It was somewhere around the fall of 1980. I was 17 years old, and I’d begun to hang around with the Harknesses. We lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same middle school, and shared the same tastes in comic books and music. The Harkness house was a hotbed of culture—the kind of house I’d want my own kid to gravitate toward. Music playing in the living room, a band rehearsing in the basement, art always in progress; I recall concert banners drawn on bedsheets being a hot commodity. It was over-the-top wholesome.
As a result of this exposure, my musical tastes expanded exponentially. Fusion, funk, and jazz of all types. Classical too. In regular rotation at the Harknesses’ was music centered around Bill Bruford and Allan Holdsworth—especially the short-lived supergroup U.K. and Bruford’s solo work. At least, these two groups in particular caught my attention and lured me in. I’ve owned the same copy of Bruford’s Feels Good to Me (LP, Polydor PD-1-6149) since that time, and I still listen to it on the regular.
Feels Good to Me is a delightful album. It’s not prog rock, and it’s not jazz—it’s unique, existing in a space between the walls of those two rooms. It’s an easeful, flowing series of pieces, more than a sum of its brilliant parts, where no one musician is trying to outdo the other. I mean, it’s a solo album by a drummer, and there isn’t a single drum solo, for crying out loud. Even the drum fills are few and restrained in scope.
Perhaps my favorite part of Feels Good to Me was, and still is, Annette Peacock’s vocals. Peacock sings on four tracks, and her vocals are sultry and intelligent, with what felt to this 17-year-old boy like a come-hither call to an adult sensuality that he didn’t understand or even know existed.
An Acrobat’s Heart
Here’s the thing, though. Annette Peacock did not exist for me outside of this one album. She lived within the grooves of Feels Good to Me, and nowhere else. I was so enamored with Feels Good to Me that I kept the entire gestalt of the album encapsulated within the world it created for me. Again, to be clear, I still listen to this album at 61 years of age, and Peacock’s vocals still turn me around. Late last year, though, I received a press release from ECM announcing that they were releasing Peacock’s solo album An Acrobat’s Heart for the first time on vinyl (ECM 1733) as part of their ongoing audiophile Luminessence series. I rarely pick up an LP for review without first giving it a run-through on Tidal to ensure that it’s my cuppa, but this time I didn’t hesitate.
Peacock, born in 1941, was most active in her solo career between 1972 and 1988, although she also released several albums after that. An Acrobat’s Heart was originally released on CD in 2000 and was her first album in ten years. On it, she is accompanied by the Cikada String Quartet, a Norwegian group that’s part of the larger Cikada Ensemble, which also records on the ECM label.
An Acrobat’s Heart is a sparse and languid album equally suited for direct, chin-in-hand critical listening and calm, environmental introspection. As I listened through all four sides, I found my focus drifting in and out. At times I’d let the music wash over me, giving me a rich bath, an oiled rubdown as I slouched backward into my chair. Then a vocal hook would grab me just so, and I’d be drawn directly into the album’s abstract tapestry.
These are deeply personal songs, giving the impression that you’re traveling through Peacock’s own desires and fears. If it wasn’t so beautifully presented in such a matter-of-fact manner, it would be an uncomfortable, almost embarrassing journey. The song “Over.,” for example, depicts a love affair that’s deep and passionate, seemingly perfect. But then, without a change in tone, Peacock delivers the death blow: “Until we killed / love. Betrayed / our hearts’ / fulfilment.” Interestingly, though, Peacock doesn’t let the song end there. Instead, she returns to the residual love in the relationship, memorializing the happiness of that time even though the affair is done. There’s no despair here, no misery. It’s introspective but uplifting.
Peacock sings in a flat, unadorned manner. Her melodies don’t travel in a straight, conventional line; the next note is never what you’d expect, but somehow it always feels right. Each phrase is a surprise that could be jarring but never is. Let’s put it this way: you won’t come away humming these tunes, but you’ll love them while they exist. This is part of the album’s appeal—it’s like Peacock’s performance on Feels Good to Me, in that it lives only in the moment when it’s playing.
The Cikada String Quartet doesn’t play on every track. Peacock’s vocals and piano are powerful enough to stand alone, but the strings provide a nice base, a sense of added dimensionality. The strings aren’t overdone, and don’t ever get sickly sweet. Tasteful—the entirety of An Acrobat’s Heart is an exercise in tasteful restraint and harmonic beauty.
An Acrobat’s Heart is pressed on two slices of 140gm vinyl, and they’re dead silent. The sound quality is likewise excellent, with a superb sense of dimensionality to Peacock’s gentle, sparse piano playing. Her voice is well placed, with judicious reverb rendering her head slightly larger than life.
