FunkFreak75 Seasoned trumpeter Ian Carr had had his fill with co-leading a band and so branched out with his new band Nucleus. In 1970 the UK label Vertigo released the new band's debut album, Elastic Rock, to much acclaim and popular fervor. Next came an album from the same lineup, Songs Without Words, on which guitarist Chris Spedding received top billing. In 1971 Let's Talk About It Later album was released.

1. "Song For The Bearded Lady" (7:25) upbeat, hard-drivin, great musical weave, great use of horns. At two minutes in the sound calms down to support Ian Carr's soloing. He sounds so much like American jazz great Freddie Hubbard it's uncanny! Background instrumentalists start getting a little frisky in the fourth minute (awesome!) but then Chris Spedding takes a turn in the lead as Karl Jenkins toys with him on the Hohner Electra piano in the opposite channel. in the fifth. Nice contrasting styles. Everybody remerges together for the final minute--an outro to bookend the intro. (14.5/15)

2. "Sun Child" (5:19) opens with some saucy, spacious bass, drums and guitar over which a soprano sax teases seductively. The interplay intensifies insidiously over the first couple minutes until it feels as if each instrument is kind of in their own world. The arrival of Ian's trumpet kind of soothes and shifts the direction and intensity of the collective, creating more space but less "competitiveness." (8.75/10)

3. "Lullaby For A Lonely Child" (4:21) opens with delicate bass, cymbal and electric piano interplay before controlled yet emotional trumpet takes the lead. Support is joined by gently picked guitar and saxes before a little whole-group chorus spaces out the next section of trumpet and bouzouki solos. Intensifies slightly for the second chorus but then bouzouki takes us to the end. Pleasant but nothing to write home about. (8.25/10)

4. "We'll Talk About It Later" (6:19) opens with some raunchier guitar sound accompanied by subdued bass, hi-hat, and Hohner. Accompanying instruments shift into second gear as the song becomes fully blues. Guitars, Hohner, and drums all shift into third and fourth gears as bass and muted trumpet remain rock steady until the second half of the third minute when trumpet takes on a more prominent roll. Has a very DOORS-like quality and sound. Chris Spedding's free-wailing guitar really stands out on this one. (8.5/10)

5. "Oasis" (9:49) opens as if all instrumentalists are in their own world, expressing their own moods, until around 1:50 the keys' chord selection become steady, guitar strums, bass line and cymbal play support this. Horns too, before trumpet goes off on a solo. Guitars, drums and keys start amping up their inputs as Ian continues to solo into the fifth minute. At the end of the fifth minute, Ian goes a little freestyle but then everybody else softens and backs down, making room for a prominent muted soprano sax solo in the sixth, seventh and eighth minutes. Drums begin to go rogue in the seventh and eighth before a calm appears in which Brian Smith continues playing his sax as Chris Spedding and Jeff Clyne's bass take more foreground prominence. Horn section enters to bring everybody together just before the end. (18/20)

6. "Ballad of Joe Pimp" (3:48) Vocals! Sounds like it could come off of an early SOFT MACHINE album. Horns take over after the first verse. A very Philly R&B/Soul feel to this one. (8.5/10)

7. "Easter 1916" (8:47) Sounds like a classic experimental late 1960s experimental jazz fusion song as BRAINTICKET-like vocals and keys are driven along by blues-rock bass, guitar and drums play. Its a great groove, despite it's odd meter. Melodic jazz sax solo in the third and fourth minutes becomes more free form in the fifth and sixth. Support instrumentation disappear in the seventh minute as drums solo while sax continues it's spitting and spouting. Awesome drum play! Ends with a familiar "Love Supreme" sound and drum solo. (19/20)

Total Time: 45:48

Over all I'd call this an exceptionally good collection of experimental jazz-rock fusion songs with the artists all sounding like they are coming from the jazz world trying to cross over into rock. Though not all of it stands up as being "fresh" since so much J-R Fusion has come since this album's 1971 release, most times it works very well. Definitely a wonderful accomplishment for it's time.

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of progressive rock music from the early era of jazz-rock fusion experimentation. Though Ian Carr would continue to use the Nucleus name for almost two decades, from here out it was well understood that this was his band and they were to play music his way: thus the consistently (almost absurdly) high turnover rate among band membership. In fact, three of Ian's major finds would soon become fairly steady members and compositional contributors to another of England's new Jazz-Rock Fusion bands: drummer John Marshall, multi-instrumentalist Karl Jenkins, and John Babbington will settle for some time with Mike Ratledge's The Soft Machine.

