Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica ALBUM REVIEW 

I listened to this album for 8 hours straight, never heard the same song twice, looked down at my phone and realized I was 17 minutes in.

Apparently Beefheart wrote a lot of the music on piano, an instrument which he couldn't play

Trout Mask Replica is my go-to first date background music.

Disappointed that he didn't bring up the fact that Beefheart put the band members through hell with sleep deprivation and other things to make them mentally break down. That's a huge part of why it sounds the way it does.....I mean other than because it's a Beefheart album.

The ORIGINAL musical shitpost.

Just So Ya Know:: Beefheart didn't record his vocals after the band laid down tracks, it was all live. But he was in a separate room with headphones causing a slight delay making the whole endeavor even more disorienting. It was very purposeful.

One of my favorite quotes of all time in regards to talking to his band... Captain Beefheart "Well if you think your jobs difficult I gotta sing to this shit." What a wonderful man.

This album is like a "it came from bandcamp..." album before bandcamp.

There's nothing random about this record. The band rehearsed for 8 months in cult-like conditions and recorded the album in somewhere between 4 and 8 hours, depending on who's story one accepts. Every note and beat is exactly where he wanted it and this is verified by the myriad live performances posted online. His goal was to "shake people out of the catatonic state", which he seems to have accomplished.

corey feldman's angelic 2 the core will be recognized in the same light in 50 years

"I giggle at the thought of there being a producer and engineer during these recording sessions." What if that producer happens to be Frank Zappa himself?

They're not really avoiding patterns so much as stacking several different conflicting patterns on top of one another.

Trout Mask Replica will always be a 10/10 and 01/01.

OMFG HE DID IT THE ABSOLUTE MADMAN

I just listened to it. This album scared the shit out of me.

Melon: “It doesn’t elicit a mild reaction” Also Melon: “I’m somewhere in the middle with this record”

Fast and Bulbous!

momma always said, never trust a man who's favorite Captain Beefheart record is safe as milk

The easiest way I can describe this album is the sound of 5 radios playing all at once on completely different channels but each channel is similar enough to where is doesn't sound random but intentional.

The sound engineer for this album: trust me,I’m an engineer

I hope you review Speeding Bullet 2 Heaven this classic week, Greenthony Screentano.

Whoa there, Fantano. You can easily avoid this green-screen problem by drawing a cheeky little holdout matte around the frame.

The final track 'Veteran's Day Poppy' is the best tune on this album. The 2nd half of the song is a strong precursor to Slint.

The more you know about jazz and 20th Century atonal classical music, the easier it is to appreciate this album. Beefheart is basically doing all the things those composers were doing, but with rock instruments and no formal training. This album has been dissected by music scholars, who have confirmed that nothing on this album is random (except Beefheart's voice). This album is often taught in music conservatories. Not even joking.

I don't get the hype. I don't get the hate. It just sounds like a guy on acid making fun of blues music. It's amusing.

everything about TMR was actually very intentional. Beefheart was in charge of every note played. Apparently it was a nightmare to record, even though it sounds like the most fun time ever just fucking around. Anyway, I don't really like it... I'm all ears when it is on, but I'd much rather listen to Sure Nuff and Yes I Do.

I fucking love this record, and it's nothing to do with how "deep" or "complex" it is. I enjoy this stuff the same way I enjoy all modern experimental music: as a pure sensory experience, as sensations that are beyond any intelligibility. It's an amazing mountain of intricate noise, sprinkled with these odd nuggets of a capella poetry and blues that sound even weirder in context. It's a blast of freshness. Also, if you're looking for parallels to the sound Beefheart was doing, you'll have to look more into free jazz and avantgarde jazz from the likes of Coleman, Coltrane, Brötzman, Zorn and so on. Of course, Beefheart's sound is also entangled with traditional blues and rock 'n' roll, which makes it fresh and unique even within those circles. I can understand why this record sounds hostile and obnoxious to some people. It's definitely not a pleasant listen; it's more of a thrill ride than a "fun" experience.

