In Praise of Learning

by Henry Cow

In Praise of Learning cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 9 May 1975
  • Label: Virgin
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Length: 38:02
  • Community rating: 4.59/5 from 9 ratings

Artists on this release: Dagmar Krause, Chris Cutler, Anthony Moore, Fred Frith, Peter Blegvad, Tim Hodgkinson, John Greaves

Album Notes & Community Reviews

'In Praise of Learning' documents the intense but brief merger between Henry Cow and Slapp Happy, resulting in the group's most overtly political and musically uncompromising album. The record is defined by complex, often jarring avant-rock compositions, tape manipulation, and the addition of Dagmar Krause's distinctively theatrical, Brechtian vocals which add a new dimension to the band's sound. Tim Hodgkinson's epic "Living in the Heart of the Beast" and the Moore/Blegvad piece "War" anchor the album's Marxist lyrical themes, cementing its status as a landmark of politically-charged experimental music.

Genres

Descriptors: experimental, avant-garde, complex, political, atonal, dissonant

Tracklist

  1. War (02:31)
  2. Living in the Heart of the Beast (16:12)
  3. silence — end of side 1 (00:14)
  4. Beginning: the Long March (06:00)
  5. Beautiful as the Moon; Terrible as an Army with Banners (07:02)
  6. Morning Star (06:03)

Credits

More from Henry Cow: full discography