Henry Cow - The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set [10 CD, 2009]

 The progressive rock genre spawned many groups that became top-grossing arena acts -- Pink Floyd and Genesis are two -- as well as many who progressed right into obscurity. Henry Cow were one of the best known and most widely traveled English bands of the progressive era (though only a cult favorite in the U.S. and actually more popular in Continental Europe than in their home country), and their music has aged amazingly well over the ensuing decades due to the group's diverse influences (Oliver Messiaen, Kurt Weill, Frank Zappa, and Soft Machine were a few) and uncompromising creativity. Henry Cow functioned more or less as a collective, with a true group identity that changed from album to album as members came and went. This turnover was one factor in their consistent vitality; another was the dedicated core of the band, a serious, politicized trio whose interest in improvisation served to leaven the complexity they supplied as primary writers.

Henry Cow – The Henry Cow Box Redux: The Complete Henry Cow (18 CD, 2019/FLAC)

 

The Henry Cow Box Redux offers a major retrospective of one of Britain’s most resilient and elusive bands – and a redress to the rather over-tidy story told on their five officially released LPs. Like Frank Zappa or Harry Partch, Henry Cow were mavericks, working without compromise at the edge of their field and systematically breaking the rules and conventions that restrained it. In the 40 years since they disbanded, their work has acquired a formidable reputation, leading finally to this definitive collection – which replaces a chaotic mass of degraded bootlegs with properly mastered, carefully selected and thoroughly annotated lost projects, compositions and performances.”