Nurses Song with Elephants

• Artist: David Bedford
• Rating:
• Release Date: 1972
• Total Time: 41:41
• Type: Lyrics are included with the album
• Genre: Rock

Review

To most people, David Bedford is best known for his work with Kevin Ayers and Roy Harper, but Bedford was already a composer with avant-garde credentials before teaming up with them. The title track, for example, is a piece for ten acoustic guitars, with elephants represented by a moistened thumb dragged across the back of the soundbox; the "Nurse's Song" is actually a setting of the Blake poem, with a bass guitar accompaniment by Mike Oldfield (with whom Bedford had worked in the Whole World). Every track here is scored for unusual ensembles, such as "Sad and Lonely Faces," which has six pianos and four woodwinds, behind Ayers intoning a poem, or "Some Bright Stars for Queen's College," with 80 voices and 27 plastic twirlers. In some ways, it's a product of its time, when boundary-pushing in modern classical music was the norm, not the exception. And as such, some of it works, some of it is experimentalism for its own sake. Not the best, or most cohesive, of Bedford's records, it's still pleasant to hear again. ~ Chris Nickson, Rovi

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