Warthur Though I think the last two compositions on the album are rather spoiled by the inclusion of vocals, We'll Talk About It Later is still a very confident and capable follow-up to Elastic Rock, with Nucleus continuing to practice their own distinctive style of fusion. Debate over whether or not they had any influence in their early material from In a Silent Way or Bitch's Brew aside, by this point they're very much ploughing their own furrow, developing a style of jazz-rock which would end up having a glancing influence on late-phase Canterbury bands such as Matching Mole, Hatfield and the North, National Health and, of course, the later Soft Machine albums.

Warthur Before listening to Elastic Rock I confess I hadn't had any prior experience of Nucleus, and tended to think of them as "that band which most of the late-period Soft Machine lineup came from". I suspect that my distaste for the later Soft Machine albums ended up delaying me dabbling in the world of Nucleus, but Elastic Rock has forced me to think again. Ian Carr's trumpet is the secret ingredient which makes the whole experiment gel, but all the band members turn in good performances and offer an interesting Bitches Brew-influenced take on fusion which tends towards shorter, snappier tracks than most of the fusion crowd were working with at the time. Whilst I still think the amalgam of Soft Machine and Nucleus didn't quite work, I find the original Nucleus a much more tasty proposition.

Sean Trane Although, I recently found out this album was not the Group’s final studio album, since there was a German-released Awakening album a few years after the present, OOTLD is vey much in the line of its predecessors. Out Of The Long Dark is the last album of the second full-fledged stable lie-up Nucleus group (one that had started with Under The Sun) and we’re still finding keyboardist Geoff Castle and drummer Roger Sellers, and returning to the fold, woodwind player Brian Smith. Only bassist Billy Kristian is new, replacing the usual Sutton. Great “proggy artwork on the artwork cover too.

Recorded hot on the heels of In Flagrante Delicto, OOTLD is almost a brother album, even though there is a general light concept feel to the present as most of the pieces on the flipside are dedicated to long-time buddy and sculptor Gerald Laing (the titles in the brackets are named after a few of his sculptures). But let’s return to the A-side with the 9-mins+ funky Lady Bountyful (inspired by his second wife) track that features long solos from Brian and Ian over a solid groove. The quieter 7-mins Solar Winds features two more percussionist, but the main theme seems to emerge from the Plexus project from almost a decade earlier, even though the groove and keyboard layers are definitely late 70’s-ish, somewhat reminiscent of his buddy Neil Ardley’s Hamony Of The Spheres, on which most of the band participated. The sensual Selina track feature some ecstatic background brass and piano riff.

As mentioned above, the flipside tracks have a bit their own life as the opening 7-mins+ title track features Brian’s flute, the 5-mins Sassy has an ultra-funky bass-line, Simply This’ disputable synth choices (the late-70’s synths were rather tacky in some cases) despite Castle’s superb Rhodes in the second part, the gentle 7-mins Black Ballad’s shifts from slow-mo ballad to mid-tempo funk and the closing trumpet requiem For Liam. Well the least we can say is that Nucleus remained a superb and relevant band all the way until the 70’s decade and that OOTLD might just be a tad better than the IFD release. Definitely worth your while if you’re into classic fusion sounds from the later-70’s.

Sean Trane Again released on the German label Mood, this Stuttgart concert feels like a swansong for Nucleus, with even the faithful Geoff Castle now gone, and although the amazing John Marshall returns on drums, it doesn’t help rekindle the flame. Indeed, the rest of the line-up consists (outside of the unmovable Carr) of rather unknown sidekicks, including a guitarist that toys with guitar synths (the atrocious Synclavier, I guess). Again graced with a grim grey & black photo-shoot (the group has come down from the fire escape onto the back-alley ;o))), as far as I know this was to be the last Nucleus release when the band was still active.

The general feel of the album is more of a standard-jazz than anything fusion-esque, with the 12-mins Bouquet Pour Ma Belle baing frankly very early 60’s-ish, and Wood’s guitar sounding like René Thomas with some effects. Personally I find it very boring and jump the track ASAIC, but the following For Miles And Miles cannot hide that it’s Miles-inspirations will be very 60’s-ish as well, even if fretless, synclaviers and Rhodes are all over the track, it sounds quite retro, even when the band suddenly wakes-up, it doesn’t sound too jazz-rock or fusion. Only Easy Does It Now sounds fusion-esque enough to sit in a Nucleus, and even then, it is somewhat of a stretch, but the fretless and funky drums do change from much of the rest of the album, along with a real electric guitar solo… clearly the etter track, really.

Somewhat un-Nucleus an album, if you’re into updated standard-y jazz, this Theaterhaus recording might be up your alley, but this fusionhead will pass on it, because it’s not my cup of tea, and in some extreme way, even look at it as un-worthy of the Nucleus moniker. WStill good in its own genre, I’d have much preferred that this album bore Carr’s name instead of his legendary group, because it might have been less misleading.