LARD FREE — I'm Around About Midnight (review)

LARD FREE — I'm Around About Midnight album cover Album · 1975 · Jazz Related Improv/Composition Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Miler72
Not common for the 1970s, there was a one year gap for Lard Free, probably due to Gilbert Artman having trouble keeping a steady lineup. It's obvious he was really doing his homework between albums, while the production quality isn't much improved, it seems the music has improved some (although I do enjoy the debut, I'm Around About Midnight seems less primitive). The music takes on a stronger Heldon feel to it, which comes as no surprise as Richard Pinhas appears on this album, giving his trademark Fripp-like guitar work and synths, but the jazz elements lacking on an Heldon album are present, thanks to the use of saxes. Some of the album has a bit of a world music feel to it, almost a Balinesian gamelan feel, but I believe these are just vibes, not gamelan. I'm fond of this part that starts off with gentle Hammond organ and pinging synths that give away to sequenced synthesizer passage. "Pâle Violence Under A Réverbère" has a King Crimson/Heldon thing going on, but the drums have that strangely '80s gated reverb/big snare sound, how that was done in 1975, I don't know how, and I own the original LP on the Vamp label, so it wasn't like it was remixed when reissued (like what ZZ Top did with their early albums in the 1980s when they reissued them on CD or the Alan Parsons Project did with Tales of Mystery & Imagination). While their third is by far their best, this is their second best and still worth getting.

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