Have you ever seen interview with members of The Magic Band on this album? Captain Beefheart basically came up with everything himself on the piano (which he doesn't even play) which he just gave to his band and said "make it". Every member was left to interpret these insane poly-rhythms and incoherent harmonies into separate instruments, and several elements were literally impossible for them to re-create. I highly recommend looking at music theorists analyze this. I don't really go out of my way to listen to it as it's very weird and I don't like the sound, but the inherent art involved in this album is incredibly admirable.

your shirt has been hacked

Friend and rival Frank Zappa believed in Captain Beefheart and, using his superior business skills, served as patron on his next release, Trout Mask Replica. Beefheart lived with the Magic Band in a dilapidated house and survived with the help his parents. The group, strengthened by the young guitarist Bill Harkleroad (aka "Zoot Horn Rollo"), by bassist Mark Boston (alias "Rockette Morton") and by Victor Hayden ("The Mascara Snake") at the bass clarinet, lived in isolation. Van Vliet composed the pieces that French, a fundamental collaborator at the time, transcribed to music for rock band. Each musician had complete freedom of interpretation. Van Vliet was also taken by the clarinet, which he used as a harmonica with an extended range. The gestation of the album was long and laborious, but was resolved by an eight-hour session from which Zappa and Van Vliet extracted a double album entitled Trout Mask Replica (Straight, 1969). That record has an aura of "art-rock" that the previous albums don't have. The savage spontaneity of the warped blues in Mirror Man is transformed into an artistically conscious program, albeit just as spastic. The humor of Safe As Milk is abandoned in favor of an eccentric but serious humor reminiscent of Erik Satie. The infernal fumes of Strictly Personal evolve into complex and angular harmonies. What comes out is one of the most creative, courageous albums of all time, decades ahead on the rest of rock music. In many ways this record is the equivalent of the Fantasia in Schumann's career. Adorno wrote that the Fantasia only seems the product of a madman, while in reality it is the expression of the madman one second before folly takes over. The most notable difference from the earlier albums is the duration of the cuts, for the most part very short. Another superficial difference is in the instrumentation, augmented by horns. The work is so innovative and complex as to be nearly indecipherable. The rhythm section sounds so polyrhythmic that all rhythm is lost. The singing , vaguely interested in music, travels within alien universes. The guitar acts as atonal contracanto. The counterpoint of the ensemble is something halfway between the orchestral chaos of Charles Ives and the audacity of John Cage. The chaotic but rational improvisation is reminiscent of the frenetic geometry of Ornette Coleman, who in turn was influenced by Van Vliet. The heterogeneous meter that Van Vliet produces are to melody what the free poetry of the 1900's are to rhyme. But free-jazz and avant garde music are only alibis, pretexts to freely vent the leader's anarchical compulsions. The album is by all accounts an anthology of chaos in all its musical forms. For as deeply varied as they are from one another, these twenty-eight cuts are many versions of the same scene of devastation. Trout Mask Replica is above all a collage of abstract paintings, each different from the other in color, intensity and contrast, yet they're all homogeneous in their "abstraction". Most of the songs are miniatures of dense, dark and crackling sounds that present themselves as a white man's rhythm and blues, but are in effect delirious episodes of psychosis. They preserve a shadow of bloodcurdling melody in the unbalanced bacchanal of the instruments, but is like the gasping of the moribund trying to articulate a phrase but only succeeding in putting together a blabbering mess: Ant Man Bee, Frownland, My Human Gets Me Blues, Sweet Sweet Bulbs. Here Beefheart's Dadaism is at its apex. The lyrics are pure nonsense, abstract sketches that serve only to set the listener on the wrong track. Very little remains of the grotesque blues of Safe As Milk,except perhaps the rhythmic self-confidence of Sugar' n' Spikes. Zappa's influence is noticeable in the humorous spoken comments between tracks and in the "music for telephone call" in the The Blimp. Despite the quantity of surrealistic asides, most of the humor is quite tragic: Beefheart is no longer a clowning freak, but an anguished wild animal. Towering above legitimate blues cuts are blues without accompaniment: the spectral delirium of The Dust Blows and Well's solemn solo. Dali`s Car pushes this format to the edge of chamber music, blues, and gospel. The Delta blues inspires three of the great masterpieces of the album: the convulsed riot between rabid dogs in Pena, one of Van Vliet's vocal masterpieces (the second howling voice), the grotesque Dachau Blues, dedicated in Van Vliet's style to the Nazi concentration camps, with a revolting clarinet counterpoint that would make Eric Dolphy's skin crawl, and the slow China Pig, rhythmic breathing accompanied by a single guitar, one of the greatest blues of all time. In the cuts most obviously influenced by free-jazz, that is to say those that favor instrumental improvisation, Dolphy's characteristic realm of tender desperation is recognizable, taken to a depressing level of amateurism and sloppiness, in the rambling argument between clarinets in Hair Pie, the swirling mix of Neon Meate Dream Of Two Octafish, colored by jazz-style drumming, distorted clarinets and Indian hallucinations, and that boiling magma entitled When Big Joan Sets Up. The most demented and deafening jam however, is found in Veterans Day Poppy. Often Beefheart's singing, in its bizarre cosmography, has the function of declarative verse, while guitar improvisations and cocksure rhythms act as primitive background, as is the case in Pachuco Cadaver, a piece that comes in thick and fast and spirited, and in the voodoo exorcism Hobo Chang Ba, performed with bells and moronic singing. Under the column "horror" style ought to be listed two more barbaric assaults on rhythm, two more tributes to caustic irrationality: Ella Guru, with its loud background voices, incoherent syncopations, guttural anthems, tribal beat, steel slide short circuits and hesitant bass riff, and the lycanthropic attack Moonlight On Vermont, a dark and obsessive midnight incubus within a storm of devastating syncopations and voodoo drums This is Van Vliet personal version of hard-rock, his zombie blues, devoted to human sacrifice and occult rituals. Trout Mask Replica is a monumental experiment in irregularity and an impressive catalog of vocal acrobatics. Raucousness, gargling, heavy breathing, whispering, falsetto, etc. are needed in order to dismantle the art of singing and transform it in a degraded emission of beastly verses. The dominant instrument is the clarinet that pops up everywhere in a "hit and run" guerrilla mode. The overall meaning of the pandemonium in Trout Mask Replica is not only playfulness, or the negation of a meaning. The allegorical messages of Van Vliet's masterpiece are multiple, hidden by layers of abstractions that allow a cosmic-metaphysical interpretation, despite the author's pretense of illiteracy. These interpretations redirect the listener toward a form of apology for madness, to the primordial stages, and to chaos, counterposed against the monolithic order of technocratic society. Beefheart uses the Delta blues as a pretext, but dismembers its structure, rhythm, harmony, tonality and melody, and then reassembles the pieces randomly, injecting it with free-jazz and casual improvisation. Beefheart is the first musician to perform an avant garde operation of such capacity without the least intellectual pomposity.

