "Don't You Grieve," a new spin on the Jesus/Judas story, told from Judas' point of view. Right away, it's obvious that Roy hasn't lost his trademark sense of humor, but where his irreverence tended to detract on earlier albums, the irony and cleverness here ties in with songs that have serious meaning--digging at religion. This occasional combination of humor and seriousness is one of Roy's trademarks, and this album is when it really starts working. Plus, "Don't You Grieve" is a pretty rocking song. Between tracks one and two is a snippet of Roy's legendary, rambling between-song banter, an essential part of this album and a glimpse into Roy's inimitable live show. Track two, "I Hate the White Man" might be Roy's most controversial song (and that's saying a lot when you talk about Roy!), a burning mini-epic that lambastes the arrogance of white culture from the inside out. In a lot of ways, "I Hate the White Man" takes up where Folkjokeopus' "McGoohan's Blues" (which saved the album and showed the dizzying heights he could reach) left off--Roy really came alive, showing his gift for breathtaking, incandescent lyrics, his skill at skewering the deluded, and an edgy use of his incomparable voice. When you hear songs like these, you start to wonder why more people don't know about Harper's music.

The first two songs are classic tunes, but through the entire rest of the album there isn't a weak track (I'll talk about "Hell's Angels" a bit later). The deceptively light "Feeling All the Saturday" juxtaposes images of Roy's infant son with images of Roy resting his "toes on the horizon"--the song was written after Roy was told by a doctor that he only had a short time to live (he was plagued by a cardiovascular disorder that was only just cured in the early 2000's and repeatedly threatened his life). "How Does it Feel" is another classic, with a soaring vocal and some great verse-to-verse rhymes. Roy's fingerstyle acoustic playing is in good form on songs like "Davey" and "Francesca," showing hints of his inimitable style and his more progressive work to come. "Tom Tiddler's Ground" is another great tune that Roy still plays live, with a mysterious lyric and a great recorder accompaniment. The song also has a classic Roy moment--when the engineer tells him the tape is "Rolling," Roy responds, "A joint? Well you better had be then, hadn't you?" The album closes with one of Roy's classic throwaways--"Hell's Angels." Until the end, it's an entirely acoustic and subtle album, until the heavy lumbering rock of "Hell's Angels" breaks the spell. It's one of the funniest album closers ever--Roy intentionally spoiling his own vibe--but it's also a potent commentary on the Angels and contains the classic line; "Free speech!! One each!!" Yet another instance of Roy paradoxically creating meaningful throwaways, and displaying an eccentricity and brilliance unmatched by any of his peers.

Overall, Flat Baroque and Berserk is one of Roy's first records that really works from start to finish (with the exception of Sophisticated Beggar), and it remains today as glittering as the day it was released. Science Friction's remaster sounds flawless. If you're just approaching Roy's music for the first time, this is a great place to start, since it's accessible, but also shows most of Roy's greatest qualities--lyrics, musicianship, wit, and voice, and hints to the out-there progressive folk territory he would soon map on his magnum opus, Stormcock.

Hello music fans!!Whatever the reason you checked in here, i fully endorse all the other reviewers have to say!Released in 1970, and still as relevant to-day, this is definitely one of Mr. Harper's most important albums-an acoustic "tour de force"!!!By now he'd recorded 3 or 4 albums & was beginning to create his amazing unique songs!With the c.d. age, i've gotta say this album just sounds WONDERFUL on compact disc!!Check out "Don't you grieve" a twist on the Judas Iscariot tale, the ever-popular "I hate the Whiteman"...all Harper fans know what an epic song this is.it was screamed for live many, many occasions in the 70's /80's ..i was there!!.."Francesca"..gee, i wish i could write a song as gentle & beautiful as this."East of the Sun".......'where our lovin' was done'.........Roy you have written some of the most beautiful,beautiful acoustic love -songs of our entire generation!!!"Folkjokeopus" has to be one of the most satisfying acoustic 'folk' albums EVER.My favourite being possibly "hOW DOES IT FEEL"?..WHAT A SONG!!A reviewer on this same site has wonderfully mentioned the fact that Roy Harper almost makes Bob Dylan seem "safe"!!!I know what he means, God bless him!!.."Folkjokeopus is an ESSENTIAL folk album of epic proportions, from a guy with one of the greatest of singer-songwriter vocals!!!-BUY!!!!!!!