TUNES-FOR-FREE JAMBOREE #5: GEOFF LEIGH

Here's a veritable King Tut's tomb of post-punk/avant/weirdo rock from the ever-fertile late-70s/early '80s punk days of England. Geoff Leigh was a founding member of prog legends Henry Cow, who offered a distinctly different take on art-rock then, say, Emerson Lake & Palmer, namely avant-jazz/20th century classical influences. And those influences splatter all over these tracks, some of which are otherwise not too far removed from contemporaneous fellow Brits like Gang of Four or Magazine. A Pere Ubu-ish free-form explosiveness further conspired to keep these records off "Top of the Pops."

Apart from solo releases, we also get tracks from his other bands Black Sheep (now X Black Sheep), Red Balune, Kontakt Mikrofoon Orkest - none of whom I'd heard of before, and I thought I knew my New Wave. Start with the irresistible synth-punking "Animal Sounds," then check both sides of the "Do The Residue"/"Living in Rotterdam" single. "Buy mccb", a commercial for their label, is catchy twisted funk. Advanced students may then want to move on to "Spider In Love," a delirious burst of spazz-jazz, with Geoff humorously singing "I'm Spiderman in love!"

A generous 22 tracks in all, yet the quality level rarely dips. And it's all free. Ahhh, life is good...

Geoff Leigh "Things From The Past"

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