NUCLEUS — We'll Talk About It Later (review)

NUCLEUS — We'll Talk About It Later album cover

Album · 1971 · Fusion

4.5/5 · 2024-10-11
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.