My first couple of listens through the album left me a bit perplexed, however. I kept waiting for something more to happen. There’s a consistency of meter and tone to An Acrobat’s Heart. It doesn’t try to be more than it is: a deeply personal look inside the mind of a complicated, passionate artist. After those first times through, I found myself drawn back in, pulled into listening again. With the volume raised to a level just louder than you’d imagine appropriate, Peacock’s voice opened up—bloomed, even. The piano occupied the front of my room, with the Cikada String Quartet adding a gentle foundation, never overpowering. It’s a lovely, calm way to spend an hour.
Annette Peacock now exists for me outside of Bruford’s solo album. Looking at her discography, there are a whole bunch of albums for me to sift through, and that’s what I plan on doing after I submit this review.
Who’s Next
Everybody knows this album. Everybody knows “Baba O’Riley.” “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” “Going Mobile.” If you’re even slightly familiar with album-oriented rock music, this is an album that’s been epigenetically inserted into your DNA. My 13-year-old daughter had never heard this album, and it’s not her type of music. But once during a car ride, “Baba O’Riley” came on the radio, and she stopped what she was doing and asked me to turn up the volume. This never happens. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was because that song had baked itself into my genome during my teenage years.
Standing at the top of the Who’s catalog, Who’s Next was recorded in 1971 and was the group’s fifth album. It’s a huge, monstrous, important album. It’s celebratory, fist-in-the-air music. Just last year, at Munich’s High End 2024 audio show, PMC held court in a large room that had been converted into a Dolby Atmos theater for the express purpose of showcasing a bunch of classic (and new) tracks that were remixed into Atmos format by Steven Wilson. By far the highlight for me was the remixed version of “Baba O’Riley,” which totally turned my head around.
On a recent visit to My Kind of Music, a local stereo shop that sells all kinds of high-end speakers and electronics, I spotted a copy of Who’s Next on the well-stocked and obviously curated record rack. This version (Polydor ARHSLP019) was a high-quality reissue, a half-speed-mastered jobbie, cut by Miles Showell and mastered by Jon Astley at Abbey Road Studios. I couldn’t resist, and made that my one LP purchase for the month.
I don’t even want to think about the sound quality of my old God-knows-when reissue of Who’s Next (MCA Records MCA-3024). That shitty, mashed-down wafer of recycled Bic pens sounds flat and uninvolving. It’s as much of a difference moving from my old copy to this new half-speed-mastered version as it is going from this to the Dolby Atmos experience in Munich.
Oh sure, I hear you. I should be able to enjoy this fantastic album on even the most lo-fi format and equipment, right? But I did that when I was in my mid-teens in a 1970 Plymouth Duster with a straight-six engine and an Audiovox 8-track Frankensteined under the dash. I loved it then, and I have listened to Who’s Next on the odd occasion since. However, I’ve always been aware that my version is a godawful pressing, and that knowledge has removed some of the fun from the experience.
Since I bought this new reissue, I’ve listened to Who’s Next straight through, both sides, maybe a dozen times, and it continues to captivate me. While there’s not a bad song on the album, there are four bangers, with the aforementioned “Baba O’Riley” leading the charge.
Through my DS Audio DS 003 cartridge, VPI Prime Signature turntable, and EMM Labs DS-EQ1 phono stage, there was so much information coming up from those grooves. This new pressing gave me a good dose of the center-stage information I got from the PMC Dolby Atmos system. I recall being wowed by the image of an actual Keith Moon walloping the drums right in front of me, being almost able to see his arms whaling away at his kit. The Polydor reissue gave me that same image—not quite as focused, but nearly there.
I mentioned three tracks by name when I began discussing this album above, but “Bargain” is also a standout. The Who is one of those bands where casual fans often can’t name that many of their songs, and are caught by surprise at how many magnificent hits they’ve put out. “Bargain” is one of those head-spinning songs, and this reissue captures the huge dollops of testosterone that just ooze out of this track. John Entwistle’s bass is meaty and defined here, and Pete Townshend’s guitar crunches, making huge noise. Roger Daltrey sounds ten feet tall, a giant of a man between my speakers.
This reissue is a performance rather than the half-assed recreation that is the 8-track-like version glommed onto my old LP. This reissue sparkles in the highs, sounding alive and vibrant but never harsh. My stars, this is a record for the ages.
I’ve covered two records here that couldn’t be more different. You wouldn’t think that they work well together, and really, they don’t. An Acrobat’s Heart looks inward, generating peace and calm from its deeply personal lyrics and close-miked, pure rendition of piano, voice, and strings. Who’s Next, on the other hand, is a fist to the sky and a lightning bolt in response. Electric, charged, and powerful, it strikes hard on the anvil of the old gods. Maybe you think I’m being a bit hyperbolic here, but really, you need to hear this reissue played loud on a system with balls. Or better yet, hear it first on PMC’s Dolby Atmos system or one like it.
Yes, two wildly different records, but both superb, and well worth checking out.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