one of the only legitimate DADA albums in music history.

I think it's important to note that Zappa recorded and produced this record

Shitposting: The Album

I was there when Captain Beefheart started up his first band. I told him, "Don't do it that way. You'll never make a dime." I was there.

We need this album on Spotify!

Thanks for reviewing! But I really disagree with what you said at 9:22. Did you know this album was composed to the note? It's almost entirely patterns, the drums switch between following the drums and following the guitars. The ensemble is similar to a trio sonata - three instruments with equal melodic importance. They play in different time signatures and different tempos. Everything was written down. Any improvisation was either at the fringes of written parts, or found in the drums. Going on for minutes about the production is kind of missing the point (though it would have made it a lot better). This album does have a high level of depth, and in my opinion is a musical masterpiece. If you have the ability to transcribe music, I highly suggest running through "Frownland" with a pen and paper. Anthony I know you are a great bass player. Try some of these out

I find the album to be fucking hilarious, like a musical version of Finnegans Wake.

It's classic week!?!??!?!

What I like about this album, that nobody talks about, is the poetry. He recites very good poetry on his own, not the singing of the songs.

I really enjoy it. I dont think theres some "deep meaning" i dont think you have to be a genius to "get it". I just like it.

I get why some people might not be into artists like Zappa and Beafheart, but damnit I'm glad I enjoy both

This week he's reviewing Talking Heads - Remain In Light Emperor - In The Nightshade Eclipse Tom Waits - Rain Dogs Outkast - ATLiens

Trout Mask Replica is one of my favourite albums of all time. I love how broken it is, yet it all kind of falls into place for me too. It's unbridled chaos, and I love every moment of it.

you know you have some serious talent when you can pull 100,000+ views for a review of Trout Mask Replica ... Anthony you are living my dream life :-) I always wanted to be a music review writer ... this is beyond awesome to see

my favorite line of that entire album is "Me and my girl named bimbo"

It took me like 5 minutes to realize that this was a classic review

I was not a fan of Trout Mask Replica until I'd heard it over 100 times. It took me a long time to acclimatise to it but once I did it all made sense. Now I give it a spin and it doesn't sound anything out of the ordinary. The secret to it is to not try and make sense of it or analyse it. Instead just put it on in the background and let it slowly enter your blood stream.

