University of Virginia Library

RECORDS

A Possible Playmate For Zappa?

By ROB PRITCHARD

Captain Beefheart: A New Stability

The rather short span
between Captain Beefheart's
Trout Mask Replica and his
newest album, The Spotlight
Kid, has brought dramatic
alternations in his style of
music, if less pronounced
changes in the vocals.

Beefheart has always been
hard to pin down, to place
into perspective, but gone are
the rambling multi-directional
instruments and vocals which
denied the listener any
stability whatsoever.

Trout Mask Replica is an
exercise in mental duration;
the listener is required to make
sense of basically nonsensical
sounds, to regroup and unify
highly fragmented sections
into a synthesized product, all
automatically. Attention must
be given evenly so that neither
the instruments nor
Beefheart's vocals take total
command.

But with The Spotlight Kid,
Beefheart has taken another
turn. Heavily bluesy, the music
is given a harmonious quality
almost unknown in Replica.
Zoot Hort Rollo, who some
will remember from Replica,
and Winged Eel Fingerling
combine on guitars to lead and
control the flow of the music,
at times assuming the typical
lead - rhythm relationship, and
at times playing a more
complex note against note
role.

Notable of the album's
instrumentality is "Alice in
Blunderland", a wonderfully
constructed song which points
out Beefheart's mastery of the
musical range.
Counter positioning the
instrumental roles has
produced a sailing sensation, a
unified direction to the tune
which is quite moving.

Beefheart's vocals are much
more reminiscent of Trout
Mask Replica than are the
instrumentals. He retains on
many of the songs the same
tonal irregularity and
unwillingness to be bounded
by the musical flow that
marked his earlier albums.

Beefheart is backed up
and limited by the controlled
playing of Rollo and Rockette
Morton especially. The result
is a subdued product of
conflicting forces and styles,
each balanced against the
other.

The Spotlight Kid marks
another turning point in
Captain Beefheart's somewhat
variant career. Maybe now
Frank Zappa will play with
him.