Bond & Brown - Two Heads Are Better Than One

Britain could have had a Captain Beefheart…

In a parallel universe, Graham Bond would be viewed as the British Captain Beefheart, instead of an intensely troubled man drawn to darker aspects of his soul. Back in the mid-60s he was at the vanguard of those musicians pioneering jazz and R&B fusion. The two Graham Bond Organisation albums recorded for Columbia hinted at a wish to shake off the constraints of musical traditions, though Bond perhaps lost his way thereafter. Without him, Organisation members Jack Bruce and Dick Heckstall-Smith created Cream, who all but laid the template for the merging rock sensibility, helped by the otherworldly lyrics of Pete Brown. Bond, meanwhile, flitted between labels before returning to form with 1971’s Holy Magick on Vertigo.

Two Heads was his follow-up, recorded for Les Reed’s Chapter One label. Bond found a soulmate in Pete Brown, fresh from fronting his own outfit Piblokto!. The album’s spirit of adventure is profound and, while odd forays into instrumental self-indulgence might only appeal to prog aficionados, they can be forgiven with some irresistible, Afro/funk-styled grooves (Assagai meets Crazy World Of Arthur Brown), emphasised via the bonus tracks here. In that parallel universe, these albums would have been applauded. Instead, Two Heads was Bond’s last project: he died in 1974.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Esoteric | ECLEC 2042

Reviewed by John Reed
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