I once played "Big Joan" for a few friends. One guy stared at the speakers in horror, one lady started dancing before going into the ladies' room and another guy just balled his eyes out in laughter. This record gets attention. One of my all time top 10 faves, easily. 👏

Moonlight on Vermont is such a good singalong track

Now review Selected Ambient Works 85-92

It's interesting to know that this chaotic music on Trout Mask Replica was extremely and meticulously planned out and performed, over six months of rehearsals, in the house where the Captain (Ahab) Beefheart and his Magic Band all lived. Captain was an unholy tyrant, using shaming and chew out sessions lasting hours, in order to ensure intensity and adherence to to the noisy sounds that the captain invented, for the band to learn, note for note. It's quite an impressive feat for a rock band to memorize 80 minutes of sequential atonal nonsense noise, perhaps. Now that is dedication to the Avantgarde of music. They recorded the album in four hours because they were so well rehearsed. I sometimes wonder if the Captain was afraid of spending expensive recording time, and that was perhaps a prime motivation to perfect the performance and record it as efficiently as possible. It was, after all, a two disc album from a band that had not achieved any profit in sales to speak of. Basically, his childhood friend, Frank Zappa, was doing a favor By having Captain Beefheart on his independent record label.

TMR is easily the best rock album ever made. I've played it hundreds of times and 80 minutes goes by very quickly. Yesterday, I played it 3 times in succession. Also, it's full of great riffs from Bill "Zoot Horn Rollo" Harkleroad and fabulous drumming from John French. I saw Beefheart & the Magic Band live three times, in Leeds, London and Brighton. The tightest band I ever heard. Two bass players: Roy Estrada playing a straight bass and Rockette Morton playing a Fender Jazz bass but fingering chords and strumming frenetically it as if it were a guitar. With Beefheart's roaring vocals and soprano sax, the effect was incredibly powerful, unlike anything I've ever heard since.

Where is the guy that keeps track of the scores each year. We are two days into 2017 and I don't see him.

I have not been waiting all day for this

Reminds me of my high school days when me and my decidedly nonmusical friends decided to perform an improv cover of “frownland” for music class presentation. I was expelled shortly after. Love this album.

That albums was actually a lot more musical than I was expecting. I thought it would be more like the first James Chance and the Contortions album, but it was way more melodic and coherent.

I've been asking for Beefheart from Anthony for years

this sounds like my first fl studio beats

DO WEEN - CHOCOLATE & CHEESE OR THE MOLLUSK

nice to see Godspeed vinyl in the background

hey fantaman you put "ALBUM REVIEW" instead of "CLASSIC REVIEW" just a heads up if it wasn't on purpose

Hey new years resolution idea. Do I hate Mars Bars.

Beefheart’s discography outside of this album is, from my observations, very underrated, and I think that’s mainly because Trout Mask is the one that people hop onto first. Not to say that albums like Doc at the Radar Station, or Ice Cream for Crow don’t have that same kooky energy, but I’d say if you bounced off of Trout Mask, I’d highly recommend jumping into any of his final 3 albums, you’ll probably have a pretty fun time.

So, I'm sitting in my office at work one day listening to Trout Mask Replica's 'The Dust Blows Forward n' the Dust Blows Back' when a co-worker walked into my office. He recited every word of the song. Seriously blew my mind, thinking that another human being appreciated what I did!

what's the album next to Godly Godspeed Antenna reviewbruh?

review a mr. bungle album? just for fun?

Amazing summation at the end! That's why I love your videos, sharing of these ideas that I might not have thought of and that make me think. Brilliant review of a brilliant album!

One of my favorite recordings is an out-take from these sessions. Beefheart directed the sax player to run around the outside of the house, skronking as he ran. The result is amazing as he passes by on every circle of the house; the skronking gets louder and louder as the saxophonist approaches, hits maximum skronk as he passes, then fades away as he runs away from the mike. It seems like that sax player must have made twenty laps around the house, never once ceasing to blow. "Here he comes...and there he goes." Simply astounding.

Do a Bjork album for classics week

Weird that you say you don't even really like the album or think it can be liked. Because I certainly enjoy it! It has an absolutely unique atmosphere. The music is awesome and I looove Beefheart's singing. It's not an album you can listen to on the regular, but when I'm in the mood, sit down and listen to it it's always an experience. Safe As Milk is an album you can listen to on the regular, and I personally probably find it even more brilliant than TMR You say that the song compositions seem random to you, yet Beefheart let his band practice those songs for MONTHS so that they play exactly like he envisioned it. They were locked in a house and Vliet was almost like a dictator to them, in a very borderline way. This album didn't come from anywhere, it was intentionally and carefully crafted to sound as perplexing as it does. I can highly recommend the little 33 1/3 book on the album, it's very informative.

Beefthony Hearttano. Should’ve done that.

I totally disagree with the idea that the instruments sound like they are all playing different songs. The music is sometimes polytonal and sometimes atonal, and the rhythms and grooves are wonky and off kilter, but they are absolutely still locked in with each other. Tense and unconventional yes (that's what makes it fascinating in my opinion) but not out of sync or poorly performed. I personally enjoy listening to this record, I find it to be a cathartic and unpredictable roller coaster of wacky grooves and insane lyricism. I also disagree that the production is bad. It could be better produced and mixed yes, but I think the punchy tone on the bass guitar and the bright treble heavy guitars add to the albums sound perfectly. I'm not one of those people who thinks that because somebody else dislikes this record it's because they don't "get it" or that it reflects on their taste poorly, because the album is very much a take it or leave it proposition, but I absolutely love it and find it an amazingly satisfying listen. I will point out though, that you didn't give enough credit to the musical talent on display om this record, one example can be heard in the drum solo at the end of Sugar and Spikes.

Where is Cal's favorite records Anthony Fantani? You better not have done anything to Cal.

review the downward spiral or ill be minimally upset

"I was shanghaied by a high hat beaver mustache man. And his pirate friend. I woke up in vomit and beer in a banana bin. And a soft lass with brown skin.." Sir, you are right.. many albums lose their potency. "Trout Mask Replica" will never be boring. But you can't say Captain Beefheart was "added after the mayhem." He wrote every note of those tracks on piano. The story of how that album was made is a great one. Rolling Stone listed "Trout.." as the 60th best album of all-time in its 500 Greatest issue. I would easily place it in the top ten.. INCREDIBLE WORK!! My first time watching your station.. good stuff. Please review ℃-ute's last album "°Cmaj9." They are a talented Japanese girl group. The album contains four triple-A side singles.. fun!

I love how the review starts with Anthony addressing a technical fail, knowing full well his audience would comment endlessly about it.

Death Grips ft. Don Van Vliet, No Trout Deep Mask 10/10

I would really love to see you review Laughing Stock, or Pink Moon

Review gives the impression it's just a lot of freakish random noise - the album wouldn't be being reviewed here as a classic if this was the case! It was painstakingly crafted and rehearsed by the band (guitarist Bill Harkleroad's book Lunar Notes gives a good account of this), and stylistically makes sense if listened to within Beefheart's whole discography - particularly the albums before and after it. It is basically just blues rock put through a blender, and not so different to what Sonic Youth did with alternative rock on Daydream Nation a couple of decades later. Repeat listens do reveal yunno...actual songs with catchy refrains and riffs n stuff.

I can't tell you how glad I am that you reviewed this. You sir, are an awesome reviewer, and I absolutely admire your work. Thank you! Definitely an under appreciated album. First time I heard it was one of the most confusing musical moments of my life. I've forced myself to listen to the whole thing multiple times, and there's always something new that sticks out. Again, thanks, and keep up the good work!

Review an outkast record.

Review Jane Doe for classic week.

Sometimes I can't tell if this is a classic review or a Not Good review.

Nice review Anthony. I will say I was surprised when it ended with you making this a Redux review of Speeding Bullet To Heaven and giving it a 10/10.

DO LED ZEPPELIN BOI

john cena u cant see me classic album review

so glad you reviewed this! as usual much of what you said put into words the experience i had listening but could not have said better myself, thank you!

I put this Lp on to get people;e out of my place/end of party or lets go to the pub already

This album is not amazing because it makes some artistic statement about breaking the rules. It's amazing because it's FUN. It's goofy and hilarious. That's it. There's no big secret. Sorry.

Television - Marquee Moon. please.

Wow, you really don't understand this music, which is magnificently beautiful, and played with incredible degrees of intent and precision. It's Moonlight on Vermont. Moonlight in Vermont is a popular standard, associated with Johnny Smith.

very happy you reviewed this album I personally really like it but I appreciate your perspective as well, also your sense of humour is great

Milo Goes To College or My War

Nujabes for classic week would be pretty cool

cap'n beef queef

It sounds like a guitar center

I've wanted this review my entire life thank you

I actually respect him doing a review of an album he doesn't like to give an accurate destruction of it!

I'm gonna try watching this with Captain Beefheart playing in the background.

TMR has truly stood the test of time. Just as fresh today as it was fifty years ago.